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 The official seat of WWMG 2010 was in Bled, though the sporting events were scattered over a large part of north-west Slovenia. There would be Alpine skiing in Kranjska Gora and hockey in Bled and Jesenice. Promotional leaflets distributed by WWMG organizers suggested that ski jumping would take place in Kranj and Planica, where they pointed out enthusiastically that the ski flying hill was the site of the current world distance record of 239 meters. We pointed out that this was irrelevent to our Old boys. After much negotiation, a plan was drafted to jump on the K-100 meter hill in Kranj and a brand new 70 meter jump just built in 2008 along the side of the big hill. For the smaller hills, we would travel about 15 km north of Kranj to Trzic (many of thes place names have funny little marks over the letters, which we will not attempt to reproduce) where we would ski on K-35 and K-50 meter hills. The use of four jumps for IMC rather than three would be an innovation introduced by WWMG organizers. Cross country races for Nordic Combined competition would be in Pokljuka, just a few kilometers west of Bled. As the Games approached, the Trzic area was short of snow so at the last minute, the small hill jumping was moved to Ziri, south-west of Kranj. The new plan would also replace the Kranj 70 meter hill and ski K-26, K-40 and K-60 meter hills in Ziri (shown below).
 Ziri Jumps (Right to Left) K-40, K-60, K-26, childrens hill
Organizers promised buses to transport particapants between venues, and Maiju Kaseva, wife of long-time IMC competitor Matti Kaseva (FIN) reports by e-mail "The traveling between Kranj and Ziri took more than 2 hours per day, but the bus trips were very well organized." And Pietro Nilssen (SWE) reports "The Slovenians took the event seriously and the hills were 100% prepared." In 2006, Kranj hosted IMC 17, but many participants that year felt that the hills were not prepared as well as they should have been, leading to a large number of falls and injuries. Then in 2009 in Ruhpolding, many of the IMC skiers struggled with soft snow on the outruns and we had far too many injuries with ambulance rides and even helicopters. IMC 2010 was different. Recalling the recent bad years, all the reports noted that there were almost no injuries. Maiju Kaseva happily reported "There were no bad accidents. No ambulance, no helicopters!" Cold weather prevailed through the week with daytime high temperatures reported on the official results ranging from -8 to -2 C (18 to 28 F). Pietro Nilssen wrote "The weather conditions where good, about -5 to –13 degrees and absolutely no wind. A little snow at the start of the week but in the middle, the sun was shining. A little snow also fell at the end but without causing any problems. There were no accidents to speak of, thanks to the hard and well prepared hills." [ We learned later of one young Finnish jumper who suffered a badly broken leg, and we wish him a fast and complete recovery.] Erkki Ahtiainen of Finland gave very high grades for hill preparation and organization. He wrote "people from the organisation always tried to solve all problems immediately, and always like it´s best for athlete." He agreed that the long drive from Kranj to Ziri was "quite hard" but worth the effort "because the hills were so good in Ziri." He finished his note with the best report of all: "I saw only smiling faces during the week."
On Thursday, 111 skiers aged from 30 to 76 came out for the K-40 meter competition. This time the older jumpers skied first and the younger ones competed after lunch.
See complete results.
Later in the afternoon, three dozen cross country racers and their friends and families, fans and supporters, traveled to Pokljuka, just west of Bled, for the Nordic Combined Team Sprint Relay. Nine teams entered the event, each consisting of four athletes of age at least 60, at least 50, at least 40 and at least 30, respectively. Each athlete took his jumping points from the better of his two jumps in the special jumping competition. A skier aged 50 or older takes his points from the 40 meter hill, while the younger competitors use their 60 meter results. The oldest skier (60+) skis first, going one kilometer, the next (50+) races 2 km, and the two youngest skiers race 3 km each, so the team races a total distance of 9 kilometers. The table at the right shows the final standings. See complete results Friday morning the oldest competitors had another chance to strut their stuff, on the smallest hill, the K-26. Sixty nine competitors in ten age groups took their place at the top and enjoyed the well prepared little hill. See complete results Friday afernoon, the skiers went back to the k-60 jump for the team jumping competition. Six national teams signed up for this event, each consisting of six competitors aged 55+, 50+, 45+, 40+, 35+, 30+ respectively. Team Finland again came out on top, followed by Team Norway and Team Russia. See complete results Friday evening, competitors and guests celebrated at the IMC banquet, separate from the grand WWMG closing ceremony held in Bled on Saturday evening. Saturday morning 48 jumpers in eight age groups traveled to Kranj to jump the largest hill ever used in IMC competition, the K-100 (HS = 109), located just across the river from Kranj's Old Town. Kranj had hosted the 2006 IMC, but on big-hill day, hill conditions and windy weather prompted IMC officials to move the big hill event up the road and through the tunnel to Villach Austria. The 2010 event was a second chance, and it went well. Forty two year old Pasi Huttunen of Finland had the long ride of the day, 107.5 meters, to win Class 3, but Class 1 winner Knut Bjorner Strom of Norway posted the highest total points. At age 66, Finland's Antti Kokkonen was the oldest competitor on the huge jump. See complete results Only one event remained, and the Old Boys rushed off again to Pokljuka for the cross country portion of the Nordic Combined competition. Skiers younger than 50 raced 10 km, those 50-59 went 5 km, and the oldest, 60 and over, skied 3 kilometers. The fastest 10 km racer was Antti Koiveranta (Class 1, FIN) who shaded Konstantin Grigoryev (Class 3, RUS) by less than one second. Antti is the brother of World Cup N.C. star Anssi Koiveranta. See complete results At age 78, John Eidem of Norway was honored as the oldest ski jumper at IMC 21. Eidem skied in the small hill competition with Richard Diess, age 76, of Austria. These two were the only competitors in Class 10, ages 75-79. Diess also jumped the 40 meter hill, and turned in a very fast cross country race in the Nordic Combined competition.
Expanding the program from three jumping hills to four had a number of effects. A few skiers expanded their participation accordingly, competing on three hills rather than the IMC standard two hills. Also, it was easier to score multiple wins, and the results show nine double-gold medalists. Beyond that, Richard Diess took home the legal maximum of three gold medals and Arsi Sjogren went over the top with four victories! A silver and a bronze medal kept Martti Lamminpaa barely in the lead for total medals in the history of IMC, but Sjogren's four gold medals pulled him into a tie with Aarne Kuisma for the most IMC golds.
The WWMG web site has the results available in more than 50 .pdf files. The jumping results, including Nordic Combined jumping, are produced in one file for each age group in each event. The Nordic Combined final results are in three .pdf files, one for each race distance. Each of the team events is in a single .pdf file. The results files are arranged by day on the WWMG site so we have provided, below-right, a link to each day's list of results.
We also have awards photos for: [ K-26 ] ... [ K-40 ] ... [ K-60 ] ... [ K-100 ] ... [ N.C. ] and another page with various larger pictures, which may load more slowly.
[This listing is wide -- use your horizontal slider (if necessary) to view all five columns.]
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