Ski jumping: everything you need to know for the 2022 Winter Olympics
Ski jumping: Brits may not be taking part, but the five exciting events at the Winter Olympics will nonetheless be fierce and frenetic… everything you need to know for the competition
- The 2022 Winter Olympics start on February 4 and end on February 20
- Ski jumping Winter Olympics schedule runs from February 5-14
- There will be a total of five Ski Jumping events in Beijing
- A new event, a mixed team format, has been introduced at the Games
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Perhaps nothing shakes you up like ski jumping at this year’s Winter Olympics, which officially kick off on February 4.
The exciting sport has been at the forefront of the Winter Olympics since the tournament’s inception in 1924, although a fifth event will be added to the schedule this year, namely a mixed team format.
Sportsmail takes you through everything you need to know for a new alluring competition.
Ski jumping has been part of the Winter Olympics since 1924
Where is the location for ski jumping in Beijing 2022?
The popular Winter Olympics event is held at the National Ski Jumping Center in the Zhangjiakou cluster.
The cluster will also host snowboarding, freestyle skiing, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined and biathlon competitions during the Games.
At the site, which will also host part of the Nordic Combined competition, the large mound stands at a total height of 446 feet, with the normal mound slightly smaller at 337 feet.
Zhangjiakou’s National Ski Jumping Center goes straight to 10,000-seat stadium
Incredibly, the landing leads directly to a 10,000-seat stadium, which can be used for football matches in the summer.
The location has been nicknamed “Snow Ruyi” because of its resemblance to a “Ruyi”, a traditional Chinese ornament symbolizing good luck.
With the first locally broadcast Omicron case confirmed in Beijing in recent days, Beijing 2022 organizers have pulled the plug on plans to sell tickets widely while spectators based abroad have already been banned.
Instead, there will be an ‘adapted program’ that invites groups of spectators.
How does ski jumping work during the Winter Games?
There are five events at the Games. Included are the Men’s Individual Normal Hill, the Women’s Individual Normal Hill, the Men’s Individual Large Hill, the Men’s Team Large Hill and the Mixed Team event.
In any case, the jumps are scored on distance travelled, jumping style and landing.
Among the individuals, athletes are awarded points over two jumps and the highest total score wins. In the team competition, teams of four people jump with the highest total score for all jumps that win the medal.
However, the formats of each event differ slightly. In the individual events for men there are two training sessions, a qualification and the final. In the team event, two competition rounds follow a trial round.
The Women’s Normal Hill Individual goes straight to the final without a first qualifying round.
The newly formed mixed event will have the same score as the men’s competition and will be held on the normal mound.
Who to watch out for in Beijing
Unfortunately for ski jumping fans from Great Britain, there will be no Team GB athletes in the Games this year.
It will be an intense affair nonetheless, with Slovenian Ema Klinec expected to do big things in Beijing. That’s despite being only 22 years old and finishing 14th in PyeongChang four years ago. She emerged victorious on the normal hill during the 2021 World Championships.
As for the men’s tournament, Germany’s Andreas Wellinger – who already has four Olympic medals to his name – will aim to become the first athlete to successfully defend his Normal Hill title.
In addition to the Polish Piotr Zyla, he will have to compete with his compatriot Karl Geiger, who was in brilliant form at the World Cup.
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