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Summary
- 1How ski jumping came into the world
- 2Four milestones on the road to modernity
- 31924: Ski jumping becomes an Olympic sport
- 4Quantum leap thanks to science and ski jumping hills
- 5Four men founded the Four Hills Tournament
- 6Higher, faster, further - and for the first time live on TV!
- 7Professionalisation and diversification of ski jumping
- 8A random product becomes the standard style
- 9Chasing records for ever new distances
- 10Ryōyū Kobayashi flies 291 metres to the world record
One question must be allowed at the beginning: Who comes up with the idea of jumping off a snow-covered ski jump on skis, flying through the air like a bird and - in the best case scenario - landing back on skis a hundred metres further down in the valley?
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01
How ski jumping came into the world
What sounds like an ill-conceived test of courage was started by mountain farmers from the Norwegian province of Telemark in the 18th century. During the snowy winter months, they crossed the surrounding slopes on skis and used small hills for jumps. The enthusiasm for the jumps on these descents grew and eventually led to a completely independent sport - ski jumping.
The first person to record this new phenomenon in writing was the Dutch naval officer Cornelius de Jong. In 1796, he described how soldiers from a Norwegian ski company used the roofs of houses and barns as ski jumps and discovered that the landing pressure could be reduced if it was transferred to the slope. A small but not insignificant discovery on the way to modern ski jumping!
It also made it possible that today, some 230 years later, people like the Japanese ski jumper Ryōyū Kobayashi can fly 291 metres! But more on that later...
02
Four milestones on the road to modernity
Modern ski jumping would not be what it is today without these four formative events in the 19th century:
1809: Lieutenant Olaf Rye jumps the first officially measured ski jump over a self-built snow hill. He reaches a distance of 9.5 metres.
1860: The Norwegian Sondre Norheim breaks the distance record that had stood for 33 years and jumps 30.5 metres, going straight into the history books - at the time still using ski poles to keep his balance during the inrun. Norheim is a real trailblazer: he was also the first athlete to use ski bindings.
1879: The first official ski jumping hill is built in Kristiania, now Oslo, where the Huseby Hill Race is held every year from then on. 1892: The race moves to the famous Holmenkollen.
1883: Torju Torjussen discovers the telemark landing, which is still regarded as the best way to successfully land a jump on a slope.
03
1924: Ski jumping becomes an Olympic sport
With the founding of the first ski clubs and schools in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at the end of the 18th century, ski jumping also reaches Central Europe. Sondre Norheim, the record breaker of 1860, had long since emigrated to the USA in order to get the masses interested in his sport with ski jumps in the circus. Norheim is probably also the reason why many technical developments in ski jumping originated in the USA.
Ski jumping has been one of the Olympic disciplines since 1924, i.e. since the start of the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix. The same year also saw the start of the long tradition of the Nordic World Ski Championships, which were held annually until the beginning of the Second World War.
The appearance of the legendary British ski jumper Michael Edwards, a.k.a. "Eddie The Eagle", who took part in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary against all odds, came last and yet returned as an absolute crowd favourite and national hero, is unforgettable. An incredible story that was even made into a film in 2016.
The last best German at the Winter Olympics was Andreas Wellinger, who sensationally won gold in the individual normal hill event in 2018!
04
Quantum leap thanks to science and ski jumping hills
In the middle of the 19th century, the growing interest in ski jumping increasingly attracted the attention of scientists. It tried to revolutionise jumping and flying - and succeeded. When simulating airflow conditions in the air, it became clear that putting the arms forward during the jump had aerodynamic advantages over the traditional style of jumping, in which the athletes stretched their arms forwards during the take-off and moved them in a circle in the air. The new style, in which the arms were raised, was given the name "Däscher style", named after the Swiss ski jumper Andreas Däscher.
The first person to use the new knowledge (and the new jumps) to break the previously magical 100 metre mark was Sepp Bradl. The Austrian outdid all his competitors in Planica, Slovenia, where the first ski flying hill had been built, and became the first person to fly over the 100 metre mark.
The first plastic covered ski jumps were built in the early 1950s to enable ski jumping to be developed and trained in the summer. The spiritual father of the new plastic covering - which consisted of industrially manufactured plastic sheets that were cut into strings and then bundled back into mats - was the former GDR coach Hans Renner. Another real milestone, considering that jumps covered with coconut matting had already been tried out at the Busch circus in 1905, and later experiments were also carried out with pine needles, almond shells and all kinds of snow substitutes. All without success. Then came the matting ski jump, which is still in use today!
Since the summer of 1994, the FIS Grand Prix of specialised ski jumpers has been held every year on the world's plastic covered hills. A welcome change for all athletes and fans of ski jumping. However, the plastic covered hills are essential for young ski jumpers and professional athletes in particular to be able to train all year round.
05
Four men founded the Four Hills Tournament
Four visionary men laid the foundations for the Four Hills Tournament in 1951: Xaver Kaiser from Oberstdorf, Franz Rappenglück from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Emmerich Pepeunig from Innsbruck and Andi Mischnitz from Bischofshofen jointly founded one of the most traditional and popular sporting events in Europe to this day, with only one thing in focus - ski jumping!
In 1953, the Four Hills Tournament celebrates its premiere and the Austrian high-flyer Sepp Bradl is crowned the first overall winner of the tour in history. At the 50th anniversary of the Four Hills Tournament in 2001/2002, the German Sven Hannawald becomes the first and so far only ski jumper to win all four individual events of the tour.
06
Higher, faster, further - and for the first time live on TV!
In the 1950s, ski jumping experienced a real boom, also thanks to the introduction of the Four Hills Tournament. ARD broadcast the New Year's ski jumping competition live from Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the first time on 1 January 1956. Technical developments also continue to advance ski jumping. Since 1962, for example, computers have been used to measure distances.
New media coverage and technical progress meant that ski jumpers from 19 countries were already competing in the 1980 Four Hills Tournament - a record. In the 1990/91 season, it was finally decided to introduce a qualification in order to limit the number of participants in the actual competition and thus give the Four Hills Tournament a manageable time frame.
07
Professionalisation and diversification of ski jumping
The unstoppable growth and increasing enthusiasm for ski jumping led to a differentiation of the actual sport at the beginning of the 1970s. The first sport to be introduced in addition to conventional ski jumping was ski flying. The biggest difference: while ski jumping involves jumping off the hill at around 90 km/h, the slightly larger flying hill allows you to reach speeds of 105 km/h and more. This allows greater distances and provides even more spectacle.
The milestones in the diversification of ski jumping at a glance:
1972: The first Ski Flying World Championships are held on the first and only ski flying hill to date in Planica, Slovenia.
1980: Introduction of an annual international ski jumping World Cup. The first winner of a World Cup competition is the Austrian Toni Innauer, the first overall winner is his compatriot Hubert Neuper.
1982: The team competition is included in the programme of the Nordic World Ski Championships. In 1988, the team competition also becomes an Olympic event.
1983: The official and still valid distinction between normal hills, large hills and flying hills is established.
1993: The Continental Cup is founded as a kind of "second league" of ski jumping.
08
A random product becomes the standard style
In ski jumping, every technical innovation to date has also changed the athletes' jumping style to some extent. At first, the ski poles were omitted, later the arms were no longer pulled forwards in flight, but stretched out next to the body. One of the most recent innovations was the emergence of the V-style.
During one of his training jumps, the Swede Jan Boklöv discovered rather by chance that a better lift and therefore greater distances could be achieved if the skis were shaped into a "V" in the air. While Boklöv initially received significant deductions from the judges for his then still unusual flying style, the V-style quickly established itself as the new standard after Boklöv won the overall World Cup in 1988/89.
09
Chasing records for ever new distances
What the Austrian Sepp Bradl started in 1936 with his flight over 100 metres in Planica has since become perhaps the last great challenge for the best ski jumpers in the world: The hunt for new record distances.
On 17 March 1994, also in Planica, Slovenia, the Austrian Andreas Goldberger was the first to fly over the magical 200 metre mark. As "Goldi" was unable to stop his jump, Finland's Toni Nieminen's 203 metre flight on the same day is officially the first flight over the 200 metre mark. Cracking this mark.
The 239-metre jump by Norwegian Bjoern Einar Romoeren in 2005 was one of the longest standing, but it was not until the conversion of the Vikersundbakken in Vikersund, Norway, into the world's largest ski jumping hill in 2010 that new records were set. On 18 March 2017, Austrian Stefan Kraft set a new world record of 253.5 metres on this very "Monsterbakken".
10
Ryōyū Kobayashi flies 291 metres to the world record
Since then, only Japan's Ryōyū Kobayashi has managed to beat Kraft. He flew an incredible 291 metres on 24 April 2024 in Akureyri, Iceland. However, Kobayashi's jump is out of competition, as his distance was not achieved during a competition on an official ski flying hill, but on a 300-metre hill built temporarily by RedBull especially for this world record.
Ryōyū's jump is another giant leap that has been made for us, for the sport and for flying.
Andreas Wellinger
This in no way makes Kobayashi's record jump any less impressive. The fact is: the development that ski jumping has undergone since Olaf Rye's first official 9.5 metre jump in 1809 is at least as dizzying as what ski jumpers like Ryōyū Kobayashi or Andi Wellinger are conjuring up in the sky these days.
Find out more about Andreas Wellinger here!
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