Sign stealing in baseball. Match-fixing in soccer. Doping allegations in swimming. Now, ski jumping has its own scandal, which escalated on Wednesday.
Cheating by Norwegian team officials, who manipulated ski suits, has shaken the country’s reputation for fair play and high ethical standards at the Nordic World Championships, where Norway dominated the medal standings.
Two Olympic gold medalists, Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang, who had denied involvement since the allegations first surfaced over the weekend, were suspended on Wednesday. They are now under formal investigation by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) and are barred from competing in the upcoming World Cup event in Oslo, which begins on Thursday.
Both athletes had already been disqualified from the large hill event in Trondheim on Saturday, just days after Lindvik won the normal hill event and was crowned world champion.
Although Lindvik and Forfang maintained that they had no knowledge of the ski suit tampering, the Norwegian team supported them while their head coach, Magnus Brevig, and equipment manager, Adrian Livelten, admitted to the wrongdoing and stepped down from their positions.
“FIS has provisionally suspended three Norwegian team officials and two athletes who are being investigated for their alleged involvement in illegal equipment manipulation,” the governing body, based in Switzerland, stated.
Additionally, assistant coach Thomas Lobben is under investigation as part of a broader probe in which FIS-appointed investigators have confiscated all ski suits used by the Norwegian team during the championships.
A Scandal That Has Shocked the Ski Jumping World
The controversy has sent shockwaves through the ski jumping community, raising concerns about how widespread this practice may be and tarnishing Norway’s image as a nation known for integrity in sports.
The investigation revealed that Norwegian team officials had manipulated pre-approved and microchipped ski suits to increase their size and improve aerodynamics, giving athletes an unfair advantage by allowing them to jump farther.
The discovery was made through secretly recorded footage taken from behind a curtain, which was later sent to international media by a whistleblower. A FIS official confirmed that the tampering was detected by tearing open the seams of the crotch area on the Norwegian ski suits.
Norway’s Reputation Under Scrutiny
The scandal has unfolded in a country that consistently ranks among the least corrupt in Transparency International’s global anti-corruption index, where Norway was tied for fifth place in the most recent rankings.
Norwegian sports authorities have also historically taken strong ethical stances, such as refusing to host Russian athletes in 2022 following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and criticizing Qatar’s human rights record before the FIFA World Cup.
Now, the same Norwegian ski federation that pushed for Russia’s exclusion from competition is facing its own scandal, with its staff and star athletes under investigation.
“The only thing that matters for FIS is to leave this process 100% convinced that the sport is free from any form of manipulation,” FIS Secretary General Michel Vion stated.
Reactions from the Ski Jumping Community
Athletes and officials departed from Trondheim on Sunday feeling disappointed, according to FIS race director for men’s ski jumping, Sandro Pertile, who spoke to The Associated Press.
“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 a video call on Tuesday, suggesting instead that “a few individuals went really far over the limits.”
Cheating Scandal in Ski Jumping (Photo: AP)For those unfamiliar with ski jumping regulations, the infractions might seem minor, but the breach of trust within the sport is severe. “This action was somehow killing our principles, our style, our joy for our discipline,” Pertile said.
The Extent of Norway’s Cheating
The Norwegian federation took action when FIS officials confirmed the allegations from the whistleblower’s footage, which had prompted formal complaints from Austria, Slovenia, and Poland.
Brevig and Livelten admitted to cheating but insisted it happened only once before the large hill event on Saturday.
“We regret it like dogs, and I’m terribly sorry that this happened,” Brevig stated. “I don’t really have anything else to say other than that we got carried away in our bubble.”
Livelten also issued an apology, addressing the disqualified athletes, as well as “sponsors, the jumping family, and the Norwegian people” for his role in the scandal, calling his actions “completely unacceptable.”
How Did the Manipulation Work?
According to Pertile, the Norwegian team’s actions were an “extremely high-level manipulation,” describing them as “absolutely by far the worst” in his five years overseeing the sport.
“We destroyed the suit to be able to find this adjustment,” he explained.
The alterations were undetectable to the naked eye and were only discovered when officials examined the seams in the crotch area of the ski suits after the competition.
The cheating involved adding extra material in the same color as the suit, which increased its weight and helped lower the fabric between the athlete’s legs as they launched into the air. This increased surface area improved aerodynamics and extended flight time.
FIS has previously stated that a 5% increase in the surface area of a ski suit can help an athlete jump farther, though the exact advantage gained remains unclear.
The Rules and Ongoing Investigation
FIS has an 11-page document outlining the regulations for measuring and verifying ski jumping suits. Each suit is embedded with multiple RFID chips, which are recorded in the FIS register and must not be altered. Any attempt to remove a chip renders the suit ineligible, and the chips are deactivated.
At World Cup events, athletes are allowed one suit, while at world championships or the Winter Olympics, they are permitted two additional suits. However, only one suit may be used per competition day.
Investigators have now confiscated all Norwegian suits used in both men’s and women’s ski jumping, as well as Nordic combined events, at the world championships.
Lindvik’s gold medal in the normal hill event will likely be examined, though it remains uncertain how far back the investigation will extend—whether it will cover just this season’s World Cup events or go as far back as previous seasons, including Lindvik’s Olympic gold in large hill at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.
Despite the controversy, the ski jumping World Cup season is set to continue for three more weekends, beginning Thursday in Oslo.