Myth #1 Debunked

One of several excuses as to why ski jumping has died in the United States that I have heard over the past five years has been quite simple:

 

"Mother Nature killed the sport of ski jumping".

 

I haven't heard it as much as some of the other lame excuses that I have heard, but I've heard it enough.  While I do realize that the warmer winters have put a damper on the sport over the past 20-30 years, it hasn't even come close to killing it.  I was out to Norge, a few years ago, right at the end of the winter season, the day after Presidents Day to be exact.  I was totally startled when I heard them talking about it being the end of the season.  My thought was, a five week long season.  Boy am I ever glad I waited until I moved to New Hampshire five years ago before I got into ski jumping.  I used to live about five hours from Norge, in northwest Ohio.  I'm not sure I could have handled the thought of only having five weeks to be able to ski jump during the winter months.

 

Well, I see things very differently.  I guess you could say I totally disagree with everyone on this issue.  To be able to go out and jump 100 consectutive months and 52 consectutive weeks like has happened at Storrs Hill Ski Area in Lebanon, New Hampshire, makes you stop and ask the question, "How did Mother Nature kill ski jumping?"

 

Mother Nature didn't do anything to hurt this sport.  At least, Mother Nature didn't do anything that man didn't allow her do.  I have seen the picture and heard the stories about chopping up ice for the 4th of July meet at Lake Placid, New York each year.  Granted now it is all done with plastic and porcelain.  Back in the old days when the jumpers wanted to jump they did so.  They didn't sit back and cry and whine and complain about it.  They would go out at the first sign of snow, even a light dusting and hit the jump.  We have been doing it here over the past two weeks now in Lebanon.  Heck we are old timers.  Dan is around 47 and I'm 32.  We know how to go out and have a good time.  We don't let Mother Nature stop us from jumping.

 

This past spring in Lebanon we jumped the 25 meter jump every week.  I think the longest time period we had between days of jumping was nine days.  We even ended up, as I like to call it, mud season jumping.  Mud season jumping is very appropriately named if you were to see what both of us looked like after we finished jumping.

 

The only snow on the inrun was in the transition, the rest of the inrun was plastic.  I'm not sure if we could have pulled it off if it would have been a porcelain track.  It would have required both running water, the pipes were still frozen at this point, and also would have required the track to have been cleaned out which I'm not sure if we would have been able to do or not.  I don't know how much of the bottom part of the snow was snow and how much of it was ice.  As it was we drug some of the snow from the transition up to the top and down to the takeoff to give us enough moisture to keep up from sticking to the plastic.

 

The landing hill was a complete mix of melting snow and plastic.  Patches of snow dotted the landing hill clear down to the transition.  The moisture from the melting snow kept the plastic nice and moist to keep us from sticking to the plastic anywhere on the landing hill.

 

The transition to the original fall line was completely snow.  The first 20 feet beyond the fall line was sawdust/hay, then another 20 feet of snow before turning back into grass that went on out to the end of the outrun.  Right as the snow turned back into grass the last time there was a real nice 5-6 foot long stretch of mud, right where the fall line wants to take a jumper.  We laid some hay down over top the standing water back at the fall line and gave took a landing hill ride.  IT seemed quite safe to us so we went ahead and jumped it.  We each ended up taking at least eight jumps that day.

 

Everything with the jump was fine.  The only problem came from the abrupt stop at the end.  We still had a lot of speed when we reached the end of the outrun and to avoid going over the bank and out into the parking lot we would lay over on our sides and slide.  I did find out that you could drag your hands forceably once you got onto the sawdust and manage to slow yourself down enough so you could end up stopping without having to lay it over.  We also have managed to learn over this past summer that you can do a hockey stop on very wet grass.  It has to be really wet though.

 

From what I have seen of this sport since I started ski jumping back in January 2001, I tend not to believe the old myth about Mother Nature killing ski jumping.  I have seen differently and I've come to realize that this fallacy is just that an old myth.

 

Until next time

Keep your ski tips up,

Crash