ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Sports Science, Technology and Engineering
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1693699
This article is part of the Research TopicEmerging technologies in sports performance: data acquisition and analysisView all 12 articles
The Influence of Suit Size and Air Permeability on Performance in Ski Jumping (Part I: Wind Tunnel Measurements)
Provisionally accepted
- 1Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, Biology of Physical Activity, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
- 2International Ski and Snowboard Federation, Oberhofen am Thunersee, Switzerland
- 3Department of Strength, Power and Technical Sports, Institute for Applied Training Science, Leipzig, Germany
- 4Department of Biomechanics, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Physical Culture, Krakow, Poland
- 5Centre for Elite Sports Research, Department of Neuromedicine and Movement Science, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
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In the first of a two-part study, the purpose was to investigate the influence of suit size and air permeability on ski jumping performance using wind tunnel measurements and numerical simulations. The size of the suits was shown to greatly influence aerodynamic performance as drag increased with ∼4 % and lift with ∼5 % for 2 cm increased tolerance. Changes with respect to air permeability were within the measurement accuracy. The numerical simulations revealed an average difference of 5.8 m between the suits with different sizes, or of 2.8 m per cm increase in tolerance, from a simulated reference jump of 130 m in Granaasen HS-138 m. The numerical simulations also highlighted that factors such as length of the reference jump, wind conditions and altitude influenced the difference. In summary, this investigation has highlighted the importance of suit size, and restricted importance on air permeability, on ski jumping performance. Together, enhancing the understanding of the role of equipment in the sport.
Keywords: ski jumping, performance, suit size, Field Measurements, Safety, fairness
Received: 27 Aug 2025; Accepted: 10 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Virmavirta, Müller, Kürschner, Bessone, Krezałek and Elfmark. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mikko Virmavirta, mikko.virmavirta@jyu.fi
Ola Elfmark, ola.elfmark@ntnu.no
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