It’s as if nothing had happened in a whole year. Accusations and justifications are still being thrown back and forth. Although this sport is very old and has a long tradition, with artistic planes and resourceful ideas – such as the curved binding stick that the Swiss Simon Ammann invented years ago – this sport is still in its infancy.
Ski jumping with all its great moments is embarrassing itself again at the turn of the year 2024/2025 in the 73rd edition of the Four Hills Tournament. Because this is the most important format in ski jumping: most winter sports viewers watch it on television for hours while their Christmas cookie reserves gradually run out. And yet this large, important and traditional format is still not fully developed because those in charge have obviously forgotten their jumping women.
Innsbruck needs more light for two competitions
At least that’s how it looks from the outside. A year ago, Katharina Schmid, 28, one of the most prominent ski jumpers in the world, said she was completely frustrated by the further delay. Because she won’t jump like Daniela Iraschko-Stolz until she reaches the age of 40; Like many top athletes, Katharina Schmid certainly has other plans, both professionally and privately.
As tour connoisseurs know, Innsbruck is home to one of the most traditional ski jumps, which was redesigned at the turn of the millennium by the famous architect Zaha Hadid. The building on the Bergisel in the south of Innsbruck is an idiosyncratic construction that has gained worldwide attention, because the ski jump tower ends with an idiosyncratic tower house and resembles a kind of cobra. Many jumpers and female jumpers have wanted to do sport on this modern facility, in World and Conti Cups and also in training. The Hadid ski jump has everything, beauty, reputation, tradition, great sport, except what the ski jumpers urgently need for a joint tour: floodlights.
There would still be a chance for the best ski jumpers who can really jump off a hill and fight an exciting tour competition. All sides, those responsible for the tour, the World Cup organizers, the athletes and jumpers, would just have to agree on a format. Horst Hüttel, sports director of the German Ski Association (DSV), says: “In my opinion, every year in which the women are not involved is a lost year, for ski jumping in general – for the women in particular.” And: “I I really hope so, maybe there is a small chance of implementing the whole thing in 25/26.” Nevertheless, the biggest obstacle to opening the joint tour would have to be removed first: the lack of light in Innsbruck.
The solution could be in the opposite direction: start in Bischofshofen
In the depths of winter, there is barely enough daylight to host a single competition. Now Innsbruck skiing is hoping that the councilors will find a solution in the negotiations, because this is the only way that men and women can go on a joint tour. The Innsbruck ski jump is located quite close to a residential area, but all the other tour ski jumps were not exactly built in desert areas. But the quite old regulation that prohibits floodlights will of course continue to apply until it is changed or abolished. It would be a perfect solution if the sport of jumping, which enjoys many fans in Austria, found a solution together with the city of Innsbruck. Negotiations are currently underway, Katharina Schmid says: “I believe that if you really want it, you will find a way.”
If the Innsbruck light is not switched on, solutions could still be found. It would not be the effect that the jumpers want, namely equality, i.e. a joint Four Hills Tournament. But if that were to be delayed again, other options remained.
For example, women’s jumping could at least take one step: leaving the two-person mini-tour TNT behind. She could, for example, complete her own tour over four ski jumps, at the same time as the men – only in the opposite direction, i.e. starting in Bischofshofen, without the men who have been heading east in the west for 73 years. Their tradition, scenery and fascination would be missing, but the women are able to establish their own highlights, like in many winter and summer disciplines in the history of sport, in which only men dominated.
Katharina Schmid, the best German ski jumper, who has spent so long at the turn of the year without any special competition and who is unlikely to jump until she is 40, would definitely be there on a women’s tour. With four jumps.
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