A group of five women ski jumpers left directly after the U.S. National Championships in Lake Placid on February 7th with Coach Larry Stone, heading to the first ever FIS Women's Tournee, a series with four meets in Germany and culminating in a meet in Ramsau, Austria at the Nordic World Championships. The team, consisting of four U.S. women, Easterners Liz Szotyori, Lindsey Van, Molly Stone, Central's Veronica Myhra and Canadian Marie-Pierre Morin, first went to Baiersbronn, Germany where they met up with U.S. jumper Karla Keck who had spent the entire season in Europe. Schedule conflict with the U.S. Nationals kept the East women out of the first meet, in Braunlage, GER, where Keck placed second behind Germany's Micheala Schmidt.

Larry, Karla, Liz, Marie, Veronica, Lindsey, Molly in Baiersbronn, Germany

At Baiersbronn, on a K-85 meter hill, Austrian Sandra Kaiser flew to first place with jumps of 83.5 and 84.5 meters. Swede Helena Olsson was second and in third came Karla Keck with rides of 79 and 81 meters. That the level of competition had made some

Molly and Marie

serious progress was made evident with Austria's legendary Eva Ganster in 4th place followed closely by the new Austrian phenom Daniella Irashko. Liz Szotyori posted an 8th place with Veronica Myhra 13th, Molly Stone 15th and Marie-Pierre Morin finishing 16th. Lindsey Van was not able to compete due to illness. The Braunlage winner, Micheala Schmidt, fell in training and suffered a broken arm which took out one of the tournee's top contenders. Standings now showed Keck as the leader.

The next stop was Schonwald and the 83-meter Adlerschanze. Once again Kaiser (80.5, 80.5) emerged the winner but this time by a mere one point over Keck (82, 79) with Iraschko (79.5, 79.5) in third. Ganster placed 4th, Finland's Heli Pommel 5th, Japan's Yoshiko Kasai and Izumi Yamada were 6th and 7th respectively. Helena Olsson fell back to 8th with the Slovenian, Tanja Volcjak 9th. Liz Szotyori placed 11th and Lindsey Van, still feeling the effects of the flu, was 13th, Myhra 15th, Stone 18th, and Morin 19th. Once again the yellow leader's bib belonged to Keck with Kaiser right behind her.

As the tour moved to Rastbuchl, it was clear that women's jumping was becoming more competitive with any number of possible outcomes looming on the horizon for the overall title. Kaiser won again and Ganster stepped up to the podium in 2nd with Olsson in 3rd. Yamada jumped to 4th, Iraschko to 5th, Keck fell back to 6th with Van, beginning her climb back up the standings, in 8th. Szotyori skied to 12th, still hanging around that top 10, with Myhra 20th, Stone 23rd and Morin 25th. Standings gave the yellow bib to Kaiser, Keck in 2nd and Iraschko and Ganster within striking distance.

On February 19th the final meet was held at Ramsau, Austria, the site of the World Championships. Due to wet falling snow and deteriorating track conditions, the meet was a one round comp. The hill was extremely slow and the distances were disappointing on the excellent 90-meter hill. Keck had the longest jump at 68.5 meters, 4.5 meters farther than second place Kaiser. Ganster jumped to 3rd, with Lindsey Van moving up to 4th place. Szotyori nailed 10th place, Stone moved up to 13th, Morin improved to 16th and Myhra was 23rd. The rainy weather kept the number of spectators down but a U.S. delegation of supporters was noted in attendance with Alan Johnson and Joe Lamb as SLOC representatives.

The overall Tournee winner was Sandra Kaiser of the strong Austrian team and World Champion Karla Keck finished second. Third place was Iraschko, Ganster in 4th. Liz Szotyori finished 10th overall, Veronica Myhra in 14th followed by Lindsey Van 15th, Molly Stone 19th, Marie-Pierre Morin 21st. A look at the rest of the top ten saw Sweden, Japan, Germany in the standings. Finland was close, having missed one more meet than the others. This is a good sign that Women's ski jumping is not only improving but growing as well. Austria has committed to supporting a team with support from the Austrian Ski Federation. As this sport continues to expand, hopefully more countries will follow Austria's lead and support Women's Ski Jumping. The tournee certainly garnered attention in Europe. Hans-Georg Schmidt did a good job organizing and getting support to make this a successful series of events. It promises to be an annual event with plans for the year 2000 already in the works.

This trip and all U.S. Women's Ski Jumping activities are self-funded, so many thanks to the parents, friend and sponsors who made this trip possible and kept the United States an important part of the growing international women's ski jumping movement. We got a world champion out of it. now we need to move forward and maintain a strong U.S. presence in the future!