Five members of Norway’s national ski-jumping team who are part of an expanded investigation into cheating will be getting professional legal advice, and the national ski federation is paying for it. None of them was allowed to jump during last weekend’s Raw Air competition at Holmenkollen and Vikersund, while former teammates have since claimed that “everyone” has cheated in the sport over the years.
The suspended jumpers now include not only Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang, whose jumping suits had been illegally altered by the team’s support staff during the recent World Championships in Trondheim, but also jumpers Robert Johansson, Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal and Robin Pedersen. All are under investigation by the international skiing federation FIS, as are their coaches and other staff.
Now the Norwegian skiing federation Norges Skiforbundet and the jumpers will receive legal advice from the Oslo law firm Elden, reported newspaper VG on Wednesday. “We want to protect their rights under the law,” Tove Moe Dyrhaug, president of the Norwegian skiing federation Norges Skiforbundet, told VG, “and we are not sitting on any information that suggests the jumpers themselves knew they had done something that’s not in line with the rules.”
The ski jumping scandal has shocked Norway, where skiing and ski jumping are part of the national heritage. It didn’t help when former ski jumping stars including Johan Remen Evensen, Anders Jacobsen and Daniel-André Tande told state broadcaster NRK that cheating was common during their careers, and admitted to competing with equipment they knew was outside regulations. On Monday, former world champion jumper Andreas Küttel of Switzerland joined them, saying he’d sprayed his suit with hairspray to keep air from running through it.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
