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Comment by DeepSeaTortoise | Hacker News Reader

Just how much extra performance could you gain by altering a suit in a way that was not detectable without taking the suit apart?

The article mentions a 5% surface area increase potentially offering benefits, but that's A LOT and if the suits had been altered in that way, surely someone would have noticed?

Also someone took a "secret" video of the suits being altered?

I'm sorry, but this doesn't pass my smell test. I don't doubt the suits having been alerted, but I highly doubt this having been done or ordered by the athletes who used those suits. And neither any of the team members, acting in favor of these athletes.

Winning gold is nice, leaving an auditable trail behind, almost certainly causing them to be stripped of their achievements, career, reputation, livelihood and opportunity to pursue their hobbies for an uncertain minimal gain, isn't.

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it is very very clear, that the atheletes were custom fitted into the altered squirl suits, and trained specificaly and extensivly in there optimal use. traditional ski jumps were done with the legs fully closed, with a last second switch to a landing posture.... attempts to salvage "reputations" are extra cringy. Time for the boys to step up, fess up, scuff there feet, say they are sorry, take there lumps, and then do there damdest to win fair and square, next time. The label reads "amature sports" and any plausible adherance to that, would outright ban anything, that was not built for use by amatures in full compliance with thr rules, flat out prohibit any corporate, or thinktank or fancy university "assistance", including the consumption of anything other than food, with full disclosure of all, substances injected, prescribed, injested. We do have the complete technical ability to quickly, and cheaply ,do a total forensic examination of every athletic competitor, and eliminate cheating. Sport, like science, is digging it's own grave, with "reputational management"

> it is very very clear, that the atheletes were custom fitted into the altered squirl suits

Aren't the suits tested for compliance on the athlete?

> trained specificaly and extensivly in there optimal use. traditional ski jumps were done with the legs fully closed, with a last second switch to a landing posture

I honestly don't see this.

I've looked at quite a few videos now, comparing the techniques between other jumpers and their medal winning jump.

It looks close enough to me and, honestly, plenty of experts, too, otherwise they would have pointed to the difference in techniques enabled by the altered suits, rather than only having to rely on finding alterations after taking the suit apart.

>Aren't the suits tested for compliance on the athlete?

That's half of the drama: suits have RFID chips identifying them. After the suits have been tested (as this sort of shenanigans is pretty common in this sport), they resew the chips from verified suits onto the tricksuits. This was caught on the video.

ha! so there is a whole other problem with, fake chips, and other fake stuff, and one of the ways to make a tamper proof, impossible to fake security tag, is to paint it with a "special" paint, full of spakles and micro blobs, resulting in a perfectly random one of a kind spray on label that is impossible to remove, can be done at any scale,and that is scanned, and given a serial #. so do the chip, do the suit, shoes, whatever needs to be secured, and released.Any company complisit in assisting cheating, would be given a permanent ban, along with all principals and those directly involved. And since people are going to jail, for cheating in video games, then perhaps life sentences are apropriate as well.

Sorry that I don't understand the problem with the altered suits.

Exaggerating the changes, if the suits are not the official suits, they may get more distance with an improvised version of a wingsuit[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingsuit_flying

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