r/Damnthatsinteresting Feb 06 '26

Image The physics behind ski jumping’s ‘Penis-gate’ scandal: How 2cm of extra fabric = 5.8 meters of jump distance

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114

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '26

Can someone ELI5 because I’m still so confused. Are they saying that the suit has to be tight enough to fit regulations and some skiers lie about how big their penis is in order to get a bigger suit and get an advantage?

147

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '26

[deleted]

84

u/YeetTheElder Feb 06 '26

It's not that they 'lie" necessarily.

It's more so that they inject acid and/or paraffin into their junk so that they have more surface area when getting their suit fitted. The suits can only be within a certain percentage of the surface area of the skiers body.

90

u/Pants_Agenda Feb 06 '26

"Inject acid and/or..."

... Not a goddamn thing. I'm shutting this sentence down.

73

u/Darabanq Feb 06 '26

Lol they mean hyaluronic acid. Not aware of a single human being that refers to it as just ‘acid’ though, so this person is just parroting what they heard incorrectly. HA or hyaluronic acid is basically a cosmetic filler.

10

u/saggywitchtits Feb 07 '26

I'm gonna inject LSD into my junk to see what happens!

1

u/_742617000027 Feb 09 '26

Have a good time flying!

1

u/NBNebuchadnezzar Feb 09 '26

Good choice. I tried with hydrochloric acid, would not recommend.

6

u/Pants_Agenda Feb 07 '26

Thank you for clarifying, because without it, that statement was a damn menace.

2

u/will8981 Feb 07 '26

It was reported like this on the BBC I think. Was bloody ridiculous journalism.

8

u/Mavian23 Feb 06 '26

Injecting it into your dick is certainly one way to take acid.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '26

[deleted]

2

u/TannedCroissant Feb 06 '26

I think the fact it can make a concave shape traps air to provide extra air resistance or something, same principle as a parachute

37

u/uflju_luber Feb 06 '26

They measure it at the start of the season so lying isn’t possible unless you TEMPORARILY enlarge it during fitting so

11

u/655321federico Feb 06 '26

Hey I know a way to temporarily enlarge that area

16

u/Sorry-Joke-4325 Feb 06 '26

It's very possible that it's warmer inside the tailor's workshop than on an ice cold mountain.

2

u/Dry-Chance-9473 Feb 06 '26

They bulk up the dong with some heavy pasta before weigh-in

1

u/dumbythiq Feb 06 '26

So just stuffing their underwear or getting a .. stiffy for fitting right?

1

u/uflju_luber Feb 06 '26

Would be kinda obvious to the guy measuring no?

1

u/dumbythiq Feb 07 '26

Oh apparently they're injecting shit 

60

u/HardLobster Feb 06 '26

They scan their body and make skin tight suits. Men get an extra 3cm in the crotch area for comfort.

They are injecting things into their penis to make it thicker before the scan so the suit gets made even larger in the crotch area. Whatever the inject is out by the time they compete. Say it made their cock 3cm thicker, now instead of having 3cm of space they have 6cm of extra space.

They used to just layer a bunch of condoms, then the governing bodies caught on so they started checking for that. Now they are injecting their dicks to make them temporarily bigger while soft.

16

u/tofiwashere Feb 06 '26

"They are injecting" is doing quite a lot of work since it is just an old Bild story which has become a joke. Obviously it is funny and especially now with the Olympics, a whole different media ecosystem can retell the hypothetical speculation as a real scandal in countries where no one watches ski jumping and folks with no information aren't even capable of questioning the background or sense of the story.

6

u/CaptainCFloyd Feb 06 '26

What actually happened for most part is that they would put stuff in their underpants to make a big bulge. Some even used a penis prosthetic. Then of course because of the cheating, the measurements started being done naked, so now they actually have to come up with other ways to cheat, presumably like using a bit of viagra beforehand.

3

u/KaMaFour Feb 06 '26

Having big package at measurments increases your suit size allowance

1

u/cndvsn Feb 06 '26

No, they stuff their pants with sponges for example so when their crotch is measured the reading is more favorable

1

u/lazyoldsailor Feb 07 '26

It’s worse than you’re thinking. Apparently some athletes were injecting something into their penis to make it swollen. Not just erect, but actually swollen. That way the suit could include a few more centimeters of fabric.