UPDATED: Neither pouring rain, strong winds, war in Europe nor all the current international crises had managed to spoil the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim, until Norway’s ski jumping officials were accused of cheating. There were other huge challenges, too, as competition drew to a close during the weekend after almost total domination by Norwegian athletes.
Norway’s ski-jumpers landed in big trouble right after their final competition on Saturday afternoon. They’d been doing well all through the championships and jumper Marius Lindvik had just won another medal, but he lost it and two other teammates (Johann André Forfang and Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal) were disqualified. The reason: Allegations that the ski-jumping team’s staff had broken rules tied to the jumpsuits worn during competition.
Team managers quickly claimed that the jumpers themselves weren’t to blame, but the allegations and disqualifications were immediately branded as a “catastrophe.” The Norwegian ski jumpers’ suits were later found to have been “manipulated” after three nations (Austria, Poland and Slovenia) had filed complaints. A secretly taped video was also circulating, showing how jumpers’ suits were being re-sewn and re-lined, allegedly after they’d been approved for competition.
The ski-jumping team’s sports chief Jan-Erik Aalbu initially claimed that “someone was envious” that the Norwegians had been doing so well during the championships. He also claimed that suits sewn during the championships were meant to be used later, during upcoming competition at Holmenkollen in Oslo and Vikersund. Competition director Sandro Pertile told state broadcaster NRK, however, that an examination of suits worn by Lindvik and other Norwegian jumpers after the competition on Saturday did contain “other material” than that approved. German officials were calling on Sunday for a full investigation, while NRK sports commentator Jan Petter Saltvedt was likening the disqualifications to “ski jumping’s own doping scandal, but with another sort of needle.”
It led to a bitter end to the World Championships, despite all the uncontested victories for other Norwegian athletes and other challenges that were overcome. Norwegian fans of both cross-country skiing and ski jumping had also seemed to rescue the major international event, held in the historic Norwegian city of Trondheim. They dominated in the grandstands during the day and at medal ceremonies downtown in the evening. Organizers could report on Friday that they’d finally met their goal of selling 220,000 tickets over the course of the championships that ran from February 26 to March 9.
“We are incredibly satisfied and relieved,” Åge Skinstad had said on Friday. Skinstad has been chief of what the Norwegians simply call “VM,” short for Verdens Mesterskap (World Championships in Norwegian). “There are many people who’ve been working hard for many years towards all this.”
The organizers admitted to earlier doubts over the current level of public interest in Nordic skiing and enthusiasm for the championships themselves. Ticket sales had started off slowly, so slowly that it raised concerns last fall and through the winter. They still had to sell at least 50,000 tickets just two weeks ahead of opening ceremonies to meet their goal.
Attendance at some events, including the women’s first ski jumping events, was low and coaches called it “disappointing.” School children were brought in during the day to fill empty seats. Sports commentator Erlend Nesje had written in Norway’s biggest newspaper Aftenposten just days ahead of the opening that the country’s “Golden Era” of skiing was over.
There were also lots of other worries ahead of the championships, as all the trauma caused by the new US president, Donald Trump, grabbed headlines and pushed the World Championships off front pages and the tops of newssites. So much else was happening in the world and dominating newscasts that relatively little major media attention was afforded to the championships, also when they got underway in Trondheim. That’s likely to change now, given the ski jumping scandal and how that can hurt Norway’s overall reputation internationally.
Then the weather went from bad to worse, forcing some events to be delayed when strong winds caused damage at the site and made ski jumping hazardous. Unusually warm temperatures and heavy rain also turned the ski trails into mushy snow that froze at night, making them hazardous, too. Organizers feared the bad weather would keep spectators home.
It didn’t, as flag-waving sports fans ended up filling the arena at Trondheim’s Granåsen skiing center in the hills above the city and lining the ski trails, day after day. Both Norway’s national sport and the championships themselves seemed to “rise from the dead” in Trondheim, as Aftenposten later put it.
Ticket sales had picked up and hometown sports fans turned the championships into what the Norwegians are fond of calling a folkefest (literally, people’s party) that Aftenposten’s Nesje later wrote the locals would “remember for generations.”
All events were sold out on Saturday March 8, highlighted by the men’s 50-kilometer race. It was won by Norway’s own undisputed skiiing king, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who also made history by winning six out of six possible gold medals during the course of the event. No other cross-country skier has ever achieved that in a World Championship.
“This was a miracle of an athletic presentation,” said Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) commentator Martin Johnsrud Sundby, who also won plenty of gold during his earlier skiing career. Others were also calling Klæbo, who’s earlier won both World Championship and Olympic gold as well, the greatest skier of all time.
Another Norwegian skiing star, Therese Johaug, had tried to win gold herself in a major comeback, now at an age of 36. She didn’t do as well, “only” winning silver in, for example, the women’s 10-kilometer classic and losing to Ebba Andersson of arch-rival Sweden. She’d also lost an earlier duel against Andersson, but took part in Sunday’s final event, a new 50-kilometer race for women, in which she lost to Sweden’s Frida Karlsson. Norway’s Heidi Weng placed second and Johaug third, with a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes and 58.2 seconds in challenging conditions. Karlsson’s winning time was 2:24:55.3 and Weng’s 2:24:57.4.
Norway’s ski jumpers and those taking part in the combined cross-country and ski jumping had done well, though, with the mixed men’s- and women’s jumping team among those winning gold. That’s now been tarnished by the brewing dispute over the ski-jumping team’s suits on Saturday. Their coach, Magnus Brevig, flatly denied any cheating, telling NRK that “this isn’t cheating, it’s a violation of the rules” that involved use of material not believed to be “elastic” enough in the crotch area of the men’s suits.
Jarl Magnus Riiber, by contrast, ended his brilliant racing and jumping career by winning solid gold and the company of his four-year-old daughter Ronja when making the honorary trek up to the royal viewing platform to accept congratulatons from Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Prince Mette-Marit.
All told, Norwegians had won 13 gold medals by Saturday evening, 10 silver and seven bronze. The total of 30 medals was triple that of the next runner-up, Sweden, and six times that of Slovenia, which landed in third place in the medal overview. Critics contend that Norway’s domination of Nordic winter sports continues to be a problem, but there wasn’t much concern for that among spectators as Trondheim’s championships ended mostly amidst jubilation.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
