2009 Ruhpolding GER

The Old Boys of the ski jumping world gathered in early March, 2009 in the Bavarian village of Ruhpolding for sport and fellowship at the annual International Masters Competition in Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined Skiing (IMC). This was the twentieth IMC and IMC Committee chairman Klaus Günther called for special celebrations for the occasion.

Ruhpolding is a small village south-east of Munich and not far west of Salzburg with several hotels and many guest houses, all within easy walking distance of the town center with its restaurants and stores.
Chiemgau Arena (pron KEEM-gow), where all of the skiing took place, is about seven kilometers south-west of town on the road to Reit im Winkl (the venue for the 2004 IMC). The Arena boasts five fresh new jumping hills: the K-40, 65, & 90 used for IMC, plus K-20 & 120. The picture at right shows the five jumps. The middle three have their inruns covered with blue tarps while the 20 & 120 are buried under a meter of recent snow. The jumps are equipped with lights, track machines and a snow-cat, and are served by a single-chair ski lift for the larger hills and a pony lift for the smaller ones. Both lifts are at the far left of the picture.

A shiny new building by the big-hill outrun (below) provides offices, coffee shop, changing room and bathrooms. With its low profile, the building does not obstruct the view of the mountains beyond.

A number of IMC competitors arrived a few days early with the hope of getting some practice jumping, only to find that Mother Nature had closed the hills. We have all missed skiing because of too little snow, or too much snow, or too much wind or rain, but this natural problem was new for most of us -- avalanches. The entire jump venue was closed because of the avalanche danger. Indeed one morning many of us standing by the outun were treated to the impressive sight and the fearsome roar of a huge mass of gray snow sliding coming down a steep chute on a mountain on the opposite side of the valley. The pictue at the right shows that mountain with several slide-paths.

When the avalanche danger had passed, the hill crew quickly prepared the 40 and 65 meter jumps and those two hills were opened on Monday afternoon for free training. However a light rain dampened the enthusiasm so the hills were not crowded.

The weather was better for Tuesday's official training, though it was still warm and the tracks were still slow and soft. To reduce crowding on the jumping hills, organizers divided the skiers into four groups by nation, with each group given a training period of and hour and a half. The training time for the later groups was delayed by a break for hill preparation and finally, early in the fourth period, training was stopped and the hills were closed in response to a large number of falls, two requiring evacuation of the injured skiers by helicopter. Most of these fall occurred on the 40 meter jump, where the least skilled skiers take their jumps, and many observers felt that they were caused by "pilot error" rather than by unsafe snow conditions.

Anton Zapf thanks the Mayor for his help and support for the Concert for Peace and Tolerance.

Tuesday night opening ceremonies began at the Catholic church with a Concert for Peace and Tolerance, assembled and directed by ski jumper and professional musician Anton Zapf of Germany. After the concert of almost two hours, participants walked down the hill to the Kurhaus for a few short speeches, after which IMC Committee chairman Klaus Günther declared IMC-20 to be open.

Competition began on Wednesday morning with the IMC's main event, the middle sized hill (K-65). The field of about 150 entrants was split into two parts with the oldest skiers, those 45 and older, competing first. Skiers in Tuesday's fourth training group had missed their training and were permitted one jump on Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock, before the regular trial round.

The day was blessed with sunshine and light winds, and colder weather over night froze up the track so skiing conditions were quite good. The winter had brought lots of snow, which was permitted to build up on the knolls of the two smaller jumps, so jumpers had to fly almost 40 meters to avoid clicking the tails of their skis on the high knoll of the K-65. The three rounds of jumping for the 67 oldest skiers took a very long time, so when the 71 younger skiers headed up for their turn, organizers ruled that to save time there would be no trial round, just two competition rounds. Awards for these competitions, and all the others during the week, were made in the evening at the Kurhaus in the village. The top three skiers in each age group received a medal (left) and an Urkunde ("a certificate suitable for framing"). [ See results of K-65 jumping ]

Advance publicity had boasted that Andreas Goldberger and Matti Nykaenen would both be participating in IMC-2009. Nykaenen had competed a year earlier in Finland and indeed he did travel to Ruhpolding, but he arrived injured. It seems that Matti had injured his ribs in a go-carting accident so in the end, he did not ski but he graciously agreed to award the medals to the 65 meter winners. In the picture below-left, he waits with Klaus Güther for the awards to begin. The medals were brought forward by two girls dressed in traditional costumes. The photo below-right shows the girls against the backdrop of the village of Ruhpolding painted on the back wall of the stage in the Kurhaus.

This time the competition went quickly, leaving time for training on the K-90 before the Nordic Combined team sprint late in the afternoon. Nine teams (four skiers per team) lined up to race relay legs of 1 km (the oldest team member - 60 or older), then 2 km (age 50+), followed by two legs of 3 km each (for the 40+ and 30+ skiers). At the finish, the team from Finland led teams from Norway and Russia. [ See complete results ]

The three medal-winning teams in the Nordic Combined Team Sprint:

Gold (center): Finland - Aatto Lamminpää, Arsi Sjögren, Antti Koivuranta, Markku Jantunen;
Silver (left): Norway - Geir Rune Lislegård, Oyvind Villesvik, Jan Skevik, Arnold Lund;           
Bronze (rt): Russia - Valeriy Chuykin, Vladimir Ulyanov, Fidel Terentiev, Konstantin Grigoryev.

Friday morning at 10 o'clock, 67 Old Boys began the 90 meter competition (HS-100) again under cloudy skies. The stars of the day were two Austrian World Cup veterans Andy Goldberger (left, age 36) and Andreas Widhölzl (right, age 32). Goldberger, looking like a teenager, outscored his compatriot Widhölzl by nine points. [ See results ]

Saturday dawned with a centimeter of new snow on the ground and more falling. With the new snow, and very soft older snow underneath on the outruns of the jumps, officials delayed, then finally cancelled the scheduled team jumping competition. However, when a team competition is cancelled, we sometimes like to think about who might have won.

"Virtual" Team Scores NAT Ver-A Ver-B ------------------------ 1. FIN 1101.0 1160.5 2. NOR 991.9 1122.7 3. GER 924.2 924.2 4. RUS 766.9 766.9

It appears that this year Team Finland has bragging rights over Norway, Germany and Russia. The table at the right gives two versions of a virtual team competition. The nations listed are the only nations that could have fielded complete teams. The scores are taken from the individual K-65 competition in two ways. The first number-column (Ver-A) uses scores for the best jumper from the nation in each age group. The second number-column (Ver-B) shows what would have happened if an older jumper were used to replace a younger athlete with a lower score. (Yes, we know that this is confused because older age groups might have skied from a higher start -- it's all just for fun!)

The individual Nordic Combined cross country races went off as scheduled in the Biathlon stadium with slow tracks due to the new snow. [ See N.C. results ]

In the Kurhaus just before the banquet, representatives were assembled for a short extra meeting of the IMC Committee. Klaus Günther (GER) announced his attention to step down after five years as Chairman, and a proposal was presented in which James Lambert (GBR) would be the new Chairman with an executive committee of Lambert, Günther and sitting vice chairman Torbjorn Haugen (NOR). After intense negotiations, Günther and Haugen agreed to continue serving, and the slate was accepted by acclamation.

The skiing was over, and the business was finished, so it was time for fellowship, for honors, and for goodbyes, during the festive banquet of the twentieth IMC. The special efforts of Chairman Klaus Günther paid off as both IMC founders and all of the past chairmen were present.

The seeds of IMC were planted in 1989 by Guttorm Bakke of Norway and Earle Murphy of USA. As they tell the story, they were enjoying a beer after a day of jumping and said "Why couldn't we have a world championship for Masters?" Then they had another beer and said "Lets do it!" And so they did, arranging for the first IMC to be held in Lake Placid, USA with a hundred or more Norwegians, about twenty Old Boys from the host country, and one Canadian.

Six IMC builders listen as Earle Murphy is introduced. Left to right: Anton Zapf (GER) board member and musician; Torbjorn Haugen (NOR) vice-chairman; Guttorm Bakke (NOR) co-founder; Earle Murphy (USA) co-founder and first chairman; James Lambert (GBR) incoming chairman; Klaus Günther (GER) retiring chairman.

Here are the five IMC chairmen, including James Lambert (GBR) who was chosen just before the banquet as the fifth chairman in the twenty years of IMC.

Earle Murphy

Tim Denisson

Alf-Tore Haug

Klaus Günther

James Lambert

This year's oldest competitor was 77 year old John Eidem (right) of Norway. Sindre Helland (below-l) is the only competitor who has participated in all twenty IMC's. This year, Sindre was joined by his son Joakim (below-r) who is now eligible for IMC.

Claudia Hummel (left), the competition secretary, did everything from registration to finances to issuing and collecting bibs. Herbert Ringsgwandl (right) arranged for housing and transportation and did a fine job announcing at the award ceremonies. Unfortunately we have no photos of the other main people who made IMC-XX such a success

Co-founder Earle Murphy brought with him a number of commemorative T-shirts which he designed, showing the two IMC founders, each caught on camera in a memorable ski jumping flight. These were given to officials, organizers and special friends.

Throughout the banquet, a small brass band, about ten musicians in traditional Bavarian dress, sat patiently on a bandstand by the stage. They played an occasional tune and also accompanied a group of dancers, the boys in their lederhosen slapping their shoes, and the girls whirling their circular skirts. When the awards and speeches were finally over, the stage lights were turned down, and the band played for dancing by IMC participants. The dancing was led by Earle Murphy, who put aside his crutch and showed that he could still boogie at age 81.

The end of an IMC banquet is alway bitter-sweet with long goodbyes with the knowledge that we won't be seeing our friends for another year.

   NAT   size mdls
   --------------
   AUT    21   12
   CZE     3    1         Cl.   Ages    K-40 K-65 K-90  NC
   EST     4    2         --------------------------------
   FIN    32   30         10    75-79     2    1    0    1
   GBR     3    0          9    70-74     7    2    1    5
   GER    32   10          8    65-69     5    1    1    3
   HUN     2    0          7    60-64    12    8    4    7
   LAT     2    0          6    55-59    20   20    8    7
   NOR    51   33          5    50-54    13   18    7    5
   RUS    22    9          4    45-49    13   17    6    4
   SLO     4    1          3    40-44    17   20   10   10
   SUI     4    2          2    35-39    14   29   17   11
   SVK     1    1          1    30-34    14   21   10   10
   SWE     6    3          0    25-29     0    1    3    1
   UKR     3    1          -------------------------------
   USA     4    4              Totals:  117  138   67   64 =386
   --------------
   Total 194  109

IMC-XX had two "Ironmen", Aatto Lamminpää (left, FIN) and Tim Denisson (right, USA), who skied in all five possible events: the K-65 and K-90 Special Jumps, K-40 for Nordic Combined points, the Nordic Combined cross country race, and the Nordic Combined Team Sprint.