Sports Technology
Natural disasters don’t spare ski jumping hills either!
Outline: While our projects are mainly located in Central Europe, our next project is geographically special. It is, so to speak, our first assignment in the Middle East, specifically the city of Erzurum in Turkey.
While our projects are mainly in Central Europe, our next project is geographically special. It is, so to speak, our first assignment in the Middle East, specifically in the city of Erzurum in Turkey. Even though the occasion for the new building is not a happy one. For in the largest city of Eastern Anatolia, a powerful landslide occurred in early January 2019, which completely destroyed the then state-of-the-art ski jumping facility in just thirty seconds. Especially for the ski jumping sport, it was extremely bitter, as the center was the only one of its kind in Turkey. In addition to the collapse of the hill, in August 2022 an earthquake of magnitude 4.3 occurred in Erzurum Province, with further damages to some buildings.
In times like these, when we are frequently confronted by natural disasters in the media, such reports are often just a footnote. But when our beloved ski jumping sport is suddenly confronted directly and with full force by such events, those events that are otherwise distant in our perception become closer, more than we would like.
All the more I am pleased that the Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sports has now resolved to restore and revitalize this beautiful facility. In April, representatives of the Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sports visited and familiarized themselves with our company and our production. A few days later, the contract for our 120th hill was secured!
While work on the jump slope on site is almost finished—the entire substructure has been rebuilt and the concrete replaced with a solid timber construction—we will reconstruct the two hills completely from early September and outfit them with our Mastertrack system. If everything goes as planned, Fatih Arda Ipcioglu and his team can move into their newly rebuilt training facility from October and train there in winter and summer.
I personally hope that Erzurum will then again host national and international competitions, just as in 2019 with the European Youth Olympic Festival EYOF, and re-establish itself as a host venue!
We are absolutely thrilled about this special project!