Latest news with #Pertile
The Mainichi
4 days ago
- Sport
- The Mainichi
Ski jumping's suit trouble is back ahead of Olympics as numerous athletes disqualified
(AP) -- The right suit can help send a ski jumper soaring to gold. The wrong suit will get you grounded. Ski jumping faces more controversy with six months to go until the Winter Olympics after the first high-level competition of the new season saw numerous athletes disqualified over ill-fitting suits. The governing body says it's "perfectly normal." The ski jumping world was rocked in March by the discovery of illegally altered suits on the Norwegian team at the world championships. The International Ski Federation investigated officials and athletes over those changes which could help the wearer soar through the air for longer with the suit's larger surface area. In Saturday's first event of the 2025-26 season -- a summer Grand Prix event on an artificial surface in France -- six male ski jumpers were disqualified because of suit issues such as waist size and three more were "not permitted to start." Another jumper from Japan was blocked from competing as the Grand Prix continued Sunday. The federation told The Associated Press in an e-mailed statement that it's treating the spate of disqualifications as the natural result of tightening up the rules after the Norwegian suit scandal. FIS race director Sandro Pertile said he doesn't think anyone was trying to cheat and that fewer disqualifications will occur as teams get used to the rules. Making specialized ski jumping equipment is "a fairly complicated matter," he said. "It's perfectly normal for teams to need some time to adapt to the new situation after such comprehensive changes to the equipment regulations. Some cope with it straight away, others find it difficult at first," Pertile told the AP. "It's also important to highlight that these disqualifications are clearly a result of technical inadequacies -- there's no sign whatsoever of ill intent from the teams." FIS indicated that a further nine men and five women didn't compete following a "technical approval" process, though it wasn't clear if all of those cases involved their suits. Five of those 14 were on the United States team, which didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Among those disqualified Saturday was Norway's Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal, who had previously been provisionally suspended earlier this year following the world championships. FIS signaled it will remain rigorous in its checks through the Olympic season but expects to find athletes wearing increasingly snug -- and therefore legal -- suits. "The teams know that they have our full support, and we expect the number of disqualifications to decrease significantly in the coming weeks," Pertile said. "With that said, we will remain strict and precise with equipment check the whole season long; there is no room for exceptions."
Japan Today
5 days ago
- Sport
- Japan Today
Ski jumping's suit trouble is back ahead of Olympics as numerous athletes disqualified
FILE - Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal from Norway at the men's Ski Jumping World Cup event at the Gross-Titlis Schanze, in Engelberg, Switzerland, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (Philipp Schmidli/Keystone via AP, File) By JAMES ELLINGWORTH The right suit can help send a ski jumper soaring to gold. The wrong suit will get you grounded. Ski jumping faces more controversy with six months to go until the Winter Olympics after the first high-level competition of the new season saw numerous athletes disqualified over ill-fitting suits. The governing body says it's 'perfectly normal.' The ski jumping world was rocked in March by the discovery of illegally altered suits on the Norwegian team at the world championships. The International Ski Federation investigated officials and athletes over those changes which could help the wearer soar through the air for longer with the suit's larger surface area. In Saturday's first event of the 2025-26 season — a summer Grand Prix event on an artificial surface in France — six male ski jumpers were disqualified because of suit issues such as waist size and three more were 'not permitted to start.' Another jumper from Japan was blocked from competing as the Grand Prix continued Sunday. The federation told The Associated Press in an e-mailed statement that it's treating the spate of disqualifications as the natural result of tightening up the rules after the Norwegian suit scandal. FIS race director Sandro Pertile said he doesn't think anyone was trying to cheat and that fewer disqualifications will occur as teams get used to the rules. Making specialized ski jumping equipment is 'a fairly complicated matter,' he said. 'It's perfectly normal for teams to need some time to adapt to the new situation after such comprehensive changes to the equipment regulations. Some cope with it straight away, others find it difficult at first," Pertile told the AP. 'It's also important to highlight that these disqualifications are clearly a result of technical inadequacies — there's no sign whatsoever of ill intent from the teams.' FIS indicated that a further nine men and five women didn't compete following a 'technical approval' process, though it wasn't clear if all of those cases involved their suits. Five of those 14 were on the United States team, which didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Among those disqualified Saturday was Norway's Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal, who had previously been provisionally suspended earlier this year following the world championships. FIS signaled it will remain rigorous in its checks through the Olympic season but expects to find athletes wearing increasingly snug — and therefore legal — suits. 'The teams know that they have our full support, and we expect the number of disqualifications to decrease significantly in the coming weeks,' Pertile said. "With that said, we will remain strict and precise with equipment check the whole season long; there is no room for exceptions.' © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Winnipeg Free Press
6 days ago
- Sport
- Winnipeg Free Press
Ski jumping's suit trouble is back ahead of Olympics as numerous athletes disqualified
The right suit can help send a ski jumper soaring to gold. The wrong suit will get you grounded. Ski jumping faces more controversy with six months to go until the Winter Olympics after the first high-level competition of the new season saw numerous athletes disqualified over ill-fitting suits. The governing body says it's 'perfectly normal.' The ski jumping world was rocked in March by the discovery of illegally altered suits on the Norwegian team at the world championships. The International Ski Federation investigated officials and athletes over those changes which could help the wearer soar through the air for longer with the suit's larger surface area. In Saturday's first event of the 2025-26 season — a summer Grand Prix event on an artificial surface in France — six male ski jumpers were disqualified because of suit issues such as waist size and three more were 'not permitted to start.' Another jumper from Japan was blocked from competing as the Grand Prix continued Sunday. The federation told The Associated Press in an e-mailed statement that it's treating the spate of disqualifications as the natural result of tightening up the rules after the Norwegian suit scandal. FIS race director Sandro Pertile said he doesn't think anyone was trying to cheat and that fewer disqualifications will occur as teams get used to the rules. Making specialized ski jumping equipment is 'a fairly complicated matter,' he said. 'It's perfectly normal for teams to need some time to adapt to the new situation after such comprehensive changes to the equipment regulations. Some cope with it straight away, others find it difficult at first,' Pertile told the AP. 'It's also important to highlight that these disqualifications are clearly a result of technical inadequacies — there's no sign whatsoever of ill intent from the teams.' FIS indicated that a further nine men and five women didn't compete following a 'technical approval' process, though it wasn't clear if all of those cases involved their suits. Five of those 14 were on the United States team, which didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Among those disqualified Saturday was Norway's Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal, who had previously been provisionally suspended earlier this year following the world championships. FIS signaled it will remain rigorous in its checks through the Olympic season but expects to find athletes wearing increasingly snug — and therefore legal — suits. 'The teams know that they have our full support, and we expect the number of disqualifications to decrease significantly in the coming weeks,' Pertile said. 'With that said, we will remain strict and precise with equipment check the whole season long; there is no room for exceptions.' ___ AP sports:
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Ski jumping official won't rule out more Norway DQs from worlds
Norway could face further qualifications from world championship events in an affair around manipulated ski jumping suits, race director Sandro Pertile has said. Pertile said ahead of the weekend's World Cup finals in Planica, Slovenia that he would not rule out German Andreas Wellinger being declared normal hill world champion if there are further disqualifications at the end of an external probe. Governing body FIS had originally ruled out new classifications in events beyond the large hill where Norwegians Andreas Lindvik and Johann Andre Forfang were disqualified after originally finishing second and fourth, respectively, at the home worlds in Trondheim. "We didn't know on that Saturday night what had happened. You must understand the whole situation, and understand when these manipulations started. The decisions will then be very firm," Pertile told dpa. An anonymous and secretly taken video showed Norwegian staff adding a forbidden extra seam to the suits which gives the jumper more stability in the air. Norway admitted to the manipulation, for that one event, and five jumpers and officials have been suspended. Lindvik, who along with Forfang said they knew nothing about the manipulation, won the normal hill competition a week earlier ahead of Wellinger. Both were also part of the Norwegian team that won mixed team gold ahead of Slovenia. The FIS has tasked an external commission to establish the facts. Pertile said he expects results by summer, and that the jumpers and officials remain suspended until then.
Boston Globe
12-03-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Norwegian ski jumpers Lindvik and Forfang have been suspended as suit tampering scandal escalates
Lindvik and Forfang already had been disqualified from the large hill event in Trondheim held Saturday, days after Lindvik soared to become world champion on the normal hill. Advertisement Though both athletes were backed by the Norwegian team insisting they knew nothing about deliberately altered ski suits, their head coach Magnus Brevig and equipment manager Adrian Livelten confessed and were stood down from their jobs. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'FIS has provisionally suspended three Norwegian team officials and two athletes who are being investigated for their alleged involvement in illegal equipment manipulation,' the Switzerland-based governing body said in a statement. An assistant coach, Thomas Lobben, also is part of an investigation in which FIS-appointed investigators have seized all the home Norway team's suits used at the worlds. The scandal has shocked the ski jumping world, raising questions about how widespread this practice is, and tarnished Norway's standing for honesty in sports. What has emerged involves team officials manipulating pre-approved and microchipped suits to increase their size and improve aerodynamics to help athletes fly further. It was revealed in footage secretly filmed from behind a curtain then sent by a whistle blower to international media. A FIS official said the illegal alterations were only subsequently confirmed by tearing apart the seams of the crotch area on the offending Norwegian ski suits. The scandal has unfolded in Norway which always scores high in Transparency International's anti-corruption index, tied for fifth in the most recent global ranking. Norwegian sports officials also led on controversial issues by taking public positions in 2022 in refusing to host Russian athletes days after the full invasion of Ukraine and challenging soccer World Cup host Qatar on human rights. Advertisement The same Norwegian ski federation that helped push FIS to exclude Russians three years ago now finds its staff and star athletes under investigation by the governing body. 'The only thing that matters for FIS is to leave this process 100% convinced that the sport is free from any form of manipulation,' its secretary general Michel Vion said in a statement. Athletes and officials from across the world left Trondheim on Sunday sad and disappointed, FIS race director for men's ski jumping, Sandro Pertile, told The Associated Press in an interview. 'Norway is a country that we all know as a leader in human rights, in equality, integration. I cannot believe that there is a (cheating) system,' Pertile said in an online call Tuesday, suggesting there was 'a few individuals that went really far over the limits.' If the infractions seemed obscure and technical to non-fans, the breach of trust was severe: 'This action was somehow killing our principles, our style, our joy for our discipline,' Pertile said. The Norwegian federation acted when FIS officials found evidence that proved what the secret footage alleged, and had led to formal protests from Austria, Slovenia and Poland. Norway men's head coach Magnus Brevig and equipment manager Adrian Livelten admitted they had cheated, though just on one occasion, ahead of the large hill event held Saturday. 'We regret it like dogs, and I'm terribly sorry that this happened,' Brevig said. 'I don't really have anything else to say other than that we got carried away in our bubble.' Advertisement Livelten apologized to the disqualified athletes plus 'sponsors, the jumping family and the Norwegian people' for an act of cheating he said was 'completely unacceptable.' How did Norway cheat? 'It was an extremely high level manipulation,' race director Pertile said of the Norwegian actions that were 'absolutely by far the worst' in his five years in the job. 'We destroyed the suit to be able to find this adjustment.' The Italian official said alterations were not detected by eye and only were revealed by examining the seams of the crotch area of the ski suits after the competition. Extra material in the same color had been inserted that added weight and helped to lower the material between an athlete's legs as they took off into the flight phase. More surface area hitting the air helps add to flight time, Pertile said. FIS previously said a 5% bigger surface area of a suit helps an athlete fly further, though the exact distance added is not known, Pertile said. What are the rules? FIS has an extensive 11-page document of rules for measuring and verifying ski jumpers' suits during the season. Multiple RFID chips are attached and noted on a FIS register, after which a suit must not be altered. Any attempt to remove a chip should make the suit ineligible and the chips are deactivated. One suit is allowed at World Cup events and two more for a world championships or Winter Olympics, though just one is used on each competition day. What is the investigation about? FIS investigators now have seized all Norwegian suits used in men's and women's ski jumping and Nordic combined at the world championships. Lindvik's gold medal in normal hill is sure to be looked at, though it is unclear how far back an investigation could reach for results at World Cup events this season or beyond to previous seasons. Lindvik was Olympic champion in large hill at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. Advertisement The ski jumping World Cup season continues for three more weekends, starting Thursday in Oslo.
