Viktoria Hansova, the 2024 junior world skeleton champion, faces an absurd paradox: at 1.78 meters tall and weighing 70 kg, she is considered "too heavy" for her sport. Due to a strict regulation that limits the total weight of the athlete and sled to 102 kg, her Olympic future is jeopardized. In a poignant testimony, the German athlete denounces a rule that pushes female athletes into dangerous behavior and calls for urgent reform.
A rule that penalizes "normal" body types
Women's skeleton—one of the oldest winter sports—imposes a maximum combined weight of 102 kg, including 38 kg for the luge. This constraint puts Viktoria Hansova in an untenable position: with her height and natural muscle mass, she often exceeds this limit. In Lillehammer, Norway, during the qualifying rounds, she weighed 106 kg, 4 kg over the limit. The result: intensive weight-loss sessions and a battle against her own body.
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When performance becomes suffering
To reach the permitted weight, the young athlete subjected herself to extreme practices. She recounts running at 4 a.m. on an empty stomach, taking scalding showers, and reducing her food intake to almost nothing. "I was trembling, completely drained," she confides, describing a spiral of absurd thoughts: calculating the weight of her bra, considering cutting her hair, all for a few grams less. Physically and psychologically exhausted, Viktoria Hansova was unable to perform, a victim of a system that prioritizes the scale over health.
A call for reform
Beyond her own experience, Viktoria Hansova denounces a structural inequality. Taller or more athletic women are disadvantaged by an arbitrary number. "You end up constantly thinking about your weight," she laments in Welt am Sonntag , even mentioning the stress of drinking between heats for fear of exceeding the limit. She argues for an adjustment of the rules to take height or BMI into account, so that the competition remains fair and healthy.
Ultimately, Viktoria Hansova's story highlights the flaws in a sports system where pure performance takes precedence over physical and mental well-being. By publicly denouncing these practices, the young German woman has opened a crucial debate on athletes' health and the urgent need to adapt regulations to the diversity of bodies.
