HOLMENKOLLEN (Nettavisen): Holmenkoll Sunday has been a tradition since 1892 and in some cases has had over 100,000 spectators at the jumping lanes.
However, in recent years it has been far from the popular festival it once was, and after Sunday’s race Norway’s sports director Klas Brede Brathen acknowledged they had a big job with the event.
– There is no doubt that we must come together to improve the cultural heritage that Holmenkollbacken and Holmenkollenret represent in a new era in a completely different way than we have managed in recent years, Brathen told Nettavisen.
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Forfang will move the chute
National team jumper Johann Andre Furfang himself participated in Sunday’s competition, which is also part of the Raw Air Championships.
He thinks people experience the days in Holmenkollen as too long for most people when cross-country skiing and mass jumping are organised.
Therefore, he suggests breaking with the long tradition of ski jumping on Sundays.
– I think it would be better if we had the Kollen race on Thursday as the whole event would be more focused on the jumping part. Here we’re competing against cross-country skiing, and people are very happy to go to Marca. I understand that, but then it becomes a bit like that. We compete against each other. People have to take their time. They are here all day. If you have an event taking place in Kollen, it’s easier to get people here, I think, Forfang tells Nettavisen.
Tromsøværingen also believes it will be inevitable to move the race to the middle of the week due to the Raw Air Championship, which he believes has become an important concept for jumping and the Norwegian Ski Association.
– Until next year, Trondheim should have an experimental toilet. Something that makes it normal to run Raw Air’s first weekend in Trondheim and its second in Vikersund. Then Lillehammer and Oslo should be the midweek races. Which also makes sense in terms of sustainable transportation and climate footprint.
The desire since the inception of Raw Air was to take trains between destinations. So if we start now in Trondheim, the train track will finally go up, says Forfang.
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It’s not prioritized as much as it should be
It is also believed that under the current arrangement, not enough emphasis was placed on ski jumping itself on the weekend as there were far more people to watch cross-country skiing.
– My personal impression is that the Holmenkollen Ski Festival does not lend itself to the Raw Air concept in the marketing and the jumping part of the event is not as priority as it should be.
– Why do you think more people will come to Holmenkollen on weekdays than on Sundays, when more people have a day off?
– If more people are coming on Thursday night than on Sunday night, it’s not impossible at all, it’s a matter of marketing and building “hype”. And I think that’s the way to go to further develop the Raw Air concept, which is an ambitious project. I think it’s important to make room for ambitious projects as Kollensøndag is clearly not what it once was, says Forfang.
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