Janez Gorišek

Janez Gorišek was a Slovenian civil engineer, architect, and ski jumper. Gorišek began ski jumping when he was eight, eventually going on to compete for the Yugoslav national team. In 1953 and 1957 he was the student world champion. In between his two student titles he competed at the 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Olympics, finishing in a disappointing 50th place.

Gorišek then gave up on his sporting career and graduated from the University of Ljubljana with a degree in civil engineering in 1961. Along with his brother Vlado they began to design and build ski jumps. In the late 1960s the two brothers constructed the famous Letalnica bratov Gorišek (“Flying hill of Gorišek brothers”) ski flying hill in in Planica, Slovenia, which saw multiple world records set in the discipline.

In the early 1980s the brothers began work on the Malo Polje ski jump on the mountain of Igman, a few miles south of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The ski jump was completed and opened in 1983 ready for use at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics. After the Olympics the venue became a local tourist hotspot with an increase in recreational skiing. The area became a key strategic point during the Siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s, however, with the venue now mostly destroyed. In 2010 Gorišek and his son Sebastjan renovated and enlarged the Vikersundbakken ski flying hill in Vikersund, Norway. The site has hosted multiple World Ski Flying Championships, with several world records being set there.