Ski jumping technique
Under ski technique refers to the way like a ski jumper performs his jump. In the more than 100-year history of ski jumping there have been several different techniques for approach, take-off, flight posture and landing. Due to the changes in technology over the years, ever greater distances could be achieved.
The flight system , also called "system" for simplicity, is usually used in sports comments and reports (see) to describe the interaction of the jump technique details in the flight phase of the jump.
The beginnings (1800-1860)
Ski jumping developed from downhill skiing in the Norwegian province of Telemark at the end of the 18th century . In the beginning, people jumped over large snow hills, snow-covered piles of wood and barn roofs here. The so-called Optrakke style was used here. In this style, the ski jumpers took the starting position about 15 meters above the jump point. When running up, the knees were bent and the upper body was brought forward slightly. Shortly before reaching the edge of the take-off table, the upper body was straightened. At the end of the inrun, the ski jumper let himself be thrown into the air. During the flight phase, the legs were pulled up slightly to make the jump look as high as possible. With this style, widths of 10 to 20 meters could be achieved. The first demonstrably measured jump took place in 1808. Lieutenant Olaf Rye managed to jump 9.5 meters over an artificially raised snow hill. In 1860, the most famous jumper at the time, Sondre Norheim , a carpenter and ski builder from the Telemark village of Morgedal , reached a distance of 30.5 meters. This distance has not been surpassed for 33 years.
Further development in Norway (1860-1900)
Because the landing pressure is considerably lower at an inclined landing angle, the landing zone was relocated from the flat to the slope. The jumping style has also been adapted to these new conditions. The so-called Sta-rak style ( sta-rak = to stand upright) was formed. This was done upright, almost bolt straight. This looked more elegant and therefore gave high posture marks, which were much more important at the time than the wide points. The only thing they had in common with the Optrakke style was the convulsive rowing of arms to maintain balance. A balancing stick carried along turned out to be a hindrance and became less important. In 1883 it was Torju Torjussen who, after jumping in the Sta-rak style, introduced the telemark landing , which is still highly rated today. In the run-out, the jumper finally stopped with a final telemark turn or a scissor position on the skis.
Due to higher posture grades, the troop-ned style (tips deep) developed. This was similar to the Sta-rak style, but the skis were guided parallel to the slope, that is, the ski tips pointed downwards. The associated lowering of the ski tips, however, had a significant effect on the jump distance, as the increased air resistance noticeably slowed the jumper and thus took away any momentum.
Further development outside of Norway (1900–1930)
Towards the end of the 19th century, many Norwegian ski jumpers emigrated to the USA because they could earn money with ski jumping here. While in Norway the focus was on aesthetics , i.e. the grades of posture, the audience in the USA was more interested in large distances and spectacular jumps than in a beautiful style. Between 1900 and 1930, 12 of the 20 set world records were set by Norwegian jumpers in North America. Therefore, most of the further developments in the following years came from the USA. Larger and larger jump facilities were built here, which not only affected the distances, but also the approach speed and the associated air resistance . Therefore the jumping style had to be adjusted again. The template style prevailed from 1912 . In this style, the upper body was bent forward at the hips during the flight phase in order to reduce air resistance. The first success with the new style was Jacob Tullin Thams , who clearly outclassed the competition in his superior Olympic victory in Chamonix in 1924 . However, it was still rowed with its arms during the flight.
In the 1930s, the Norwegian Birger Ruud was one of the best ski jumpers, which was demonstrated by numerous titles (Olympic victory in 1932 and 1936, three-time world champion between 1931 and 1937). He jumped the so-called Königsberger style . This jumping style was characterized by an extremely strong hip bend.
Another variant of the template style was used by Sepp Bradl , who was the first to reach the 100 meter mark in Planica in 1936 . Instead of rowing, he stretched his arms forward.
Science and the Fish Style (1950–1986)
Dr. Reinhard Straumann , a Swiss aircraft engineer and a former ski jumper himself, was the first to recognize the decisive influence of air as a supporting factor in the Thams jumps as early as 1924. Therefore, from 1926 onwards, he first studied ski jumping scientifically and examined the relationship between speed, technique, body posture and hill profiles. He carried out measurements at jumping events and experimented with jumping dolls in the wind tunnel at the University of Göttingen. In 1926/27 he published his theory about the most aerodynamically favorable posture. He came to the conclusion that the jumper can achieve the best distances if he adopts a flight posture that is based on the aerodynamic principle of airplane wings . However, his theory was not put into practice until 20 years later. In the 1940s he studied this theoretically developed style with some jumpers. The technique varied in the extent to which the body was stretched forward and in some cases went into an almost stretched flight position. He also instructed the jumpers to rest their arms very calmly after the jump and to use their hands next to the barely bent hips like flippers to control the flight. This technique was initially called the Däscher style . Later it was also called the drop style or fish style because of the posture . Another name is Finnish style , as Straumann's new style became the domain of a few young Finnish jumpers. From 1953, at the first Four Hills Tournament , this style established itself, but the variant with outstretched arms was still preferred by some jumpers until the 1960s. In connection with the V-style that emerged at the end of the 1980s, the fish style is now mostly referred to as the parallel style because of the parallel ski position . Until the 1980s, the forward-extended flight posture with parallel ski guidance dominated, with slight variations. Special mention should be made of three ski jumpers: Toni Innauer , Matti Nykänen and Jens Weißflog . Toni Innauer jumped such a perfect fish style at the Oberstdorf ski flying week in 1976 that he received the best posture rating of 20 five times. Matti Nykänen and Jens Weißflog dominated the 1980s and often fought exciting duels for victories. Another innovation of the late 1980s is the introduction of the so-called Happle bar, from which the ski jumper goes on the run. It was first used at the Olympic Games in 1988. In Sarajevo 1984 people started from the hatches.
Start-up technique
Another new development took place in 1975 in the GDR . Here technicians discovered that when starting up, it is aerodynamically better to take your arms backwards instead of forwards as before. This approach took hold very quickly.
Conventional starting stop
Modern run-up squat
Development of the V-style (from 1986)
The beginnings - Jan Boklöv (1986–1990)
Jan Boklöv , a until then almost unknown Swedish ski jumper who had little success (45th in the 1986/87 World Cup with 12 points), was to revolutionize ski jumping at the end of the 1980s. It was more by chance in 1986 that he recognized the advantage of changing his leg posture: in order to avoid a fall in the event of a failed training jump, he took his legs apart and jumped three to five meters until he finally landed safely. After this observation, he began to train this style, which at that time was still called the frog style or Boklöv scissors .
He probably jumped with the new unusual style for the first time at the Four Hills Tournament in the 1986/87 season. This style was initially rejected because it did not meet the aesthetic requirements. The Norwegians in particular, including the President of the Ski Jumping Committee Torbjørn Yggeseth , resisted Boklöv's new style, which is why he received high deductions in the posture grades (instead of 19 or 19.5 points, only 14 or 15 points). He was not always able to compensate for these deductions with the larger widths, which is evident from the results from the 1986/87 and 1987/88 seasons (1986/87 best 10th place in Innsbruck, 1987/88 two 2nd places in Lahti , but also several times not among the best 30, overall result 10th place in the World Cup with 64 points).
In the 1988/89 season, however, he achieved the final breakthrough with his new style. He won the second World Cup competition of the season in Lake Placid for the first time. He won a total of five World Cup competitions this season and was among the top ten jumpers 18 times, which meant the overall World Cup victory. After this season it was clear that the new style, now called the V-style , was competitive with the classic style with parallel ski guidance. As early as the next season, some jumpers began to switch to the new style. This sparked discussions among jumpers, trainers and officials. The disadvantage of this style was still the high deductions for the posture marks. In the following years, Jan Boklöv could no longer benefit from his "invention". At the end of the 1989/90 season he finished 14th with 80 World Cup points. Only at the beginning of this season was he still in the top ten. Towards the end of the season he often failed to make a second round. In the following season he was 50th in the overall World Cup.
In the early 80s, Canadian jumper Steve Collins jumped an inverted V style . This style resembled a "snow plow stem bow". Despite the high point deductions in his attitude, he became junior world champion in 1980.
The conversion phase (from 1990)
.jpg)
For most established jumpers, the transition to the V-style was difficult, for many the breakthrough of the new technique led to the end of their careers. There were only eight jumpers who won both styles. Ernst Vettori was the first jumper to do this. He won his first of a total of two V-style competitions on December 2, 1991 in Thunder Bay . Jens Weißflog has the best result of these eight jumpers . After the changeover, he still had eleven wins. Dieter Thoma won five more times in the V style. The other jumpers who have won in both styles are the Italian Roberto Cecon , the Austrians Andreas Felder (four wins), Heinz Kuttin and Stefan Horngacher and the Finn Ari-Pekka Nikkola . Felder (* 1962), Vettori and Jens Weißflog (both * 1964) were already among the older ski jumpers at the time of the changeover, the others were only in their early 20s at the time. All other jumpers who later won in V-style never had parallel style before won, or relearned before their World Cup debut. On March 24, 1991, Ralph Gebstedt won a World Cup competition in Planica. He was the last jumper to win a World Cup with the parallel technique, all subsequent victories were only achieved in the V-style.
The following examples show that the V-style caused a revolution in ski jumping:
Stephan Zünd
One of the first jumpers to adapt to the new style relatively quickly was the young Swiss ski jumper Stephan Zünd , who made his World Cup debut in 1990.
In 1989 Stephan Zünd was still in the European Cup when he noticed Jan Boklöv's unusual scissor style at the New Year's show in Garmisch-Partenkirchen . The following summer, he began to convert to the V style with junior coach Robert Rathmayr . Zünd was one of the first stylists among the V-jumpers with a very good feel for flight and a confident mastery of technique.
In the first World Cup season in 1990, after a few jumps, he landed in 8th place and later even in 3rd place. This meant 21st place in the overall World Cup. The following years were the most successful for Stephan Zünd. He finished 3rd and 5th in the overall World Cup. When his performance began to decline afterwards, Stephan Zünd began to radically reduce his weight. After the end of his career, he publicly drew attention to this new problem caused by the V-style in ski jumping. His criticism was in part the trigger for the rule change, which in 2004 brought the body mass index as a measure of ski length.
Toni Nieminen
Probably the best single example of a ski jumper who benefited from the new V-style is the Finn Toni Nieminen . The then only 16-year-old began to change his jumping style in the summer of 1991 and then dominated the 1991/1992 season. On December 1, 1991, he won the first World Cup competition of the season in Thunder Bay , at that time still completely unknown internationally . This season he won a total of eight World Cup competitions and was the top favorite for the Olympic Games in Albertville . There he won gold on the large hill and led the Finnish team to victory. Another success was the overall victory in the four hill tournament. After this season, his performance decreased. On the one hand, this was due to weight and growth problems, but also to the fact that thanks to its successes, almost the entire world now adopted the new V-style. Toni Nieminen achieved a surprise success when he was the first jumper to jump over 200 m on March 17, 1994 in Planica (before that Andreas Goldberger had landed badly at 202 m).
Team Austria
The first national team to switch completely to the V-style at an early stage was the Austrian . After Jan Boklöv's success in 1989/90, the Austrian trainer Toni Innauer commissioned Dr. Wolfram Müller from the Institute for Medical Physics and Biophysics in Graz to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of the V-style. Since these studies showed that the jumpers received 26 to 28 percent more lift with the new V-style, which meant greater widths, Innauer switched his entire team before the winter of 1991/92. Established jumpers like Andreas Felder , Ernst Vettori and Heinz Kuttin also had to relearn. The Austrian team then dominated the season, which was reflected in 5 out of 7 possible Olympic medals and the placements of the jumpers (Rathmayr and Felder place 2 and 3 in the World Cup, Höllwarth and Rathmayr place 2 and 3 in the four hill tournament, five Austrians in the top ten of the overall World Cup, only Toni Nieminen was better). However, this was also helped by the fact that it was agreed before the season to deduct only 0.5 instead of the previously usual 1.5 points for a V-style jump.
Team Japan
After the great successes of the Austrians in the 1991/92 season, the triumphant advance of the V-style could no longer be stopped. Now the other nations also gradually changed their jumping style:
The Japanese Jumping Association stipulated that the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville will only jump in the V-style. Noriaki Kasai , who shortly before had resisted a change, stood on the podium for the first time at the end of February and ended the season with the best series of a Japanese jumper to date. Kazuyoshi Funaki did not switch until the summer of 1992. In the 1992/93 season he stabilized his style and ended up being the Japanese runner-up in his age group (not yet in the World Cup at the time). He made ski jumping history in the 1994/95 season when he won his first World Cup competition. The next day he finished sixth. The first modification of the V-style took place in 1992 in Albertville also by the Japanese. Takanobu Okabe was one of the first jumpers to do the so-called flat V-style . This style is characterized by a wider “V” and an extreme body forward. Wind tunnel studies confirmed that this location is aerodynamically more favorable. However, the FIS prevented this extreme jumping style by regulating the binding position in the same year. The extreme V style was later re-used by jumpers like Jakub Janda .
Team Germany
The German jumpers changed over very late. One of the first was Christof Duffner , who learned the V-style in 1990 in order to qualify - with success - for the Olympic Games. At this point in time Dieter Thoma and Jens Weißflog were still jumping the old style and therefore had no chance in Albertville. After the successes of the Austrians and other jumpers, they finally realized that a change was inevitable and trained in the new V style before the 1992/93 season. Although this change was very difficult for them at first, both later achieved successes in the new style (Olympic victory Weißflog, podium places for Thoma at the Olympics, World Cup and the tour).
Advantages and disadvantages of the V style
Due to the V-stance, the jumpers fly much slower due to the greater air resistance than when they hold the skis tightly closed in front of their bodies. At the same time they achieve more buoyancy . As a result, the jumpers slide into the valley at a flatter angle, similar to a base jumper with a wingsuit .
But the V-style also brought problems. With the new technology, the jumpers only flew four meters above the slope and much further. If the landing slopes had not been adjusted, the jumpers would have jumped in rows over the critical point , which would have led to a higher landing pressure and thus a higher risk of injury. So the jumping hills were rebuilt and adapted to the flatter but longer flight path. Further, by reducing the takeoff tilt the trajectory adjusted.
But there were other problems. In the 1993/94 season, for example, ten cases of sudden forward rotations in flight were observed. As a result, many jumpers, including very good ones like Andreas Goldberger and Werner Rathmayr , fell. That is why Wolfram Müller, who had previously carried out physical investigations for Anton Innauer and the Austrians, was commissioned to get to the bottom of these phenomena. Extensive series of measurements were carried out in the wind tunnel and the flights of many jumpers were carefully examined. It was found that the higher lift forces in combination with the bindings moved backwards lead to unstable flight attitudes. Wolfram Müller suggested regulating the length of the front ski (see also "flat V-style" in the "Team Japan" section). The consequence of this rule change was that only one fall was recorded in the following season.
Further investigations, for example on an Andi Goldberger model or a 76er Anton Innauer model, showed that today the air forces acting on a jumper in ski jumping are up to 80% greater than in Innauer's time. This means that the importance of the flight phase has increased significantly today. The powerful jump is no longer the dominant factor for great distances. The art of jumping today is to get into an aerodynamically favorable position for the flight as quickly as possible and to take as much speed as possible with you from the run-up. Another important factor is the weight of the jumper. Just 1 kg less brings you 1 to 2 meters more jump distance. Therefore, towards the end of the 1990s, the jumpers were all light ( Christof Duffner 60 kg at 182 cm; Andreas Goldberger 56 kg at 170 cm). As a result of many discussions about weight problems among ski jumpers ( anorexia ), the ski length has been regulated by the body mass index since 2004 . This led to the fact that many jumpers had to put on significantly more weight in order to be able to jump optimal ski lengths.
Further development of technology
Since around 2017, a so-called H-style has been considered advantageous, in which the rear ends of the skis have a significantly greater distance from one another during the flight than in the original V-style.
See also
- Top marks - jumps that were rated 5 times with top marks
literature
- Jens Jahn, Egon Theiner: Encyclopedia of Ski Jumping . Agon Sportverlag, 2004, ISBN 3-89784-099-5 .
- H. Schwameder: Biomechanics research in ski jumping, 1991-2006 , Sports Biomechanics 7, 114 (2008) , review article in English.
- Schwameder, H., Müller, E .: Biomechanical description and analysis of the V-technique in ski jumping , Spectrum der Sportwissenschaften, 7, 5-36 (1995).
Individual evidence
- ↑ SZ problem crowbar [1]
- ↑ Berliner Morgenpost New rules make the old heroes fall [2]
- ^ Jacob Tullin Thams - Video and Pictures . On: www.olympic.org
- ↑ Birger Ruud - Video . On: www.olympic.org
- ↑ Fish style
- ↑ Kurier article, image 16 of the slideshow, accessed on January 2, 2015.
- ↑ Toni Nieminen - video and pictures . On: www.olympic.org
