Let the sh(n)ow begin - Part 2

The Ski Jumping World Cup will return to the USA, the prize money for the ski jumpers will be increased, there are new wind and gate compensations factors and there will be a Ski Flying event for women.

Ski Jumping World Cup is back in the USA
After a long break, an organizer in North America is part of the Ski Jumping World Cup calendar again next winter. The most recent Ski Jumping World Cup in Lake Placid was held in 1990, the last time the Ski Jumping World Cup was hosted in the USA was in 2004 in Park City, Utah, 19 years ago. Vancouver in Canada was the last World Cup host in North America in 2009. The date for the Ski Jumping World Cup became free in mid-February, when the event at the originally planned venue in the USA, Iron Mountain, had to be canceled.

Lake Placid is a popular winter sports resort with a population of about 2500 and very special history in winter sports and Ski Jumping: Olympic Winter Games were held at the venue, located about 180 km south of Montreal and 465 km north of New York City, two times (1932 and 1980). In 1980, Finland’s Jouko Toermaenen (large hill) and Austria’s Toni Innauer (normal hill) won Olympic gold there, in 1932 it went to Norway’s Birger Ruud.

So far, the last winner of a Ski Jumping World Cup in the USA was Japan’s Noriaki Kasai in 2004. He won in Park City on February 28th, 2004, ahead of Simon Ammann of Switzerland and Tommy Ingebrigtsen of Norway.

More prize money
The International Ski and Snowboard Federation FIS increased the prize money by 10% for World Cups. In Ski Jumping, this means that there are now CH 79000.- for the best athletes in an individual men’s World Cup competition, and CHF 28120.- in an individual women’s World Cup competition.

Wind and gate points modified
Ski Jumping without the wind and gate rule became unimaginable, changing wind conditions during a competition can be compensated.

Ski Jumping became more plannable due to the possibility of adjusting the length of the inrun during a competition round in case of changing conditions and compensating that with +/- points. The compensation factor for tailwind (bad for the athlete) was now adjusted. “This was due to past experiences and the feedback of the athletes. We are now closer to the reality, even if it will never be completely accurate”, FIS Race Director Sandro Pertile explained.
The new compensation value was tested and approved in the summer.

The first athlete to benefit from the new compensation was Japan’s Ren Nikaido, when he won in Rasnov this summer. In his final jump, Nikaido had tail wind and he would probably not have won without the newly calculated compensation points.

Women can finally Ski Fly
Olympic champion Maren Lundby of Norway lead the fight of the women to finally get the chance to jump on a Ski Jumping hill (flights over 250 m are possible). The time will now come next winter.

There will be a show competition, not a World Cup, on the “Monsterbakken” in Vikersund (hill record of 253.5 m). The FIS calendar committee approved this proposal in April. Only the 15 best of the current World Cup ranking will be able to jump, if one of the Top 15 is not present, there will be even fewer participants.

The women are excited, some experts are seriously concerned, for example, Ski Jumping legend Toni Innauer of Austria. He mentions “important biomechanical, medical and ethic arguments”, that are opposed to this decision.

“The relevant difference to the male athletes are not that much in the level of the performance, but in the expected problems if a typical Ski Jumping crash occurs, like Daniel Andre Tande and Thomas Morgenstern had recently”, Innauer writes. Like it’s the case with the men, the “bodyweight of a female ski jumper is also supposed to be as low as possible. Due to the lower percentage share of muscles of the bodyweight the body is less resistant”.

Now everyone is hoping that the women’s show competition in March 2023 will be an event without any crashed and that everyone involved his healthy, happy, and satisfied in the end.