Stop of work in Poland

Problems with ski jump constructions at Wisła and Szczyrk:

As a result of the ski jumping boom after the success of mainly Adam Małysz, Poland started to improve and enlarge its ski jumping infrastructure. But meanwhile the ambitious projects at Wisła and Szczyrk, where the Nordic Junior World Championships will be hosted next winter, are stumbling seriously.

Already in April 2006 the conversion works on Malinka at Adam Małysz’ hometown Wisła into a new 120 meter large ski jumping hill has started. Until August 2006 the construction project of a new ski jumping hill, whose highlight is a street underpass below the new spectator stand and multifunctional building, was running quiet well, but then a landslide on the landing hill destroyed the attachment of the plastic mattings.

Thereby it seems that already a fault in the planning phase was made, since the slope was suspected to consist of monolithic rock, although the whole Beskids area mainly consisting of slate! Now at least it was checked which repairing was to be done, but these works weren’t started yet and at the moment only efforts in the lower area of the ski jump are made.

Due to the geological circumstances possibly also the planned spectator stands along the landing hill won’t be built. Additionally, the outrun seems to be calculated as tto short and then some stands on the artificial slope on the opposite site would have to be erased. Thus it is questionable if the jumping facility will be able to host the expected larger ski jumping events after the completing, but this date seems still to be written in the stars.

In neighbouring town Szczyrk the modernization and enlargement of existing Skalite-K85 into a K95 is running very slowly, too. Actually, the projecting of the new ski jumping facility should have been done until 2006 and the works should have started in spring this year, but then only in the end of May the planning and building permissions and other formalities were applied for. Then in July the Polish minister of sports had to retire due to corruption reproaches and first all payments for the construction of sports facilities were stopped.

Investigation: Ewa Ulińska

Photos: malinka.wisla.pl (Wisla)

Artur Bała (Szczyrk)

Now everything is prepared and at least the soil works could start, the old ski jump was already completely removed and only the announcement of the new lift still makes some problems. The construction of two new youth ski jumping hill, which are urgently necessary for the young jumpers, was already completely rescheduled until 2008. A fast start of the works is immediately necessary, since the new ski jump needs to be completed until January, in order to host the Nordic Junior World Championships in the Beskids-Region Szczyrk-Wisła-Istebna in February 2008.

Szczyrk (Skalite) Wisła (Malinka)

www.beskidy2008.pl malinka.wisla.pl

Recent status of works on Malinka in July 2007:

The Skalite in July 2007:

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