What exactly happened?

One of the biggest scandals in winter sports to date. It was triggered by a video shot anonymously in Trondheim, Norway, last Friday (March 7, 2025), the day before large hill event at the Nordic world championships ski jumping event, and leaked to the media. It shows a hotel room from the outside, the windows of which are covered with black fabric. Through a slit, however, you can see ski jumping suits being worked on with a sewing machine in the presence of Norwegian head coach Magnus Brevik.

After Saturday's competition, the skiing's world governing body FIS disqualified two Norwegians: silver medal winner Marius Lindvik and fifth-placed Johann Andre Forfang. After initially denying any wrongdoing, their team later admitted that what had been done was illegal.

"What we have done is to manipulate or modify the suits so that they break the rules. It was a deliberate act, and consequently it's cheating," Brevik said.

In addition to the head coach, the Norwegian Ski Association also suspended head technician Adrian Livelten. Both apologized for their behavior. The ski jumpers, Lindvik and Forfang,  said that they had not known that their suits had been tampered with.

On Wednesday, the FIS announced that it had suspended Lindvik and Forfang, as well as Brevik, Livelten, and assistant coach Thomas Lobben "from participating in FIS events and events organized by a National Ski Association, pending the investigation and adjudication procedure."

What advantage was gained?

"So far, it seems to have been clarified that Brevik and Livelten decided on Friday evening to sew an additional – and stiffer – thread into Forfang and Lindvik's jump suits," the Norwegian federation announced on Monday (March 10). The stiffened seams in the suit ensure that the ski jumpers have more stability during the jump and therefore fly more smoothly – and possibly farther.

There have been heated discussions about ski jumping suits for years. At the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, five jumpers were disqualified in the mixed team competition due to allegedly irregular suits, including Germany's Katharina Althaus. As a result, the German team, which had been one of the favorites, missed out on a medal.

Small changes to the suits can have a big effect, according to Sören Müller of the Institute for Applied Training Sciences in Leipzig.

"Two centimetres more in the circumference of the suit can result in three to four meters more distance in a ski jump," he told the DPA news agency.

Shouldn't the tampering have been noticed?

The FIS rule book includes detailed specifications for the jumping suits in terms of material, air permeability, size, fabric thickness and how close the suit must fit to the body.

There are even rules for the underwear. Violations can result in disqualification.

FIS experts check every suit. If approved, the inspectors attach flat electronic chips in seven places, on which the jumper's name and suit number are stored. This is to prevent ski jumpers from swapping suits or replacing individual parts. In the video in question, a chip is visible, but it was simply cut around.

What's been the response?

The reactions in the world of Nordic skiing are akin to the bewilderment expressed by members of the cycling community after the major doping scandals of 1998 and 2006 at the Tour de France.

"This is doping, just with a different kind of needle," is how Norwegian broadcaster put it.

German ski jumping legend Sven Hannawald is worried about the future of the sport.

"In my worst nightmare, I would never have thought it would come to this," said former Olympic champion, world champion and winner of the Four Hills Tournament.

"I hope that all decision-makers will finally wake up and come up with (more) rigorous regulations. Otherwise, you can bury ski jumping in two years' time."

Many national federations, including the German Ski Association, have called for the scandal, which may just be the tip of the iceberg, to be fully investigated.

Several media outlets reported that not only the suit that Lindvik was wearing, but also his ski bindings could have been tampered with. A photo, allegedly taken on the day of Lindvik's world championship success on the normal hill, is said to show that the bindings had been sanded down on one side. This makes the ski lighter and gives the jumper an advantage. At the world championships in Trondheim, the Norwegian combined skier Jörgen Graabak was disqualified – because of manipulated bindings on his jumping skis.

What happens next?

The FIS has announced that it will thoroughly investigate the disqualifications of the Norwegian athletes. The federations from Austria, Slovenia and Poland have called for all Norwegian world championship results in ski jumping and Nordic combined to be annulled. In this case, Germany's Andreas Wellinger would stand to become world champion, as the two-time Olympic champion won silver behind Lindvik on the normal hill.

The head of the FIS material commission, Andreas Bauer, called for new control methods to be implemented as a result of the affair.

"We now have to switch to modern technology as quickly as possible and use 3D scanners like at the airport," Bauer said. "So far, everything has been checked manually, and human measurement inaccuracies cannot be ruled out."

According to Bauer, one idea that could prevent manipulation of the suits would be for FIS officials to release them to the jumpers just half an hour prior to the competition – and require them to handed them back in immediately after the jump.

This article was originally published in German on March 11, 2025 and published in English on March 12, 2025. It was updated with the news of the suspensions handed down by the FIS later on March 12, 2025.