Olympic ski jumping penis improved ‘wild rumor,’ said officials – National

The world’s governing body for skiing has moved quickly to quash talk of ski jumpers injecting their private parts with paraffin or hyaluronic acid in order to compete, but scientists and skiers at the Winter Olympics say if it’s true it would make perfect sense.

The Olympic sideshow erupted when the World Anti-Doping Agency said on Thursday it would look into any evidence that male skiers are enlarging their private parts in an attempt to exploit one of the sport’s rules.

WADA’s comments came after it was questioned about a report by German newspaper Bild which said the newspaper had obtained internal communications about a practice used to change the measuring point of ski jump athletes, thereby benefiting a larger, more aerodynamic suit during the season.

Although the FIS, which runs the sport, wants to dismiss it as “wild rumours” – saying there has been “no indication, let alone evidence” that the practice is being used – Slovenia’s Olympic silver medalist, Cene Prevc, told Reuters that the reports had nothing to do with him.

“It’s a topic that was talked about a month ago in the world of ski jumping,” Prevc, who won silver at the Beijing 2022 Olympics, said in an interview, adding that he had never done this before, or knew of anyone who did.

Elite ski jumpers undergo a full-body check to ensure their skin-tight suits don’t have extra material that could lift them too much as they fly through the air.

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The crotch of a ski jumper’s suit is allowed to run all the way down to the athlete’s genitals, which means that the enlarged penis can give them a much better fit.

Although no athlete or coach said they know of anyone practicing this method, Norwegian female athlete Eirin Maria Kvandal seemed to speak for many in her reaction.

“I think that’s bad,” he said with a wave. “That’s a big step to take to get a profit.”

The science, however, will prove compelling.

A study published in the scientific journal Frontiers suggested that small changes in fitness can have real effects when an athlete leaves the ramp, with computer modeling showing an extra 2.8 meters in jump height for each additional centimeter of fabric.

“The more surface area they have – the more surface area they expose while in the air – the farther they go,” Marco Belloli, director of the mechanics department at Milan’s Politecnico University, told Reuters.

“Obviously, it’s like an airplane, so the bigger the wing, the longer it can travel.

So the trick is that during the measurement phase, they try to increase the visible body volume of the jumper so that the suit ends up getting bigger, the wing gets bigger, without significantly increasing the weight of the athlete – in fact, their weight.”

The issue has drawn attention because suit rigging has previously led to sanctions in the sport.

Two Norwegian Olympic medalists, Marius Lindvik and Johann Andre Forfang, were suspended for three months last year after their team was found to be secretly tailoring their suits for the 2025 World Ski Championships.