The cohort responsible for tackling doping at the Winter Olympics were confronted with a most unusual question on Thursday: what are their thoughts on those athletes said to be artificially increasing the size of their penises to gain an unfair advantage?
Everywhere from Milan to the upper peaks of the Dolomites, a saga known as ‘penis-gate’ has taken a surreal hold on these Games, owing to what has been alleged of members of the ski jumping fraternity.
Indeed, ‘enhancement’ has never before carried such a literal meaning, given the unsubstantiated claims that some of these jumpers have resorted to injecting hyaluronic acid into their genitals.
Into the fray of that debate stepped the World Anti-Doping Agency on Thursday. Asked specifically about the use of hyaluronic acid, and whether that might trigger a probe, Olivier Niggli, the director general of Wada, said: ‘I’m not aware of the details of ski jumping – and how this can improve – but if anything was to come to the surface we would look at anything if it is actually doping related.
‘We don’t do other means of enhancing performance but our list committee would certainly look into whether this would fall into this category. But I hadn’t heard about that until you mentioned.’
To Niggli’s side, the WADA president Witold Banka, formerly the Polish minister of sport and tourism, added: ‘Ski jumping is very popular in Poland so I promise you I’m going to look at it.’
Their grins tapped into the general tone, but that relates to the eye-catching accusation of an athlete injecting acid into their penis. On the broader theme of ski jumpers using their penises to break the rules, the sport has precedent and has been left open to scrutiny.
That is because of the theory, supported by scientific studies, that suggests any increase in the surface area of a skinsuit can have the effect of turning the jumper into a human glider. The bigger the bulge, the further they fly, and that has been cynically exploited in the recent past.
A scandal erupted at last year’s world championships after it emerged the Norwegian team had adjusted seams around the crotch to achieve that outcome.
Magnus Brevik, their head coach, his assistant coach Thomas Lobben and another staff member, Adrian Livelten, were handed 18-month bans in the fallout. The defending Olympic ski jump champion Marius Lindvik and Johann Andre Forfang were also suspended for three months, though it was found the athletes were not aware of the plot.
It was in the wake of that episode Bild, a German tabloid, offered the most illuminated tangent of the genre with their claim of acid injections. The details were vague, unsubstantiated and anonymous but spread like wildfire, even on snow.
Beyond dispute, as shown by the Norwegian mess, is that more plausible ways of increasing the measurement have been put into practice. The cheats were armed by science.
A study in the journal, Frontiers, established that every two centimetres in suit circumference reduced drag by four per cent and increased lift by five per cent – equivalent to an extra 5.8 metres in jump length.
For those reasons, it would appear that ski jumping has, at the very least, answered the long-standing question of whether size matters. Whether it is being achieved via acid injections to the penis is a mystery that remains lost in the mountains for the time being.
How far should athletes be allowed to alter their bodies for a competitive edge?
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