Olympic rule changes aim to end 2026 Games’ ‘penis-gate’ problem

Don’t ever let anyone say size doesn’t matter. 

Because at the 2026 Winter Olympics, there will be an uncomfortable focus on the crotches of ski jumpers, thanks to the “penis-gate” scandal that rocked the sport last year. 

Major changes to the rules will go into effect, including advanced 3D body and suit measurements, redesigned suits to prevent tampering and microchips in the fabric that check for any manipulation. 

Marius Lindvik of Norway competes during the FIS World Cup Ski Jumping Individual Men’s Qualification at Mühlenkopfschanze on February 1, 2026 in Willingen, Germany. Getty Images

A new card system — similar to soccer — will also be put into place. If someone is disqualified for an equipment violation, they would get a yellow card. A red card signals a subsequent violation and a disqualification from the next event. 

All of this comes after a scandal unfolded when two Norwegian ski jumpers had extra fabric near the crotches of their suits during the 2025 Ski Jumping World Championships in Norway. 

The added fabric and enlargement of the area helped the ski jumpers create more surface area to allow their suits catch air in just the right way. 

The distance that the skiers travel in the ski jumping event is a big part of their score. 

The Norwegian team was ruled to have made illegal enhancements to the two skiers’ suits that led to five suspensions between coaches, athletes and a suit technician. 

“There have been disqualifications in the past, many. It’s part of the sport,” Bruno Sassi, spokesman for the international ski federation, FIS, told the Associated Press. “But there had never been that kind of a brazen attempt to not only bend the rules, but like downright do something … to cheat the system in a way that it is very different from simply having a suit that is a tad too long or a tad too loose.”

Norway’s Halvor Egner Granerud performs his first jump in the individual Large Hill HS137 competition on the third day of men’s FIS Ski Jumping World Cup competition in Sapporo on January 18, 2026. AFP via Getty Images

The two skiers involved in the scandal, Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang, accepted three-month bans and were found not to have known about the suit alterations.