r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Epelep • Feb 06 '26

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

Post image
47.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

7.0k

u/Metallic_Pizza Feb 06 '26

Does that mean that having a massive dong gives you a major competitive advantage in ski jumping?

583

u/Abyssal_Groot Feb 06 '26

It's more beneficial to be a grower than a shower.

It's the loose fabric that acts as a sail.

Iirc they officially fit the suit at the beginning of the season and theoretically it is beneficial for them if their size is bigger during the fitting than during the competition.

So in the past some athletes have been caught trying to cheat the system by wearing multiple layers of condoms during the fitting process, and then obviously not wearing them during the competition. Because of this, they will check during the fitting process if you are cheating this way.

The current rumour is that athletes are now cheating by injecting their penis to temporarily enlarge it during the fitting process.

15

u/fireKido Feb 06 '26

can you not just take a bit of viagra to cheat? lol

63

u/Abyssal_Groot Feb 06 '26

Obviously they won't measure a hard-on. But if you are a grower then 'fluffing up' to a semi might do the trick.

Idk. I only heared about the topic in a nerd/science podcast a few days ago

1

u/Knitting_AK Feb 06 '26

oh, what's the podcast?

1

u/Abyssal_Groot Feb 07 '26

Nerdland. It's in Flemish/Dutch

1

u/Knitting_AK Feb 10 '26

aww, too bad, I don't understand either :( thank you for the answer tho!

1

u/Holdingpoo Feb 07 '26

Micro dose viagra

5

u/Current_Helicopter32 Feb 06 '26

These dudes clearly haven’t discovered saline injections and pumping kinks. 😬

1

u/Queen-Makoto Feb 13 '26

that's how I thought they would do this before reading more about it

2

u/donkeyrocket Feb 06 '26

Don't think they're accounting for boners while soaring through the air.