FSOM: Winter Olympics’ ‘Penisgate’ is eye-watering – who decided that injecting male privates with hyaluronic acid is a good idea!

OUCH!

That’s the only word you could use in reaction to the latest attempt by athletes to gain that important micro-edge to enhance their performance. 

Feel free to wince, grit your teeth or bite the carpet as FSOM tells the tale of the lengths – or girth in this instance – athletes will go to.

German magazine Bild reported that male ski-jumpers are injecting their, ahem! – penises to try and gain an advantage.

FSOM has previously related how athletes have always pushed the envelope and walked a gossamer-thin tightrope to gain an advantage, dating back to ancient Greek athletes snarfing bulls gonads and quaffing cocktails of goats pee and dandelion and burdock to win a laurel wreath around their head.

But sticking a hypodermic syringe into your little German Soldier is a whole new level of dedication to your sport.

Warning! In addition to the prospect of making our male readers wince, this piece will also contain juvenile and inane puns.

The logic behind this eye-watering innovation is all about injecting hyaluronic acid into the ‘Old Man’ and is tightly connected with ski-jumping suits.

FSOM’s knowledge of hyaluronic acid was strictly limited to it being mentioned in dispatches in TV ads for some skin product advertised by Eva Longoria: probably because she is worth it.

Hyaluronic acid occurs naturally in the body and is a binding sugar molecule found in skin, joints and the eyes (not necessarily, though, the urethra).

Cosmetic companies love it because of its anti-aging qualities, but it is also used to help post-surgery wounds to heal faster and to lubricate joints.

One of the chief sources in the manufacture of hyaluronic acid are coxcombs, the red sticky-up bit on the head of a cock (FSOM did warn about the dodgy, ribald jokes).

But how would the benefit of a smoother, younger looking, wrinkle-free penis work in ski-jumping?

Well, as hinted at earlier, it’s all to do with ski suits.

Ski-jumping kit has come a long way from that worn in the early days of a sport that developed in the fjords of Norway when the threads consisted of a polar neck woolly pully in a natty Fair Isle knit pattern, probably involving abstract snowflakes and pine trees, topping off a pair of trews tucked into the boots to stop them flapping about in the only concessions to aerodynamics.

But such is man’s ingenuity and desire to forge that vital edge, that the ski-jump suit has developed, through tighter-fitting, smoother one-piece, zip-up numbers, to today’s suit which, thanks to the appliance of science, fits like a coat of Dulux Silk Gloss paint.

The specification for ski-jumping suits is strictly controlled by the International Ski Federation (FIS). Materials include elastic membrane and for a sport which ostensibly involves a competitor jumping off a cliff-edge, the rules and conditions regarding equipment run to the same length as the specifications for Formula One cars.

A suit’s thickness must be between 4-6mm and must confirm to the athlete’s body shape in an upright position. There is a maximum tolerance of 2cm to the body size at any part of the suit with the exception of the sleeve length and the crotch where the maximum tolerance is 4cm, about an inch and a half in English money.

And it’s for a similar reason, it’s all about controlling attempts (or innovations, if you prefer) to control the surface area of the suit which in turn increases the jumper’s ability to soar through the air.

Of course, it’s try to ensure as level a playing field as possible, easing back those teams with the financial clout and scientific and technological know-how to create space age suits, from those poorer nations whose athletes compete in suits made from old cycling shorts and knocked up on their nan’s sewing machine.

Back in August 2025 two Norwegian jumpers, Marius Lundvik and Johann Andre Forfang were banned for three months for tampering with their suits and although the athletes claimed they were not aware of the jiggery-pokery, the FIS claimed the Norwegian team made their suits… er… erm… stiffer, adding surface area to the suit, and enabling the jumper to fly further.

Suit fittings are carried out under controlled conditions and suits should conform to the athlete’s body shape, as FIS ski-jumping men’s race director Sandro Pertile said: ‘Every extra centimetre on a suit counts, If your suit has five per cent bigger surface area, you fly further.’

Some bright spark realised that one area where the suit could be made bigger than it should be is in the junk so what better way to increase the suits surface than to increase the size of his trouser snake at the time is measured and fitted?

The idea is that the more well-endowed ski-jumper will fly further.

Hence, athletes started jabbing their ‘Old Man’ with hyaluronic acid to increase their penile dimensions to provide those extra few centimetres.

Being a naturally produced product, hyaluronic acid is not a banned substance, so athletes would love it for that as they could jab away to their heart’s content and nor fall foul of WADA’s testing.

If all this sounds like madness, you need to remember that we are talking about ski-jumpers here and you would expect nothing less from sportsmen and women who get their jollies by launching themselves off the alpine equivalent of Beachy Head, aiming to glide at least 100 metres and then hope to lower the undercarriage swiftly enough to land softly.

But it does raise a question or two, not least of which is who the hell thought of this?

Was it an insomniac coach who failing to count enough mountain goats to nod off and journey to the Land of Nod, lay staring at the ceiling and considered how to increase a ski-jump suits surface area. What were the thought processes which led him to consider increasing the size of a man’s package?

And rather than think about stuffing a sock down there when being measured, came up with a more subtle means. And how on earth did he make the quantum leap to increasing the size of a chap’s pride and joy by jabbing in a substance that Longoria uses to smooth out the wrinkles on her brow and the crow’s feet around her eyes? 

Having decided to jab his his joystick, does he do it himself or place the matter in the tender hands of a health professional? Either way it’s an eye-watering prospect.

After being considered too dangerous for women to compete, ski-jumping is now a fully-mixed sport, with female fliers proving they are as fearless fruit loops as men.

But how long will it be before women start tinkering with their togs to gain an advantage?

FSOM is not qualified enough in aerodynamics and drag co-efficiency to know whether the most efficient female shape is that of a slim, elfin figure or a competitor with an upper half like a dead heat in a Zeppelin race. Will WADA and the FIS have to start testing for boob-jobs?

Competitors have been quick to distance themselves from suspicion of penile jabbing, but who is to know?

Ironically, the only disqualification from the Milano-Cortina games to date is Ukrainian skeleton slider Vladyslav Heraskevych. In a feeble attempt to work in one last cheap joke, he was slung out because his protective headgear depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia breached the IOC’s rules on political statements.

Yes, he was thrown out for having an offensive helmet.