Peter Slatnar accuses Stefan Horngacher of influencing Polish ski jumpers’ equipment decisions, Digi Mart USA News: Slovenian ski manufacturer Peter Slatnar is angry over collapsed deals with Polish ski jumpers Dawid Kubacki and Piotr Zyla and is strongly defending his equipment against criticism. Speaking to the Slovenian newspaper Dnevnik, Slatnar said the two Polish athletes had agreed with his company on virtually all points.
Slatnar said Stefan Horngacher, who stepped down as German national team head coach and now works in Poland as a training coordinator, then called and instructed Zyla and Kubacki to forget his skis. “I do not like to name names, but since you mentioned him yourself, I can confirm that it was Horngacher who gave Zyla and Kubacki the instruction to forget our skis,” Slatnar said.
He added: “Maybe he still considers us a fifth-class manufacturer, but in my humble opinion we are at least equal.”
Slatnar’s skis are used by Domen and Nika Prevc and Japan’s Sara Takanashi. Recently, athletes had to switch skis after sponsors BWT and Augment withdrew, and Slatnar had hoped a well-known foreign name would join his company as a result.
Austrian jumper Stefan Kraft, Slatnar said, trained all summer on Slatnar skis and competed in several events with them.
Kraft has since officially confirmed a move to the company Biogena, which primarily produces dietary supplements and is entering the ski jumping equipment business, as several other companies have done before. Biogena has its skis manufactured by Van Deer, and the two companies have agreed on a five-year partnership.
Slatnar said: “Then Biogena came into play, his long-time personal sponsor. Apparently they reached some kind of incentive agreement to persuade him to make this decision.”
Slatnar also said other nations are critical of his equipment. “There were some allegations that our skis bend impermissibly in the air and that the right ski is set differently than the left.
The measurements, however, have shown that everything complies with the rules, but apparently some people want to provoke us,” he said.
Slatnar was previously at the center of an equipment debate after Cene Prevc crashed heavily during the Four Hills Tournament, and he defended his products against often sharp criticism at that time.
