Myth #2 Debunked, Part 3

Yesterday I talked about how the TV program New Hampshire Chronicle took a different view of the fall foliage here around the Granite state by sending one of the their reporters skydiving.  After that filming was complete, by at least four months and maybe more than a year later, they decided to turn the cameras to ski jumping.  Would they jump???

 

They spent the first part of President's Day Weekend at Harris Hill in Brattleboro, Vermont taping a nice segment on the sport of ski jumping during the annual Harris Hill Ski Jumping tournament.  They interviewed several of the jumpers as well as some of the parents and organizers.  A real nice segment for the show.

 

On Monday, President's Day, they stopped in to Oak Hill in Hanover, New Hampshire to film the opening and closing segments for show.  To explain a little better what I mean, they typically will stop into an event or area and spend "the week" there.  They take 3-4 hours to film all their introductions to the different segments that are going to be showing throughout the week.  The week during which they showed the segment from Harris Hill they did their filming at Oak Hill.

 

During the opening/closing segments they showed the kids jumping off the K32, doing imo's, using the buggle, etc.  All the time they are teasing you as to whether they are actually going to put on the skis and jump.  I could pretty much tell what the answer was going to be starting Monday night.  Their was a different female co-host for the program by the time the did the filming at Oak Hill.

 

Below is the closing segment from the Fridays show:

 

Tiffany: Tom, I think I'm ready to give it a whirl, what do you think.

Tom: I'm ready(looking behind him to see the jumper landing) OH, I don't know if I'm ready to give it a whirl or not.

Tiffany: They make it look so easy.

Tom: It's a little bit to airborne for my style.  I asked them whether you could start learning to jump in your 30s...40s...or 50s

Tiffany: And they said yes, absolutely.

Tom: But you know what, I think I'm going to stay on terra firma

Tiffany: Okay, terra firma does sound pretty good, but these kids are definitely amazing.

 

So the real question today is this, and I will expand on this more in a couple of days:

 

Why all the negative media publicity on the sport of ski jumping?  You may not call it negative publicity, but I do.  I will continue to expand on why I think this is VERY negative publicity for the sport as this series progresses.

 

Tomorrow I'll pull skydiving back out once again and ask the BIG question.  Yes, tomorrow I shall reveal myth #2.

 

Until next time

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash

Jumping Journal: January 03, 2006

Definitely not a pretty night.  It's been a long time since I have had a feeling like I had tonight.  It was one of those 'oh well', emotionless, kind of feelings. 

 

I headed up for the first jump and it ended up being the last as well.  I put on the skis and moved into the track.  I had this strange feeling, one of the jump didn't feel right.

 

I started down the inrun, everything was fine.  I jumped at the takeoff, everything was fine.  I flew past the 30 meter mark, still with some height above the landing hill.  I landed, definitely a nice long jump.  I didn't really notice where I landed, quite often I notice out of the corner of my eye where I land.

 

I start down the remaining part of the landing hill.  I get to the transition, well...as usual I go down.  I go down hard.  As I write this three hours later I'm still feeling it in my tailbone.

 

As I go sliding, both skis pop off.  I see the one taking a nice turn and heading straight for the brook.  I didn't even see where the other ski went.  I knew before I even got up that I wasn't going to take another jump.  I shouldn't have taken the first one, and I knew it.

 

After 5-10 minutes of searching for the ski, in the brook, and not finding it I gave up and changed clothes.  I went into the lodge and grabbed a flashlight, I knew I wasn't going to find it without a flashlight.  I headed back to the bridge and went down underneath and quickly found the ski, black side facing up, in the brook, lodged between two rocks.

 

Something definitely is starting to give me a real strange feeling.  A feeling that worries me to say the least.  Time shall tell what happens, but I have been through this before.  I'm real glad I didn't take a second jump tonight.

 

Crash