Ski Jumping World Cup: It's time again!

The Ski Jumping World Cup kicks off on November 21st and 22nd in Wisla, Poland. The preparations in the home town of Adam Malysz are in full swing, the snow production is already underway on the hill.

There are already 600 cubic meters of snow in the outrun of the Adam-Malysz-hill in Wisla. With the equipment used in Poland, snow can be produced in almost any temperature, even in summer. If the nights are cold, like it has been the case there over the past couple of days, then it only takes a few days to produce enough snow to cover the entire outrun of the HS 134 hill.

But this kind of snow is not very popular among the athletes, its consistency is complicated and it's almost impossible to prepare a completely plane landing and outrun area, as the ski jumpers would love to have. Combined with the tight radius of the outrun, this lead to various falls in the past.

The snow production is already underway in Wisla for over a week, everything goes according to plan for the organizers. This means that the snow won't be a problem at the opener of the 2020/21 Ski Jumping World Cup season.

The issue of Covid-19 is a lot more complicated as the number of infections is rising in Poland, just like it is all over Europe.
That's also the reason why the organizers stopped ticket sales. The final decision regarding the number of spectators at the hill shall be made on November 1st. Probably only 1000 will be allowed in the stadium, it's also possible that there will not be any spectators. The competitions will not be in jeopardy as there will be TV production.

A lot of effort is required this year to organize a competition in accordance with the Covid-19 safety restrictions. A big advantage for the organizers are the experiences gained during the Grand Prix this year Wisla was the only venue where an event was carried out this summer, all other Grand Prix competitions were canceled.

The season for the world's best ski jumpers will start four weeks from now. 65 athletes, representing 17 nations, have already registered for the opener, among them all the big names like Karl Geiger, Markus Eisenbichler and Andreas Wellinger of Germany, Kamil Stoch and Dawid Kubacki of Poland, Simon Ammann of Switzerland, the highflyers of Norway, Slovenia and Austria, and so on.
Everyone wants to compete in the World Cup opener in Wisla.

The weekend will start with a team competition on Saturday, November 21st, followed by the individual competition on Sunday.

Stefan Kraft of Austria is the defending World Cup champion.

This season's highlights will be the Ski Flying World Championships in Planica in December (originally planned for last March, but postponed), the 4-Hills-Tournament, the Nordic World Championships in Oberstdorf, and the RAW AIR in Norway.

And there's also a new Race Director: In May, Italian Sandro Pertile replaced Austrian Walter Hofer after more than 25 years on the job.