Dominant Double in Switzerland
China's Zeng Ping won both women's Intercontinental Cup events at the Einsiedeln HS117 hill in Switzerland on September 12 and 13, delivering the most convincing start to a summer ICC season by any Chinese ski jumper on record. On Saturday she posted jumps of 111 and 111.5 metres to take the opening competition by a comfortable margin. She returned the following morning and backed it up with distances of 109 and 110.5 metres for a second straight win. In Sunday's final, Slovakia's Kira Maria Kapustikova took second with jumps of 103.5 and 110.5 metres, and Slovenia's Maja Kovacic was third at 107.5 and 99.5 metres. The result confirmed that Zeng's late-summer form is carrying over cleanly from the previous World Cup season into the new one.
History Rewritten in 2025-26
The Einsiedeln sweep arrives on the back of a 2025-26 winter campaign that permanently shifted expectations for Chinese ski jumping. Zeng, born January 1, 2005, spent two seasons competing exclusively on the Intercontinental Cup before earning a full World Cup schedule — a deliberate development path that kept her protected from results pressure while she refined her technique. When she finally arrived on the World Cup stage this past winter, the impact was immediate.
At Garmisch-Partenkirchen in early January 2026, Zeng finished sixth — at that moment the best World Cup result ever recorded by any Chinese ski jumper, male or female. Then, just days later in Oberstdorf, she climbed onto the podium in second place, becoming the first Chinese athlete in history to stand on a World Cup stage in the discipline. Those two results alone triggered a reassessment of China's position in women's ski jumping. Heading into Einsiedeln, the question was whether the World Cup breakthrough had been a peak moment or a floor. The weekend's performances suggest the latter.
Context: China's Ski Jumping Investment
China accelerated its ski jumping programme significantly after Beijing 2022, where the sport attracted attention on home soil for the first time at a mass-audience level. Zeng is the clearest competitive return on that investment to date. She is technically polished, reaches competitive distances consistently, and has demonstrated she can handle the pressure of elite-level competition rather than just posting numbers on the development circuit. Her September form at Einsiedeln — where conditions and jump quality both hold meaning as the winter season approaches — adds weight to that assessment.
What the Winter Season Will Demand
The Intercontinental Cup is the last sustained competitive activity before the winter World Cup calendar begins in late November or early December. Zeng's double win positions her as one of the athletes to watch when the main circuit resumes, though converting summer form to World Cup results under full-field competition is never automatic. She will need to defend and extend the sixth-place and silver-medal benchmarks she set in January if she is to establish herself as a permanent fixture on the top tier. The next scheduled major competition in her discipline will confirm the direction.