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Dominik Peter is retiring from his career as a ski jumper

Photo: Daniel Karmann / dpa

The Swiss ski jumper Dominik Peter has declared his career over and spoke very openly about eating disorders.

"Sometimes I got the impression that weight was more important than performance and the enjoyment of sport," the 22-year-old told the Swiss daily newspaper "Blick": "I went to bed hungry for years."

Peter also said: “The number on the scale drove me crazy.

Every morning I woke up with fear inside me. The Zurich-born athlete, who won the bronze medal at the 2021 Junior World Championships and took part in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, had recently taken a long break from competition.

Peter noticed the importance of weight in his sport as a teenager.

“I was shocked at how thin they all were,” he said.

His conclusion: "If I want to fly far, I have to be light." Peter reports eating attacks and warning signals from his body: "When I woke up in the morning during the season, my vision was black when I got up."

According to his own statements, Peter is now doing well again.

He reported that he felt comfortable in his body again.

He wants to start training with the police in the fall.

"I've made peace with my body and ski jumping," said Peter.

Eating disorders and weight concerns are widespread

Body weight in ski jumping has been an issue for a long time.

The German ski jumping star Martin Schmitt, for example, had attributed an exhaustion syndrome to the strict diet that a ski jumper had to adhere to.

His colleague Sven Hannawald encountered rumors of anorexia, and in 2004 he went public and talked about his burnout before retiring from competitive sports.

In an ARD documentary from last year, he said about his low weight at the time: “It just had to be that way.

In my case, the topic was the recipe for success." However, if he saw pictures of himself today and didn't know himself, he would probably say: "Look at that guy, he's anorexic."

The ski jumper Maren Lundby sat out a season in 2021/2022 because her body had “changed,” as she said in tears on the TV station NRK.

Lundby stated that she was having difficulty meeting weight requirements and was unwilling to lose weight in an irresponsible manner.

“Ski jumping demands a lot, the weight is part of it,” Lundby said at the time.

In order to protect ski jumpers from anorexia, the world association Fis introduced a rule for the body mass index (BMI) in 2004.

A BMI that is too low, which is calculated from weight and height, leads to a shortening of the ski length and thus a disadvantage.

ast/dpa