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The ski jumping history of Russia
on 2006-05-07
At first oversleeping the development, but into the 70's highest successful - a brief outline about ski jumping history in Russia
The first snow jumping hills in Russia were built nearby Moscow and St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 20th century. The Petersburg skiing club "Pole Star" set up the first hill with wooden tower in 1906 in Jukka, on which one has jumped 10 to 12 m far. The hills with a designed inrun tower, on which distances were up to 20 m possible, arose later. The officially first Russian championship in ski jumping also took place in the little town Jukka at St. Petersburg in 1912. This was the basic beginning of the general development of the ski jumping in Russia.
Of course the results were very modest at the beginning and this defect still existed many years after that. Within the twenties the Scandinavian ski jumpers already achieved distances by the 50 metres, the Russian champion B. Woronow obtained the best jump with 18.5 m in 1926. The second championship followed in 1927, after that a break was until 1932. An important role in the history and development of this sports getting more and more popular played the GTO (like a pre-military sports organisation of the youth) within the thirties which was responsible for the construction of many ski jumping hills.
A quality leap with new builded ski jumps was made at the beginning of the forties, when a new record was obtained on 70 m hills at Krasnojarsk. There K. Kudrashov from Moscow reached 82 metres, this was not only CCCP record, but also year world the best performance. Krasnojarsk was the centre of the Russian ski jumping for long time after that, since bigger and bigger hills were set up there up to a K112.
The first Allunions championship was carried out in Swerdlowsk near Yekaterinburg with participants from the Czechoslovakia, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland in 1934. The event took place in front of over 20,000 spectators. At this first international competition the Russian jumpers put down their name on the winner list in rows, eight Russians were placed under the first ten.
The first remarkable successes in the international scene started with 1950, when J. Skworzov and A. Larionov won at the student Winter Games. Nikolai Schamov won at the Oslo Holmenkollen in 1961 and Koba Zakadse ranked first in Lahti. At the WSC in 1962 in Zakopane Nikolai Kamenski won the silver medal on the 90 m hill. The first Olympic gold medallion then won Wladimir Beloussow 1968 in Grenoble. Gari Napalkow then became double world champion at the home WSC of the USSR jumpers in the Slovakian Strbske Pleso two years later, because he won on the large and small hill. In 1974 Alexej Borovitin became third on the small hill during the world championships in the Swedish Falun and at the WSC in 1978 the same jumper fetched bronze in Lahti again at.
However, after that the Soviet ski jumping activities fell behind heavily and did not produce any international leading jumper since then. At the team competitions ninth and tenth places were normal. With the political reform in 1990 this government-supported sports system crashed and consequently ski jumping reached the valley bottom definitely. Today, one is not out from this valley yet and there is still no large hill in Russia with an international standard.
The first foreign chief coach was turned on with the German Wolfgang Steiert in 2005, since then ski jumping seems to recover in the giant republic again. Something shall also structurally be done there, FIS-racing director Walter Hofer plans already for a long time to bring a world cup into the Russian metropolis Moscow, but the plans failed till now. It remains to wait how ski jumping develops in this once so successful country.
Ski Jumps:
Yukki Krasnoyarsk (Kashtak) Ekaterinburg (Uktus)Advertisement:
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