Winter Olympics athletes will have their crotches microchipped due to penis enlargement scandal
The Norwegian skiing team were punished at the 2025 World Championships for bending the rules
The Winter Olympics is finally kicking off this week, but some athletes have already come under pressure from officials following a massive scandal last year.
Skiers have been warned ahead of this month's Winter Olympic Games, after reports emerged that athletes had been enlarging their crotch areas during the 2025 Ski Jumping World Championships in Norway.
You may have heard in the past that size doesn't matter - but in this sport, it really does.
Olympians at the Milan Cortina games this month will even have their crotches microchipped as authorities try to crack down on any attempts to cheat the system.
Advert
Competitors were gaining an advantage by using a range of methods to enlarge their private areas, and there are rumours athletes are resorting to increasingly extreme measures.
German newspaper Bild said there are reports ski jumpers are injecting their penises with hyaluronic acid just before they submit to a 3D scanner to get measured for their suits.
The scanner determines how big to make the suit's crotch by the lowest point of their genitals, so if their penis is temporarily bigger, it will also mean their suit is larger, which gives them a surprising upper hand.
There is no hard evidence this is actually taking place, however.
This all came to a head last year, when the Norwegian team were caught adding extra fabric to the crotch area at the Ski Jumping World Championships, with defending Olympic large hill ski jump gold medallist Marius Lindvik and two-time Olympic medallist Johann André Forfang caught cheating.
Ski jumping involves speeding down a steep ramp on skis before leaping into the air off a ramp, aiming to fly as far as possible before landing.
Distance is key, with a large factor being aerodynamics and how air can move around the person during flight.
Making the crotch larger means that there is more surface area created in the suits, catching the air in a way which allows them to glide longer and at a greater distance, which can add distance to jumps due to having a bigger wingspan.
Suits must be between two to four centimetres bigger than the athlete's body, with enlargements from the Norwegian team deemed illegal as five suspensions were handed out to team members.
Norway are still one of the favourites to dominate in medals across sports at the Games, but they are responsible for a huge rule change coming into play.
Tamper-proof microchips will now be placed in the suits of each athlete, with 3D scanning technology utilised to measure space between their legs.
If athletes are caught cheating, they'll be punished via a football-inspired yellow and red card system.
Simply put, a yellow is given for equipment manipulation, and any further violations will result in a red card - which results in disqualification from the next event and the team losing a skier slot.
An October 2025 study from journal Frontiers in Sports and Active Living found than even an extra 2cm in suit size circumference can equal an extra 5.6 metres in jump length, which can be the difference between a gold medal and missing out on a podium spot.
Bruno Sassi, a spokesman for the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), said last month: "There had never been that kind of a brazen attempt to not only bend the rules, but like downright do something to cheat the system in a way that it is very different from simply having a suit that is a tad too long or a tad too loose.
"Both Lindvik and Forfang were suspended by FIS for three months for their role in the March 2025 scandal."
The Milano Cortina 2026 games begin on Friday 6 February and end on 22 February.
Topics: Sport, Olympics, Winter Olympics, Technology
Joshua Nair