Myth #1(Mother Nature killed the sport of ski jumping) Debunked

Myth #2(NCAA killed the sport of ski jumping) Debunked Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Myth #3(The US doesn't have the talent) Debunked Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Mind Of A Ski Jumper Part 1, 2, 3, 4

The Ultimate Coach - Ski Jump Training Device

Jumping Season Digest: (see bottom of this page)

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Jumping Journal: January 03, 2007

Weird Wednesday.  Yep, today was one of the weirdest Wednesday I've had since I started jumping.  It was not like a normal beginning of the calendar year Wednesday by any means.  A normal Wednesday this time of the year consists of grabbing 3 jumps or so before watching the high school meet.  Heck, if I get talked into it I might even end up forejumping the meet.  I did get suckered into it once last year.
 
Today was very different.  The two meets were schedule for the 18 meter jumps at Hanover and Andover.  Hanover had to cancel due to no snow.  Andover has a ton of snow, somehow???  Talk about a nice job at snowing a hill.  I still can't figure out how they have managed to pull it off.  Since the Lebanon high school, coached by the Cannonball, was schedule to jump at Hanover they had the day off.  Cannonball made mention last night about jumping this afternoon and getting some daylight jumping in.  I said sure why not.  I didn't know for sure if the Andover meet would be held or not.  I had heard last week that they were jumping there though over Christmas.
 
By mid morning I had started thinking about the crazy idea of jumping the 50 at Lebanon and then missing the exit on the interstate that would get me home and instead heading onto Andover to watch the meet later in the evening.  Turns out that is pretty much what ended up happening.
 
I arrived at Storrs Hill a few minutes after 3PM and suited up with the Cannonball.  The two of us headed up the jump and started jumping.  My first jump started pretty much where last night left off.  I was still getting down toward the 38-40 meter mark.  I was questioning if I was late or not on the jump.  I did end up falling back onto my hands right around the transition.  I think I let my head drop on the landing and I tried to counteract it and ended up overreacting.  I kept sliding on my hand and tried to put the skis into a snowplow to slow down and stop.  I saw it wasn't going to work so I finally gave up and just laid it over before I hit the end of the outrun.
 
The second jump was better in terms of the stopping but I was still letting the head drop and was getting pulled forward as I was going through the transition.  On both the second and third jumps I tend to think I was a little on late side and I believe it was the third jump that was probably the shortest jump of the night.  It was still down below 35 meters though.
 
On the third jump I ended up going down right at the very end of the outrun.  It turns out my left ski had the toe plate coming loose so the boot wasn't fitting in underneath the catches like it should.  I am still using the old time tele style bindings versus the newer Silveretta style binding.  The binding in particular that I'm using I think may not have enough length to the toe plate pieces and that is what is causing the problems.  I ended up before jump four kicking the piece back over and that seemed to help for the rest of the day.  I'm going to have to tighten things back up before jumping tomorrow night.
 
Jumps four through eight was all going pretty well, not much power at the takeoff, but the timing was pretty decent and I was managing on a few jumps to get the hands away from the butt.  It does seem like I really notice a difference in the balance in the air when I do get the hands away from the butt while in flight.  It does make for a much more stable platform in the air.
 
Jump six did bring about one nice feature, it was the 100th jump of the winter.  Two days ahead of last year even though I several fewer days of jumping so far this year.  Jump number brought about another crazy idea, jump 102.  What makes that interesting is that I only had 204 jumps last year on the 50, I have half that many already this year, and it's only January 3rd.
 
On jump nine I cut loose and finally got some decent power at the takeoff and made it down to at least 40, it may have been a little further.  It was definitely in the top three of all time and probably closer to the best of all time thus far.  Jump ten I had even more power but I ended up short and the only reason I could figure was jumping late.  Cannonball concurred that I was correct in my thought.  I headed up for one final jump of the late afternoon and put everything together quite nicely and ended up with yet another jump down in the 40 meter range.
 
After changing back into street clothes and doing some talking with Cannonball and Matt I left and made my way on over to Andover to spend the evening watching the first high school meet of the season.  It was strange seeing how good the conditions on the hills(jumping and alpine) were.  They have did a fantastic job making snow this season, given the crappy weather that we have had so far.  It was quite unusual seeing people jump off such a small hill, LOL!!! I guess I've been spending too much time around K50s-K90s over the past three weeks.  It was good to get around the kids and the coaches that I have gotten to know over the last six winters.  The high school season only runs from the first Wednesday(non New Years Day) until mid February.  There are quite a few of the guys I only see five or six times a year and it is always a joy to get around them.
 
Crash
Winter 2010
DateLeb 25Plymouth 25Leb 50And 38
Dec 121
Jan 056
Jan 063
Feb 024
Feb 032
Feb 046
Feb 073
Mar 063
Totals133102