October 14, 2025
They’re stretching the sky again down in Planica, where the engineers carry longer rulers and even longer dreams. The government signed off on a tidy €2.69 million to make Letalnica a little more “let’s see how far you can go,” with whispers that 270 meters might soon be a polite opening bid. Domen Prevc’s 254.5 m is still framed on the mantel, and Ryoyu Kobayashi’s Icelandic 291 lives in the family album marked “unofficial but oh my.” If you like your physics audacious and your horizons adjustable, the plans are right here in Planica to be modernized: Letalnica ski flying hill approved for upgrades enabling jumps up to 270 meters (/ski-jumping/planica-letalnica-upgrade-to-allow-270-meter-ski-flying/), with companion dispatches in Planica ski flying hill to be rebuilt to enable new world record attempts (/ski-jumping/planica-ski-flying-hill-rebuild-aims-for-world-record/) and Planica to extend ski flying hill to enable 270 m jumps and a new world record (/ski-jumping/planica-to-extend-ski-flying-hill-targeting-270m-world-record/).
Meanwhile, life comes at you fast, even on a K-point. Austria’s Stefan Kraft is tuning two kinds of timing: the take-off on the inrun, and the “we gotta go, the baby’s coming” dash to the hospital. With a due date of December 2, he’s sketching a season with a strategic gap—maybe skipping Ruka or the Poland-Germany swing—and aiming to pop back in by Engelberg. After all, the Four Hills is special, but the first lullaby is non-negotiable. Catch the itinerary gymnastics in “I want to be there”: Stefan Kraft fine-tunes baby plan amid season scheduling (/ski-jumping/stefan-kraft-baby-plans-ruka-wisla-klingenthal-engelberg-2025-26/).
Cross-country brought us two reminders that plans are fragile things. First, Flora Dolci took what was supposed to be one last autumn paraglide and landed on the hard page of the calendar: fractured vertebra, surgery, and Milan–Cortina off the table. The good news: she’s walking, the doctors are cautiously upbeat, and the team will keep a place by the wax bench warm. Read the hard turn and the hopeful return in Flora Dolci undergoes surgery for fractured vertebra, out of Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympics (/cross-country-skiing/flora-dolci-vertebra-fracture-surgery-out-of-milan-cortina-2026/).
And then there’s Helene Marie Fossesholm, 24 and brave enough to say “that’s enough” just before the Olympic season. Teammates cried a little, Norway gasped a lot, and she smiled toward medical school. In the same breath, she warned Sweden not to get too comfortable—Norway’s next wave is coming with receipts. Her farewell and friendly warning echo in At just 24: Norwegian world champion Helene Marie Fossesholm retires (/cross-country-skiing/helene-marie-fossesholm-retires-at-24-norway-cross-country-shock/) and Cross-country skiing: Helene Marie Fossesholm warns that a revenge-hungry Norway will challenge Sweden (/cross-country-skiing/fossesholm-warns-revenge-hungry-norway-will-challenge-sweden-cross-country/).
Elsewhere on the policy slopes, the big FIS “sex testing across all disciplines” announcement stumbled over its own shoelaces and asked for a do-over. Turns out there’s a direction, not a finished policy, and the council calendar is doing that Nordic shuffle: meeting October 21, then… spring. In the meantime, athletes will train, lawyers will highlight clauses, and everyone will pretend to like PowerPoint. Details here: Cross-country skiing: FIS backtracks on announced sex testing policy (/cross-country-skiing/fis-backtracks-on-sex-testing-policy-cross-country-skiing-svt-sport/).
Finally, some TV serenity in a jump-mad nation: Poland’s public broadcaster TVP will show Poland-hosted World Cup rounds for the next five seasons, right alongside TVN/Eurosport. Twice the channels, twice the grandmas critiquing telemarks from the couch. See the fine print in Urgent TVP announcement about broadcasting ski jumping in Poland (/ski-jumping/tvp-to-broadcast-poland-hosted-ski-jumping-world-cup-events-for-next-five-seasons/).
Some weeks the sport is about pushing the hill a little farther down the valley and trusting the wind to be kind. Some weeks it’s about babies arriving, backs healing, and hearts choosing a new path. Either way, the wax cools, the flags flap, and somewhere in Slovenia an engineer is sharpening a pencil and whispering, “Two-seventy, then lunch.”