Norwegian Officials Slapped With 18-Month Ban After Ski Suit Scandal
The athletes involved served a ban and have returned to competition.
One of the things I love most about the Olympics is when countries are good at very specific sports for very specific reasons. Like, do you know why the Netherlands produces great speedskaters? Because they're zipping around on frozen canals before they can walk.
I thought the reason Norwegians were studs when it came to any event that involves strapping skis to your feet was that you can't get anywhere in Norway without them for a big chunk of the year.
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That might be true, but it also helped that they were using modified ski-jumping suits, and now some officials are paying the price just weeks before the Olympics.
According to the Associated Press, the Norwegians were caught using manipulated and restitched suits after being pre-approved. These suits were larger than allowed and meant that ski jumpers could fly further.
I'm not exactly sure what they looked like, but I imagine it was something like this:
Stupid, sexy Norwegians…
Head coach Magnus Brevik, assistant coach Thomas Lobben, and staff member Adrian Livelten have all been banned by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) for 18 months.
Meanwhile, the two athletes who were caught competing in those suits at last year's Nordic ski world championships — Johann André Forfang and Marius Lindvik — served their bans and have returned to competition ahead of next month's Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina.
I think I have the solution for this: have one division where everyone uses homologated suits, have another that lets teams develop their own suits, Formula 1-style, for maximum ski-jumping.
This is one of my favorite events — mainly because I can't wrap my head around how someone can soar through the air further than a football field and land on their feet without turning their ankles and feet bones into dust.
But if there was a special "super suit" division, I would have reminders set on my phone, so I didn't miss a second of the action.