Oslo’s annual Holmenkollen Ski Festival was getting underway again on Thursday, but without the main coaches for Norway’s own ski jumping team or two of the jumpers who won medals at last week’s World Championships. They’re all either suspended or been banned from competition by the international skiing federation FIS.
Head coach Magnus Brevik was formally suspended earlier this week along with a member of the team’s service staff, Adrian Livelten, after both admitted to manipulating the ski-jumping suits worn by medal-winning Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang during Saturday’s final competition at the World Championships in Trondheim. Assistant coach Thomas Lobben was also suspended, just before the season finale now known as Raw Air was set to begin, first at Holmenkollen on Thursday and then at Vikersund southwest of Oslo on Friday.
On Wednesday came news that FIS officials were also banning the jumpers themselves, Lindvik and Forfang. Norwegian officials have insisted they were innocent of the cheating admitted to by Brevik, with both Brevik and ski-jumping chief Jan-Erik Aalbu claiming the jumpers bore no responsibility for the “cheating” scandal now referred to as the worst in Norwegian sports history.
FIS, which has launched an investigation into the suit manipulation, clearly disagreed. The federation issued a statement on Wednesday declaring its own “provisional suspension” of not only the three Norwegian team officials but also the “two athletes who are being investigated for their alleged involvement in illegal equipment manipulation at last Saturday’s Men’s Large Hill Ski Jumping” at the World Championships in Trondheim. The ban applies to both FIS events and events organized by a national ski association, “pending the investigation and adjudication procedure.”
FIS also seized all the jumping suits worn by Norwegian teams at the World Championships, also the Nordic Combined team, in both men’s and women’s competitions. FIS also announced that Truls Johansen, a member of the Norwegian team that combines ski jumping with racing, has been notified that he also is under investigation in connection with a competition last Friday and “provisionally suspended with immediate effect.”
“The situation is obviously extremely disturbing and disappointing,” stated Michel Vion, secretary general of the FIS. He said members of FIS’ “Independent Ethics and Compliance Office” and its administration “have been working steadily to proceed with a broad and thorough investigation as swiftly as possible while also ensuring fairness and due process.”
Jumping suits are considered part of the sports’ equipment that “plays an important role” in performance. Manipulation of the suits can help the jumpers fly farther, making it important, Vion stressed, “to ensure that competitors are on a level playing field.”
‘Very, very disappointed’
Norwegian officials had selected both Forfang and Lindvik for competition at both Holmenkollen and Vikersund this week. “They are of course very, very disappointed,” ski jumping chief Aalbu told reporters at another press conference on Wednesday. “I must say I personally feel incredibly sorry for the athletes, who had looked forward to jump in competition at home (in Norway).”
Rivals seemed relieved, with Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reporting how the skiing federation in Poland, where ski jumping is highly popular, had wanted Forfang and Lindvik to be banned from competing. The Polish team’s head coach said he supported the FIS decision.
“I think this is about the atmosphere around the athletes,” Thomas Thurnbichler told NRK. “It’s hard for the other athletes to see them (Lindvik and Forfang) at the top of the ski jump. When everything has been examined and we know what has happened, then they can come back again.”
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund