Phoebe Tonks
Three officials from the Norwegian men's ski jumping team have been suspended just weeks before the Winter Olympics are due to kick off in Milano Cortino – and it’s for a very unusual reason.
The scandal first began to unfold in March last year, when head coach Magnus Brevik and suit technician Adrian Livelten were caught on camera at the 2025 Nordic World Ski Championships in Norway, appearing to visibly tamper with the suits of their skiers.
It later emerged that a third official, assistant head coach Thomas Lobben, had also been embroiled in the plot.
The alterations made by the officials involved inserting illegal non-elastic stitching into the crotch areas of the suits of two jumpers, Olympic gold medalists Johann André Forfang and Marius Lindvik, but crucially, these changes were made after the garments had already been inspected and approved by event staff.
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The crotch enhancements involved making the area larger and flatter, and were designed to make the suits more streamlined and more aerodynamic, two factors which could play a huge role in the distance a jumper could potentially achieve.
As the changes could mean the competitors had an unfair advantage compared to their peers, the matter was referred to the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), which conducted an 11-month investigation into the incident.
Bruno Sassi, spokesman for FIS, said: “There have been disqualifications in the past, many. It’s part of the sport,” according to a report from AP.
"But there had never been that kind of a brazen attempt to not only bend the rules, but like downright do something... to cheat the system in a way that it is very different from simply having a suit that is a tad too long or a tad too loose."
The incident has also reportedly caused ‘national shame in Norway’ and ‘forced’ the sport's committee to ‘revamp its enforcement protocols’.
The ruling said the committee's panel ‘considered but rejected the option of imposing a low or even minimal sanction’ on the team officials, instead doubling down on the need to set an example, as they added: ‘now is indeed the appropriate time to put down a clear marker to what is not acceptable’ in the sport.
As a result of the investigation, Brevig, Livelten and Lobben have been hit with 18-month suspensions from the sport.
Olympic hopefuls Forfang, 30, and Lindvik, 27, however, argued that they had no knowledge of the suit tampering, and agreed to settle for three-month suspensions, which started back in August, meaning they can still represent Norway at next month’s Winter Olympics.