The Game with the Cards

Who would have thought that elements of football would be introduced into ski jumping? I certainly wouldn’t. That the international ski federation had to react after the incidents at the World Championships in Trondheim was somehow obvious as well.

For all those who haven’t heard it in the media yet, here is a quick refresher on equipment knowledge.

Anyone disqualified in the future for non-compliant equipment (or not allowed to start at all) will receive a yellow card. Similar to football, a kind of warning. If the same athlete receives another yellow card, it leads to a ban—either for one competition day or for an entire weekend, depending on how many events are planned at a venue. The banned athlete may not be replaced for that weekend, causing the nation to lose a starting place. In a team event, the entire team will be withdrawn from the competition if an athlete is found to have breached equipment rules. Previously only the jump had been cancelled.

Already just because of my work as a track designer, I am a proponent of fair conditions. In my area, the top priority is to ensure fair conditions for the long jumpers from the first to the last jumper. I therefore welcome any small measure in the rules that helps make the sport a bit fairer. What we saw in Trondheim was anything but a gentleman’s offense – and something like that must be prevented in the future. All athletes should go over the bar under equally fair conditions.

One cannot expect only fair male and female athletes in elite sport. There is too much money and recognition at stake. Everyone tries to optimize even the smallest cog in the gear to be ahead by one meter or one point. However, if this optimization occurs in an area that goes beyond the famous gray area into black, it must be stopped.

I think it’s great that the FIS and everyone involved reacted so quickly and found a system that makes the competitions even fairer. Even if, within the regulations, one can still optimize things and perhaps gain a slight advantage over others – the yellow and red cards hover like the sword of Damocles over the athletes and surely have a strong deterrent effect.