"You know that you've stumbled upon a great sports cheating scandal story when the method of cheating is so finicky and pedantic, it's not even immediately clear to someone from outside the insular community of the sport why it would be an advantage to the athlete. What else could your first thought be, when you read that two former coaches and a "suit technician" of the national ski-jumping team of Norway were recently suspended for 18 months"
"Typically, this kind of rules-bending approach in ski-jumping apparently involves teams attempting to slightly stretch or pad suits, in order to give them slightly more surface area. This kind of cheating is more or less universally acknowledged as an unsavory but ever-present aspect of the competition, and it does result in some competitors being disqualified when their suits are shown to have been subtly altered or fail inspection, either before or after competition."
Norway invented modern ski-jumping and long dominated the sport as global competition narrowed margins to millimeters. Wind tunnels and computer modeling now optimize launches and suit aerodynamics for maximum lift. Teams sometimes slightly stretch or pad suits to increase surface area, seeking marginal gains and occasionally triggering disqualifications when alterations fail inspection. Two former Norwegian coaches and a national team suit technician received 18-month suspensions after video showed them adding an extra stitch to a suit’s crotch, altering an already inspected suit worn by a defending Olympic large-hill gold medalist. The incident intensified scrutiny of suit regulations.
Read at Jezebel
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