Ski jumping | The day after the departure of the three Norwegian coaches, Halvor Egner Granerud says : “It took me a while to understand what I was seeing”

Ski jumping: Halvor Egner Granerud talks about the situation in Norway

Just a few days before the World Ski Jumping Championships in Trondheim (Norway), Halvor Egner Granerud saw his dream of winning a world medal on home soil dashed in the nick of time. The Norwegian suffered a cruciate ligament injury in his left knee, which meant that the end of the season and the World Championships on home soil were out of the question.

The event was also marked by massive cheating by the Norwegian staff after they changed the combinations of their jumpers. A sad episode that the winner of the crystal globe in 2021 and 2023 followed from afar. And the day after Magnus Brevig, Thomas Lobben and Adrian Livelten were ousted from the Norwegian team, the 28-year-old spoke at length to Dagbladet.

“Magnus, Thomas and Adrian have been in the business longer than most of the other members of the team. We’re losing a lot of expertise with Magnus’ departure,” he regrets. He’s a man I’ve worked with since I started at Wang Toppidrett in 2012. The three people who are leaving are people who have been part of my life for a long time but I understand the decision that has been taken.”

And so it was from his home thatHalvor Egner Granerud , like many of his followers, discovered the video proving his coaches’ cheating: “It took me a while to understand what I was seeing. It all seemed so unreal,” he admits, still in shock.

However, the Scandinavian was adamant that he had no further information about similar acts in previous months or even years. He also admitted that he had never cheated since his debut. “Of course, I’ve always played within the limits. But I’ve been disqualified whenever that’s been the case,” he explains. But I’ve never done anything like that. I have nothing to hide.

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Nevertheless, Halvor Egner Granerud, who is due to return to the jumps in September, knows that his sport is unlikely to emerge unscathed from such a scandal. It will be interesting to see how things play out when I return to this world and compete again,” he says. All sorts of conflicts and incidents can leave their mark. It’s not impossible that this will also have an impact on how relations between different nations develop.”

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• Ski jumping: after the Trondheim scandal, three Norwegian coaches are definitively dismissed from their posts