It's been a few days since the end of the Nordic Ski World Championships in Trondheim, and I finally found time writing down my thoughts. If I had to choose one sentence to start with, it would probably be, "What a World Championship that was, what water games those were!" And this in every aspect. However, I want to focus here and now on everything that concerns us as a team. The other, less pleasant topic that came up at the end is something others will have to evaluate and, above all, judge. A bitter taste remains, either way.
But now back to us. Admittedly, I've never experienced World Championships like this in my career as a track and hill constructer. And we've been part of quite a few events so far. But I've never experienced it raining from day one and temperatures almost never dropping below zero. Constant rain coupled with hurricane-force gusts greeted us daily. If we didn't almost laugh at the adverse conditions, we would have burst into tears every day.
At every event, our main task is to ensure perfect and, above all, fair conditions in the inrun from the first to the last jumper. This is what we are committed to and we stand for. But in this weather, coupled with the tight schedule with a total of 13 medal decisions, it was anything but easy. Life isn't a dream come true, and so we accepted this challenge as well.
The constantly changing and at times truly dreadful weather was undoubtedly our biggest opponent. The rain poured down, and there were also gusts of up to 150 km/h, which literally blew the water into the inrun. At some point, my main task was simply to provide my staff with dry clothes and rain ponchos. Because working for hours while soaked isn’t pleasant, even if the guys are made of really tough stuff.
The rain isn't a problem as long as it can drain through the longitudinal grooves. But things really got interesting when the temperatures dropped and the famous zero-degree snow fell from the sky. Too wet for the blowers to get it out of the inrun, but still too solid for it to melt and run off. A disaster for any event, especially at World Championships, where there's a certain amount of pressure to complete the competition. It was a mystery to me how everything went so perfectly and how we had almost no interruptions due to the conditions during the inrun.
This was all thanks to our international team, which consists entirely of experts in their field. The expertise from various fields worked seamlessly together. Steel construction, milling technology, ice specialists – everything meshed seamlessly. For the first time, the latest technology was also used at this World Championships. A newly developed measurement and control technology that we developed and implemented together with the cooling system specialist Daikin. All of this contributed to making this very special World Championships a personal success for us. We now know that we can deliver and ensure great competitions even in conditions, which couldn't be worse.
Finally, there must be some time to say THANK YOU. I would like to thank the hill manager and his team on site, as well as the FIS. Everyone supported each other and did everything they could to deliver a solid product together. It doesn't bother anyone that there were days when we were first at the hill and the last to turn off the lights in the evening. I would like to thank my team for their tireless efforts; you are amazing! I would also like to thank the World Championships Organizing Committee for their trust. You all deserve the gold medal!
I hope we met all expectations. We're proud to have been able to make a small contribution to the success of this fantastic, soaking wet World Championships. If we hadn't already been soaked from head to toe on the last day, you might have seen our wet eyes at the closing ceremony.
Thanks for everything!
Peter Riedel and Team
