Springer criticized

Cheater innocent? Legend gets “gag reflex”

Did Johann Andre Forfang know that his suit had been tampered with?(Bild: Andreas Tröster)

There is still a lot of excitement surrounding the suit scandal at the Nordic World Ski Championships: Sven Hannawald is now coming down hard on Marius Lindvik and Johann Andre Forfang, whose work clothes were tampered with.

German Olympic champions Martin Schmitt and Sven Hannawald, who now work as TV experts, are united in their judgment. In an interview with "sport.de" and RTL/ntv, Hannawald expresses harsh criticism of the Norwegians Lindvik and Forfang. Referring to a post by Forfang, he said that he had to stop reading in the third sentence "because I had to go to the toilet because I was retching". "A jumper in one of the most sensitive sports doesn't realize that a suit feels stiffer?" he asked. "The people concerned are mocking the active jumpers somewhere. It's bullshit before the Lord!" criticized Hannawald.

Sven Hannawald(Bild: GEPA)

Schmitt agreed with this. He does not believe "that Lindvik and Forfang, as world-class jumpers, do not notice changes in the tension behavior of their suit," said Schmitt.

Goldberger: "You should be able to feel it"
 The duo is also unbelievable for former ÖSV star Andreas Goldberger. "You're in a jumpsuit like that every day. And if there's suddenly a different jump suit, you should feel it," said the "Krone" columnist in the ORF TV interview (video below).

Schuster identifies a "new dimension"
 Tyrolean Werner Schuster was also heavily criticized. There had always been speculation and mutual accusations. "Now we have a new dimension, it has reached a level where - at least that is the initial impression - we can speak of systematic manipulation. Everyone is now pointing the finger at the Norwegians. But it's not just their problem, it's a problem for ski jumping as a whole," explained the Eurosport TV expert.

The long-time head coach of the German ski jumpers doesn't believe either the officials or the athletes. "Anyone who knows anything about ski jumping knows that his (note: sports director Aalbu) statements are completely unbelievable. The story that only two suits were manipulated for this one day and that the athletes didn't know anything - that really pissed me off. It was all along the lines of: we only admit to what we can prove 100 percent," explained Schuster.