Last year, during the Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim, members of Norway’s ski-jumping team were found to have manipulated their suits — adding tiny, hidden stitches to alter aerodynamics and gain extra lift. It was ingenious, even creative. But it was also deceitful. Within days, medals were stripped, coaches suspended, and reputations torn. The rules in place for the 2026 Winter Olympics have even had to be changed.

It’s tempting to distance ourselves from that kind of scandal. But any competitor, in sport or life, knows the pull to bend the truth — the quiet pressure to perform, to justify our worth, to hold our place. That’s why this story matters. It exposes something far deeper than a few altered seams; it exposes the human heart.

The Bible describes that drift as idolatry — exchanging the glory of God for something smaller (Jeremiah 2:11). In sport, that “something smaller” is often performance. When our identity shifts from who we are in Christ to how we perform today, integrity starts to unravel. We stop playing out of freedom and begin performing out of fear.

The Christian athlete’s story begins not with rules but with relationship. Jesus has already secured the only victory that truly matters. That means the follower of Christ never

competes for acceptance, but from it. When you know you’re loved, you’re free — free to play hard without fear, to lose without despair, and to win without arrogance.

But this isn’t just a solo challenge. Discipleship in sport happens in community — in teams, locker rooms, and club cultures. The “hidden stitch” wasn’t one person’s rebellion; it was a shared forgetting of purpose. That’s why Christian coaches, chaplains, and teammates have a calling to build something different: cultures marked by honesty, humility, and grace.

And when failure does come — when our own hidden compromises are uncovered — the gospel still holds. Jesus can unpick even the most tangled threads of deceit, restoring us to live and play for his glory.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.” (Col. 3:23) Because in the end, sport is not just about performance — it’s about who you reflect while you play.

Dr. Graham Daniels

Graham Daniels is the General Director of Christians in Sport and a director of Cambridge United FC. He is an associate staff member at St Andrew the Great church in Cambridge.