Sensational move by the Polish team before the World Cup starts. Huge risk

Inauguration of the World Cup weekend in Lillehammer is shaping up to be particularly interesting not only for sports reasons. According to new rules, as early as Thursday, various teams began heading to Christian Kathol to register their selected suits. It seems that the Polish team made a risky decision in this regard, with details described in Sport.pl by Jakub Balcerski.

This year, the pre-season discussion has been dominated by the topic of new rules regarding suits. Unlike previous years when athletes had an unlimited number of them, FIS has introduced a limit—throughout the winter, they can utilize a maximum of ten. Each of these will be previously chipped by a controller.

How will these ten suits be distributed throughout the season? During the period leading up to the World Cup and lasting until the Four Hills Tournament, teams will be able to register four suits with FIS. Each subsequent period will involve the registration of one additional suit. An exception will be the World Championships in Trondheim, where teams can prepare two new suits per athlete for that key competition of the season.

It was obvious that it would likely be difficult to find a team that registered all four suits in Lillehammer. During the first weekend, teams generally observe each other closely to see who has adapted best to the new equipment realities and prepared best for the start of the season.

If they notice something different from their competitors that gives an advantage, they will certainly want to adopt it for themselves. Such room for maneuver would be diminished by registering all four suits before the first weekend period.

The Polish team opted for a risky solution. "It seems they registered very few suits, possibly even just one per jumper," shared Jakub Balcerski. This would mean that over the weekend in Lillehammer, they would not be able to make changes, even if a suit became heavily soaked between rounds. Under such circumstances, FIS allows for some deviations from their rules.

It appears that the situation with the new controls is not yet fully under control. "There is a huge mess around the suits, around the chips. No one up top knows what's happening. There was a bit of panic. I’m somewhat impatient and annoyed, but I hear from everyone that it's just the first competition and I should calm down a bit," Nicole Konderla mentioned in a conversation with Eurosport.