The ski jumping scandal receives another facet due to Janne Ahonen’s confession. His former companion Sven Hannawald breathes his anger at Sport1 – also about the “nonsense” of the Norwegian athletes.
Ski jumping just doesn’t come to rest. After the cheating scandal around the Norwegian team, legend Janne Ahonen has now also admitted that in his active time not always everything was right.
One of his main rivals was the German legend Sven Hannawald, who had already been extremely emotional after the scandal around the Norwegian team became known.
Janne Ahonen (left) and Sven Hannawald fought duels on the hill for many years
In conversation with Sport1, the former four-hill tour winner explains why the ski jumping scandal moves him so incredibly as to what changes he wants for the future and what he thinks about the Schummel confession of his former rival.
Ahone confession? “Too bad and also sad”
Sport1: Mr. Hannawald, what do you say about the confession of your long -time competitor Janne Ahonen to have deliberately tricked suits at his active times?
Sven Hannawald: I’m not quite sure what the purpose of it should be. In retrospect, is this confession a liberation of the soul? I have a real question mark in front of me. I definitely think it’s a shame and also sad. It is always clear, whether in motorsport or with us. Whether you call yourself in a train with fraudsters is another difference. I lack the understanding, also because it naturally questions all of its successes.
Sport1: According to Ahonen, it was a phenomenon known in the ski jumping scene at the time. Was it common then to trick?
Hannawald: No! Of course, it is always worked between the lines. You read the regulations and it is like other sports. There are always certain back doors in the regulations. Every year the FIS thinks how to contain certain trends. However, there are new trends every year that nobody really had on the screen before, which then have a positive effect on the jump. But this is still in quotation marks in the normal range. Even in my time there was definitely an exaggeration from time to time. But what has now been done by the Norwegians is complete fraud. Accordingly, I do not understand why (note: R.: Ahonen) is equivalent to these things in this breath.
Hannawald: “There were work between the lines”
Sport1: Do you remember concrete situations from your active time where you thought: “That can’t be compliant with the rules”?
Hannawald: We always had the topics with us. At that time the suits were still so that they could be influenced, but by no means to the extent that it is today. Our suits were much further. This means that if you had pulled up the step a little, they have not stayed at the point compared to today. There have always been trends, whether with the suits or skis. There were a wedge used for a while and certain teams had considered to strengthen them on the side because it improved the positions in the air. But that was not forbidden. That was not a fraud. There was work between the lines. After that you regulated it again – also because there were many injuries. But this is a normal procedure in sports where there is a connection between material and humans. But now tear open the suits and add an additional material, that is fraud.
Sport1: So there used to be no situation that can be compared to the current scandal in the Norwegian team?
Hannawald: I am not aware of any case, even if of course we always had theories in the past. I often thought: How can this step measure be compliant? How can this suit, where I can still get in, go through with the current rules. These are the questions we have always had. Then we come away from the things that are made, towards things that are approved. This is the only reason why this work starts as soon as those who realize: “Oh, something works. Then we try it and then maybe even get through with it.” Other nations then also get that and start. One point why it is always the case is that the inspectors are simply not strict.
Sport1: So you can say that there is a problem with the FIS that allows a gray area?
Hannawald: I am always surprised that you take your time over the summer to discuss the experience of last season. Then put on a regulations that sounds okay – but when it comes to applying this regulations, it is not consistent. That is why it would be extremely important to me for the future that you simplify the suit again. You can now see that the dimensions of the suits completely sprout. You have to row back on a certain normality. But with the controls, I am sure that something goes wrong. That is also the reason why all this theater starts.
“Ski jumping is completely ridiculed”
Sport1: Does ski jumping have a credibility problem from your point of view?
Hannawald: That is the problem. Because I hang so much on ski jumping and it was my greatest love – and now I see that it is being put down completely ridiculous. I don’t care who wins. But I see problems for ski jumping. If you are currently googling the sport, you can only read from scandals everywhere. That’s why I go to researchers because I would never have thought that after the scandal of 2022 in Beijing we will ever get one point again. Because ski jumping was just ridiculous.
Sport1: With you or at the DSV, however, you cannot remember any situation where the permitted was taken, right?
Hannawald: No. In my time we had a special ski from my ski company, which was wider than the previous ones. At that time, nobody had really thought about how a ski had to go from the bond to the top. At that time it was only said: the tip and the end is 11.5 centimeters wide and the middle is 10.5 centimeters wide. A little different was not in the regulations and my ski company used it at the time, but with the difference that these skis could jump all nations. It will always be looked at what is in the regulations and how you can use it for yourself. But it doesn’t really mean: we just do what we want because nobody sees it. Then it goes towards fraud. For me, my ski company had found a hole in the regulations at the time and then of course exploited. But: Anyone could have jumped this ski who was under contract with the company, whether that was a Slovenian, Norwegian, German or who else.
Hannawald shoots against Forfang and Lindvik
Sport1: Can you also speak of the current case of the Norwegians that they just used a gap in the regulations?
Hannawald: No. There is no gap. But the suit was deliberately manipulated. They not only separated the seam, but also the foam. That means they falsified the entire material.
Sport1: Ahonen said that the violations of the rule never happen without the knight’s knowledge. This contradicts the statements of Johann Andre Forfang and Marius Lindvik, who claimed not to know what happened to their suit?
Hannawald: I can’t take the two mail from these two specialists seriously. In the most sensitive sport in the world, the two want to tell me that they don’t notice what happens to their suit. You notice every half centimeter that is different. That is complete nonsense. The combined Graabak, who wanted to tell me, also didn’t know what bond he has on the ski. We embark on aviation. Logically we need to know what is. If something is different with us, we fall and hurt. In the worst case, we plunge so stupidly that we die. Then he wants to tell me that he doesn’t care about what happens around it. Under no circumstances! These are lies. Of course, this tops the audacity again that is already in the room. I can no longer take the guys seriously during my lifetime.
“It’s a shame that there are three victims …”
Sport1: To get the problem under control, Ahonen suggests an independent and external authority to check the suits – similar to doping tests. Do you think that is a realistic and sensible solution?
Hannawald: Of course that could be an approach. But I think that you don’t have to turn the bike that far. You just have to take the spice out of the suit, also because it is difficult to control. You have to think together now. The coaches are all together several times a year and there must be an attempt to find a common, fair regulations for all nations. We don’t need a commission, we need a controller who simply uses the rules. In addition, the cut should be simplified again during the suits. You may need a generally somewhat larger suit with a simple cut, with a minimum size in addition to the body size of 4 centimeters, for example. So you could not pinch the suits before checking to get through the control. If it is then narrower in certain places, then the topic is through. Very easy.
Sport1: You can tell that the topic is very close to you. What does this scandal do with you?
Hannawald: It is a shame that there are three victims who don’t know how to help each other and try everything to jump a little further in the ski jumper. They don’t see how they pull down the complete sport. With them, the horizon is so flat that they cannot distinguish between what they have done now and normal things that have been changed because there is a small gap. What they do is not possible and they don’t seem to be aware of what they do with it.