Ola Elfmark: 'There's nothing telling us women have less potential to fly long'

With a lifelong interest in physics and mathematics, and an athlete’s drive honed by years of competitive cycling, Ola Elfmark and sports science were always going to be a natural fit.

His PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) explored “Aerodynamics and its Relationship with Kinematics and Performance in Ski Jumping,” and he went on to lead the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s aerodynamics project ahead of Milano Cortina 2026. In 2023, he also studied the historic first official women’s Ski Flying competition as it happened, tracking how the athletes improved from one jump to the next.

Now back in his hometown as Sporting Director at NTG Kongsvinger, a school that helps young athletes combine elite sport with their education, Dr. Elfmark kindly took time out of his busy schedule to talk to Inside FIS about developments in women’s Ski Jumping and where the sport could go next.

Inside FIS: As a high-level cyclist before moving into research, what traits did you bring with you from your athlete days?

Ola Elfmark (OE): Well, I think one thing is the ability to work hard and try to achieve big goals, because going into aerodynamics is quite a complex field. Another would be how I can see questions both from an academic and an athlete’s perspective: how would an athlete describe this, what would be a good way to get this message across to an athlete?

Inside FIS: Clearly, aerodynamics is an important consideration in cycling too, so what made you move into Ski Jumping research?

OE: Living and studying in Norway! I’ve always been interested in math, physics, and later aerodynamics, and at the research center where I’ve been working, the Centre for Elite Sports Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, one of the things they were working on was Ski Jumping.

I didn’t know that much about Ski Jumping when I started, so I came into the sport without any practical experience or interest, but after a few days and weeks of digging deep into it, I started to catch the bug. I’ve gone on a journey, from not knowing anything about Ski Jumping to working on it every single day, and now it’s the sport I enjoy following most, even in my free time.

Inside FIS: Do you think not knowing anything about the sport was an advantage, because you had no preconceptions?

OE: Yes, I think so. You obviously need to have coaches and people around who do know the practical things, but when you have that in place, having somebody coming completely from the outside is a really big benefit. I’d never tried Ski Jumping myself, and I hadn’t seen that much Ski Jumping, so I didn’t have a “box” to think in. I’m always thinking outside of the box.

I’ll have conversations with athletes and coaches and most of the time they’ll explain to me that this or that would never work in Ski Jumping because of various practical constraints, but sometimes I’ll think of something that they haven’t - because it’s outside the standard way of doing things. As part of a bigger team, I think this has been really beneficial and a lot of fun as well!

Inside FIS: You studied the first official women’s Ski Flying competition, in 2023, as it happened. What made it a research opportunity for you?

OE: I think in Norway we’ve been on the front line of equality for women in general, so that’s something that got us talking about this from the start. And based on my knowledge of physics, for several years before it even happened, I couldn’t understand why women shouldn’t be able to do Ski Flying.

My hypothesis from the beginning was that, given time and training, women actually have the potential to be closer in performance to the men in Ski Flying than on the smaller hills, because on the smaller hills the physical side of the takeoff, for example, is more dominant.

My interest in researching it was partly down to it being the first-ever Ski Flying competition for women. Due to Ski Flying safety regulations, of the 15 women who took part, hardly any of them had ever tried it before, so you could actually see high-performance athletes learning on the spot, and that in itself is quite fascinating. On a smaller hill, they have maybe 300 jumps before you see them in competition, but in Ski Flying they had next to none.

Inside FIS: In your study, the women’s performance improved by 96% across just six jumps. Was that down to having no previous experience?

OE: Yes, I think so. You saw an extremely high performance increase. The interesting thing was that we did not see the same for the men, because more or less every one of them had tried at least, let’s say, 10, 20, or even 50 jumps in Ski Flying before.

It’s completely different. It’s like getting somebody to try to serve a tennis ball or hit a golf ball for the first time. Then obviously you have the other component in Ski Flying: the high risk, the big hill, plus the fear factor and everything that goes with it. I found it extremely intriguing and it showed that pretty much all of them were capable of Ski Flying.

Inside FIS: The men mostly improved from training to competition, while the women improved throughout. What does that tell you about experience versus capacity?

OE: For the men, those who’d experienced it before, I’d suggest the improvement is maybe coming from using your competition equipment and not your training equipment, and also being in a competition setting, so your mind is a little bit more switched on. But for the women, every jump counted, because they had never tried it before. It was a learning experience every step of the way. I think that’s why we saw the difference between the genders there.

We observed the biggest difference from jump one to jump two, because after jump one, some of the stress is released. You’ve tried it, you maybe loosen up a bit, and you also get some feedback from the coach, so you have the biggest learning experience there. Then there was a really big difference from day one to day two, because after the first day you can sit down with your coaches, take everything in, and absorb it.

Inside FIS: Nika Prevc (SLO) flew 242.5m on her first flight on home soil in Planica, Slovenia, in March 2026, a new women’s world record. Is that the kind of jump your data pointed toward?

OE: Yes, from what I have seen, and what we started with, there’s nothing telling us that women have less potential to fly long compared to the men. In the right conditions, I would not be surprised to see a new women’s world record later this season or next season. Many have immense potential to improve even further.

Inside FIS: What kind of distances do you think are possible?

OE: Obviously it depends on the wind and everything else, but we saw the [men's] world record [of 254.5m] set by Domen Prevc (SLO), and his landing was on quite a flat part of the hill. What we saw was that how far it’s possible to fly is more constrained by the hill than by the athletes.

If you have the right hill, women will have no problem flying over 250 meters as well. Women have the same potential, at least from a physical perspective, which is where I’m coming from.

Inside FIS: Beyond the hill, where are the biggest constraints for women, and where’s the biggest potential gain? Equipment? Technique?

OE: In terms of jumping long, the hill would obviously be the biggest constraint, while you also see that some of the women have some technical constraints when jumping long.

If you look at the men’s side first, they more or less only jump on large hills and in Ski Flying, and technique-wise, from what we have seen, there’s a bigger similarity between large hill and Ski Flying than there is between normal hill and large hill.

Women have, at least historically, jumped more on the normal hill, and now it’s like 50-50 normal hill and large hill. So, naturally, some women’s techniques are better adapted for smaller hill sizes, because that’s where they compete more often.

One thing that’s important to mention as well is that women’s Ski Jumping is a relatively young sport, so you don’t have as big a pool of athletes as for the men. It’s something that will get better over time, when more women are competing.

Inside FIS: The first women’s Four Hills Tournament is confirmed for 2026/27. What does a regular volume of events like that give women that one-off events can’t?

OE: I think they are equipped for having the same volume of events as the men. The most important thing is to increase the focus on women’s Ski Jumping in general, so I’m really happy about the first women’s Four Hills Tournament. Those kinds of competitions and events will make more young girls want to be ski jumpers in the future and not choose other sports or drop out of sport.

Inside FIS: Your compatriot Anna Odine Stroem (NOR) won both individual golds at Milano Cortina 2026, including the first Olympic Women’s Large Hill title. What stood out to you?

OE: Well, obviously she’s a fantastic athlete and extremely professional. She’s one of the women who are really good at the takeoff, at creating vertical force, like Philipp Raimund (GER) and Kacper Tomasiak (POL) are on the men’s side. That’s actually more important in Predazzo, Italy, because you are at a really high altitude, and at a higher altitude the air is thinner, so aerodynamics plays a different role.

She was clearly in extremely great form, and the hill was also beneficial for her. I know that she also worked a lot on her inrun speed, which is also important on the hills at the Olympics, and she had quite a lot higher inrun speed than the other competitors there. I think it was a perfect match, with where she was in her career and everything. For us Norwegians it was fantastic, and historic as well.

Inside FIS: Over the course of the season, though, it was Nika Prevc who won the Overall Crystal Globe. Did her level of consistency set her apart?

OE: Yes, she has been incredible during the season. We see this in Ski Jumping and also in Alpine Skiing, in sports where I think there’s an element of risk, and there are such small margins between the best. So even if you’re the best athlete during the season, we’ve seen both at the Four Hills Tournament and at the Olympic Games that other competitors can step up and win.

There’s so much at play in these one-off events. Nika has been a fantastic ski jumper during the season and probably the most consistent, but it’s extremely difficult being the favorite at an Olympic Games.

Inside FIS: From the outside, it’s hard to imagine the pressure of performing at an event that comes around once every four years. How do you see it?

OE: That’s also the fantastic thing, I guess, with the Olympics. It's both fantastic and brutal. It can be brutal if you don’t end up on top, but it’s fantastic if you do. I’d say it was a similar situation for Anna [Odine Stroem] as it was for Philipp Raimund or Gregor Deschwanden (SUI) or Kacper Tomasiak, who maybe got better results than you might have expected. Like I said, the Olympics are both brutal and fantastic!