Are ski jumpers enhancing their genitalia to fly further? That’s the big question looming over this year’s Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
The speculation stems from a report by the German newspaper Bild which alleged that some of the high-flying athletes maybe injecting their members with hyaluronic acid to gain an aerodynamic advantage. The injection enlarges the penis and increases the suit’s surface area, in theory granting a jumper greater lift — and thereby endowing the term “crotch rocket” with a whole new meaning.
The allegations were apparently deemed serious enough to be addressed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), with its president — and Poland’s former minister of sport and tourism — Witold Bańka vowing to get to the bottom of the situation.
“Ski jumping is very popular in Poland, so I promise you I’m going to look at it,” he said with a smirk, as quoted by The Guardian.
As most coverage has noted, this isn’t even the sport’s first crotch-related scandal. Last year, Norway’s skiing team was caught manipulating their suits to get an edge by adding a banned form of stitching into the groin region to increase the suit’s surface area.
Stiff penalties were brought on two of the team’s coaches. Meanwhile, Marius Lindvik and Johann Andre Forfang, two recent Olympic medalists on the team, were given a — dare we say — flaccid punishment of a three-month ban, after claiming they were unaware of the below-the-belt scheme.
It’s one thing to adjust the fabric around your crotch, and another to actually turn to dick injections. And would it even work? According to doctor Kamran Karim, who was quoted by Bild: “It is possible to achieve a temporary, visual thickening of the penis by injecting paraffin or hyaluronic acid. Such an injection is not medically indicated and is associated with risks.”
As for the advantage this would give, a study published in the journal Fronters in October found that every two centimeter increase (roughly three quarters of an inch) in suit circumference increased lift by four percent, equaling an extra two feet in a ski jump.
It’s not hard proof, and it’s hard to say if it would be worth it to pull off, but there does appear to be some science suggesting that this could work in the real world. Still, no individual athlete has aroused the suspicion of investigators — yet.
“I’m not aware of the details of ski jumping and how it can improve but if anything was to come to the surface we would look at anything if it is actually doping related,” said Oliver Niggli, director general of WADA, at the conference.
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