2007 Hinterzarten GER

The Old Boys of the ski jumping world gathered in late February 2007 in the tiny Black Forest village of Hinterzarten, Germany, for sport and fellowship at the eighteenth annual International Masters Competition in Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined Skiing (IMC). The village lies in the southwest corner of Germany near both Switzerland and France.

Everything in Hinterzarten is within walking distance, including the Adler Ski Station, the jumping complex just above the old church and cemetary on the south-east edge of the village. The complex has four beautiful new jumps, a single chair lift, two snow-cats, and a nice new building which houses offices, athletes changing room and a small dining room. The big hill, K-95, was already in place when, about 2002, the three small jumps, K-70, 30 and 18 meters, were built. No shared landings -- all the hills run parallel so they can all be used at one time, and all four hills have plastic surfaces for summer jumping. For winter use, each hill has a track cutter that runs on rails to provide a geometrically perfect track in minutes.

In a normal winter, machine-groomed cross country trails criss-cross the entire valley. However, this was not a normal winter. All of Europe was plagued with warm weather and the athletes gathering for IMC XVIII found green grass and spring flowers in bloom. The only snow visible anywhere in the village was in the ribbons of white running down the four ski jumps, and the windy days with temperatures well up in the 40's F. were rapidly eating away at that little bit of snow.

The event was organized by the Hinterzarten Ski Club with the cooperation of the Mayor's office, the Chamber of Commerce, and many villagers who played major or minor roles. The Organizing Committe was led by Mayor Hansjörg Eckert (left) and Ski Club President, the always smiling Tanja Kleiser-Schwörer (right).

The Chief of the jumping competition was young Michael Lais (left), who seemed to cope wonderfully with the special requirements of the IMC, even with the many schedule changes imposed by the weather. For the jumpers, the hero of the week was the chief of the hill Karl Hassler (right) who continued to smile as he performed miracles in the face of huge challenges.

The announcer at the competitions and ceremonies was Vice-Mayor Eugen Winterhalder (left), assisted at the ceremonies by multilingual Tanja Wörner (right), the young lady behind the desk at the Hinterzarten information office who also gave participants a tour of the Ski Museum and assisted the visiting teams in arranging for housing.

Four new nations appeared on the entry list, bringing the total to fifteen nations participating.
Ukraine entered a team of seven, and Switzerland came with three. France was represented by a single jumper, Dominque Jacoberger (left), while a single British subject, Alan-Donald Jones (above, right) demonstrated the ski jumping skills he has learned while living for the last twenty years in Sweden.

 
The Lamminpää brothers, Martti and Aatto, drove to Hinterzarten from Finland through Russia and Poland in an old FIAT Diesel camper. They usually bring guests and this year they brought two young jumpers, fourteen year old Daniel, and Mika, fifteen, who served as forejumpers throughout the week.

Organizers covered inruns with sheets of plastic and trucked snow from the big jump in Neustadt a few kilometers up the valley to keep the jumps covered, but the terrible weather never let up. The warm temperature were accompanied by strong winds from the west or the southwest, topped off with rain almost every day. The weather forced many schedule changes, the first of which was to cancel all jumping on Monday. Tuesday was a little better -- not much rain, and the wind came over the shoulder of the hill, then rolled over and came up the 30 meter landing hill. Participants were divided into three groups which were scheduled to train in three separate sessions. The morning group enjoyed quite good conditions, but by afternoon the the snow became wet and slow and, on the 70 meter hill, the track grew more and more crooked just before the takeoff. A new track, cut before the third session, helped for only a short time.

Nils Olav Kongsvik, NOR, in a classic Telemark landing!

With more rain and wind forecast for Thursday, organizers scheduled a full day of competition for Wednesday, with both portions of the K-70 competition, followed by the 30 meter jumping. However, Wednesday morning's weather was not so good, so the schedule was shuffled again, moving the 30 meter jumping to 1 pm, with the 70 meter event for the younger group to start at 5 pm. Both events were shortened -- the trial round was dropped in the 30 meter competition, and winds forced officials to cut the 70 meter event after a single round.

Thursday did indeed bring rain with the same warm wind, and organizers took the opportunity to truck still more snow to the jumps, this time brought from Feldberg, a 5000 foot mountain nearby. In a trainers meeting, officials announced that it would not be possible to use the 95 meter jump, but that the big hill competition would be conducted on the 70 meter jump, using the original big hill entry list. The idea of combining the team jump into that event was finally dropped because of the complication of adjusting the starts for the added team members. The rains let up on Friday, and the two remaining jumping competitions ran successfully, though again both were shortened. The 70 meter session for the older group, sheduled for 11 am, finally started at 12 and ran through two competitive rounds, as a flagman watched the wind before sending the skiers.

By 5 pm, the surface winds had dropped and the big hill field found very good conditions, a straight track which was quite fast considering its wetness. With no wind, the final jumping competition ran at a brisk pace with two rounds completed in two hours. It was a good finish to a very difficult week for both the jumpers and the organizers.

The original plan was to hold the cross country races for Nordic Combined competition on some of the many trails that run in and out of the village, but those trails were all green grass and soft earth, so the races were moved to high country, to a ski area on top of Herzogenhorn, another 5000 foot mountain. A few groups of racers drove their cars up the mountain but the majority boarded the bus arranged by the organizers and for eight Euros per person, rode to the base of the alpine area. From there they either paid another 1.50 to ride the T-bar, or warmed up for the race with a half hour hike to the top of the mountain. The wind had been strong all week in the valley, but up on the mountain top, obstructed by no hills and few trees, it was howling! Estimates ranged from 40 to 60 mph, and much of the time, it brought with it a blast of sleet. The course was a 2.5 km loop wandering around the mountaintop, with no difficult hills. In spite of the weather, 51 of the 62 registered competitors finished the course. Nordic combined skiers are tough!

Waiting in the gym for start time

The oldest racers starting

Some racers finished the course more gracefully than others!

Returning to the bus, most of the competitors battled their way down the alpine slopes, not knowing about a nice cross country trail which made the descent easy and enjoyable.

Opening Ceremonies on Tuesday night in the Kurhaus

All ceremonies and several meeting were held at the Kurhaus in the middle of the village, a modern community center containing the information office and rooms ranging from small meeting rooms to a hall with a balcony and a stage which was the venue for the opening ceremony (above), nightly award ceremonies, and the closing banquet. Each evening, a brass quartet, resplendent in red vests (right), played a bright fanfare to call participants into the hall for awards, followed by dancing to live music provided by a different band every night. (Two shown below.)

The village of Hinterzarten boasts three favorite skiing sons: Georg Thoma, his nephew Dieter Thoma, and Sven Hannavald. Deiter Thoma and the younger Sven Hannavald were world class jumpers whose careers barely overlapped, while uncle Georg Thoma was a fabulously successful Nordic Combined competitor who took gold in Squaw Valley (1960) and silver in Innsbruck (1964), as well as four Holmenkollen victories. A huge trophy case (below) in the lobby of the Kurhaus held only part of Thoma's trophies, with more on display, along with his skis and uniforms, in the ski museum up the street.

IMC Officers, and a Special Guest Far Left - Åke Salomiemi (SWE), Chairman in charge of Nordic Combined;
Far Right - Torbjørn Haugen (NOR),Vice-President of the IMC Committee;
Center - Klaus Günther (left, GER), President of the IMC Committee, and
Anton Zapf (right, GER), Chairman in charge of cultural
events, greet a hero of Hinterzarten, Georg Thoma.

 

Saturday's awards were presented in the Kurhaus lobby, where organizers also presented special awards to two Norwegian participants: the oldest competitor, 76 year old John Eidem (left), and Sindre Helland (right), the only man to participate in all 18 editions of the IMC. After the awards, the crowd streamed into the hall to enjoy the banquet, followed as usual, by more music.

A Brief Statistical Summary The list of athletes pre-registered for IMC XVIII showed 188 skiers from fifteen nations but the lone entry from Slovakia did not ski (probably did not make the trip). In the end, 175 jumpers from 14 nations made 345 starts. Here are two tables -- one showing the team sizes, and the other showing class sizes in the four events. AUT 10 Cl. Ages K-30 K-70 K-95 NC CZE 2 -------------------------------- FIN 31 10 75-79 1 0 0 0 FRA 1 9 70-74 5 1 0 2 GB 1 8 65-69 7 3 2 6 GER 40 7 60-64 11 4 3 6 HUN 4 6 55-59 14 11 6 5 NOR 47 5 50-54 14 18 7 7 RUS 15 4 45-49 14 18 9 6 SLO 6 3 40-44 15 18 9 8 SUI 3 2 35-39 13 24 15 6 SWE 9 1 30-34 10 19 11 5 UKR 2 0 25-29 1 5 6 0 USA 4 ------------------------------- ----------- Totals: 105 121 68 51 =345 Total 175

The IMC Committee held its annual meeting on Saturday afternoon in the Kurhaus, with a disappointing turnout of national representatives. No site was chosen to host IMC 2008, but the decision will be made by early April. The present IMC officers were approved for another year. You may want to read the minutes of the meeting.