FISskijumping: We are at the airport in Frankfurt on the way to Almaty, right in the middle of the FIS Summer Grand Prix 2012. What are your conclusions so far?
Hofer: I would say that this year the Summer Grand Prix was as necessary as never before as we started testing some innovations again. With the new regulations concerning the suit we also influenced the performance of the athletes and therefore it's very good that we have this possibility in summer. The athletes needed a couple dozen jumps in order to adjust to the new situation.
FISskijumping: You mentioned it, the summer is more important than ever. Will it ever be linked to the winter? Will there be a World Cup all year?
Hofer: The World Cup is exclusively connected to snow and of course we still consider ourselves a winter sport discipline. Of course we are very happy that we have the chance to train and compete in summer, but everything is a preparation for the World Cup in winter. What we want to try is, that with the current technical possibilities and the new countries like Kazakhstan, Russia and so on, we maybe get one or two weeks more in winter where we would already be able to jump on snow. That means that the goal is to maybe extend the winter by one or two weekends.
Video: Interview with Walter Hofer (in German)
FISskijumping: Another innovation this winter is concerning the wind corridor. What has exactly changed?
Hofer: Nothing changed. Due to the innovation we introduced over the past years we only upgraded technically. We are very happy about that, because we reached a high safety standard. Our technical systems are developed to use the corridor under difficult conditions. Right now we just don't use an additional corridor for the start procedure in order to be more flexible and adaptable with our current system to carry out the competition.
FISskijumping: That means that the viewers at home will not see scenes anymore, or that often, where the flags in the outrun are showing no signs of wind and still no jumper is allowed to start. Is this the reason for the change?
Hofer: Our goal is to make ski jumping more comprehensible in that case and that we don't face the situation that we chose a certain corridor for the start procedure and the conditions would allow to jump but we can't start because of this self-imposed barrier. We try to make this part more dynamic.
FISskijumping: Oslo wants to host the Olympic Winter Games 2022. In this context there was a lot to hear and read about ski flying at the Olympics over the past days. What is the background of this discussion?
Hofer: Actually this is nothing new. This issue always comes up when there is a bid for the Olympics in a country where there is already a ski flying facility. We already had this discussion a couple of times. Concerning Oslo, I haven't seen any written proposal that promotes a development in this direction. Also not by the national Olympic Committee. That means that I can actually not confirm that this is an issue.
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