Huge disappointment for Norway
For the ski jumpers the Nordic Ski World Championships 2013 ended with an extremely exciting team event, that was finally decided in a jury meeting some time after the actual competition was over.
The jury checked the video of the competition and this resultet in a huge disappointment for the Norwegian jumpers, who lost the silver medal due to a mistake concerning the start gate of Anders Bardal in the first round and finished fourth behind Poland.
Right after this dramatic decision it was not easy for jumpers and officials of the Norwegian team to find the right words in interviews with the Norwegian newspaper VG. "The disappointment is huge. Silver would have been good. It's unbelievable that something like that happens at World Championships", said Anders Jacobsen. His teammate Andreas Stjernen was also depressed. "I don't have any feelings right now. We were second and had the silver medal and now we are fourth. This is the worst thing, I ever experienced."
"It is sad for the fantastic Norwegian jumpers and also for the sport, that a day like this is overshadowed by such an incident. Nobody made the mistake on purpose. Maybe it was a bit too much for the officials, there were a lot of gate changes", sports director Clas Brede Brathen said to VG Nett.
After the final decision FIS race director Walter Hofer explained the incident in an interview with vgtv.no. "Unfortunately, a command given by the jury and the coaches was not executed at the start area. Everything is in our data service according to these commands, that's why we couldn't find this error in our system. Unfortunately we only had the chance to find out after the competition that it was a human error at the start area. The gate wasn't moved and so the athlete started from a higher gate than we had foreseen in our system.
I feel very sorry for Norway, it's very disappointing for us. I can understand every reaction of the Norwegians, but they are so fair. The team leader came to us and said that such things can happen. Unfortunately, in such a big event it's really a shame."