I would like to write some words and to draw your attention to one of the wintersports – a discipline, where you spend most of time.... flying in the air. I am going to write about ski jumping
and to sum up the last winter season.
As always the ski jumping season starts at the end of November. On the 26th of November we were ready to watch the first jumps on the snow in the winter scenery in Kuusamo, Finland.
The main competition is always preceded by qualifications so the official date of the start of that season was the 27th of November. The first event was the team competition, in which four jumpers are selected for each country and victory belonged to the Austrian ski jumpers – Thomas Morgenstern, Gregor Schlierenzauer, Andreas Kofler and Martin Koch.
All the initial competitions - from end of November to the beginning of December always take place in Skandinavia, mostly in Finland or Norway because of the guaranteed weather conditions. Not everywhere is the climate good enough to organise competitions in this kind of sport.
The second competition took place in Lillehammer on the Lysgardsbakken (the name of the ski jumping hill )during the first weekend of December. The first competition of that weekend was won by a young Austrian skijumper Gregor Schlierenzauer ( the winner from the season 2008/2009) – before his countryman – Thomas Morgenstern and Adam Małysz – who took the 3rd place.
The second skijumping in Norway was won by Simon Ammann. Harri Olli from Finnland took the 2nd place , and 3rd was a French skijumper Emanuel Chedal.
I`m 100% sure, that we weren`t able to say much about the form of the skijumpers and predict who will be the best in that season. The weather conditions were not so great either. It was windy, and really cold, but it didn`t rain.
The following skijumping competition was planned to go on in Harrachov, in the Czech Republic. That all didn`t go off well just because of the weather conditions described above. It is really important to jump only if the weather is in order.
To replace this both competitions the organisers had to move somewhere at least one of the competitions. And so it was... One competition took place in Switzerland, as well as the next two. The weekend before Christmas was really long for all skijumping fans.
The first and the third was won by Simon Ammann. The victory from the second day Saturday went to Gregor Schlierenzauer.
Once goes to Amman and other one to Schlierenzauer... so it was during the whole season, but at the end of the season Simon Ammann proved to be a little bit better.
The next stop was the prestigious Four Hills Tournament – two competitions were staged as always in Germany – Oberstdorf and Garmisch- Partenkirchen and two in Austria – in Innsbruck, the heart of Tirol , and in Bischofshofen.
Four competitions were won by Austrian boys – Gregor Schlierenzauer twice,Andreas Kofler twice, and one victory for Thomas Morgenstern.
Then eyes of all fans were first turned to Bad Mitterndorf, a small village with a huge skijumping hill – where it is possible to jump more than 200 meters, and later to Japan, Sapporo, where most of the best skijumpers in the World didn`t go, because of the upcoming Winter Olimpic games in Vancouver.
But before Vancouver we were able to watch the skijumpers live in Zakopane, in Poland. There the podium was occupied by the same jumpers- Gregor Schlierenzauer, Simon Ammann, Thomas Morgenstern. Adam Małysz didn`t jump in those days at a high level.
Afterwards the skijumpers had four competitions right before Canada - this time it was in Germany.
Finally after a few days there was the time for the Olimpic Games in Vanouver!
All people from Poland counted on Adam Malysz, but as it later turned out, it wasn`t so easy to reach such a fantastic form. Some were afraid of the austrian skijumpers, but they didn`t bear the pressure. The incredible Swiss showed, who is the best... He won the both skijumping competition in Vancouver, although he was not always so perfect during the trainings. But his biggest advantage was to focus on jumping during the right time, during the right jumps, in the competition. The podium in America was twice the same: Simon Ammann, Gregor Schlierenzauer, Adam Małysz. Gregor and Adam were really very close, but Simon withstood the pressure, and showed, what he might become.
Both competitions were really very exiting, nobody knew, that Ammann was able to win twice, and to reach his 3rd and 4th gold olympic medal. Congratulations Simon!
After the olympic games we had more competitions – once more in Skandinavia, in March. There, Simon proved, who was the best in that season.
Then he won all possible competition , and got the cristalball, which means the first prize, and always goes to the best skijumper of each season. In the 2009/2010 season the best was Simon Ammann, the 2nd skijumper in the world appeared to be [my friend] Gregor Schlierenzauer (who had already won the ball), and on the 3rd podium level stood another skijumper from Austria, Thomas Morgenstern.
Such was the last season!
Emily
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