Its been a while since my last update, but its been a long season too..... Tough to get on email in most locations around the world, and extremely busy when we do. But, we are back in the good old USA now, and reviewing the season, as well as mapping out the plans for the new one. Its been a challenging season, but we are out there every single day, trying our very best, learning new things, and chipping away at becoming the very best in the most difficult and rewarding sport in the world; Ski Jumping.
We were originally planning on bringing a full team to the Torino pre-Olympic world cup and World Championships, but with the season-ending injury to Alan Alborn, and another athlete opting to stay at home, we couldn't field a full team competitive enough. We decided to take Clint and Brian Welch to represent the USA. The jumps in Pregalato were great, and will fare well for us this next year, as they are similar to the hills we train on here in Park City. They are considered "high altitude", though not nearly as high as here, but for Europe they are up in the mountains, and the design and feel of the jumps is similar. Both will help our US jumpers and N/Cers as we prepare to have our best results ever this coming February. Clint and Brian had a really good day of training, but the one down-fall of the new Olympic site is the crazy wind. For being up in the mountains, there were lots of unpredictable winds, so the comp day was not so good for anyone.
>From there we headed to Oberstdorf for the 2005 World Championships.
It was great to have the full US Nordic Team all at one hotel, even if it was at the end of a lost canyon. Despite not loving the small hills, Clint jumped well on the K90 and was consistently in the teens in official trainings. In the comp, he missed the cut by a tiny margin, and his goal of top 15 by a mere 3 meters. Brian had a good experience, being at this level, but couldn't quite find his position on this unique small hill, and we decided it best for him to head back to the US for our only domestic Continental Cups. It payed off, as he was the top American in Iron Mt. one day in 18th place. Back at WCM, Clint was jumping well but with only one athlete in the comp, we are cutting it close. This concept reared its ugly head when in the quali, he got a gust of bad tailwind and ended up 52nd.... it was a bad day for our team, and we all left the hill shocked, my jaw was still on the ground from the jury giving him a green light with those conditions.
For the final trip of the season, I decided that we needed to gain some confidence and step down for the final COC of the winter in Zakopane, Poland. This also allowed us to bring more athletes from the USA, as we have a quota of 4. With Anders Johnson having to get ready for Jr Worlds, and Tommy Schwall opting to once again stay in the USA for the SuperTours, we brought a team of 3, based on their performances in the Westby and Iron Mt COC's, as well as the opinions of their coaches.
Clint, Brian Welch, and Hartman Rector made the trip to Poland, with the deal of whoever performs will get to stay on for the Planica Ski Flying finale. The trainings were good, with Clint in the top 5 on all jumps, but again, with the comp day, comes the bad weather. On Saturday the wind and jumping were not the best. On Sunday the snow came, but things were going well, with Clint in 3rd, and only a few of the restarted jumpers from the beginning of the round (jumpers with no COC points), they canceled the competition. I was really disappointed, as they could have easily made it a one round comp, and all of you would have seen the posted result, but it was not to be. The jumping made Clint feel better, as he knows he belongs in the top of those ranks, but a posted result is always nice. Unfortunately, neither Brian nor Hartman had their best jumps, so they headed home, and we stayed and trained in Zakopane for a few days.
On Wednesday, Clint and I headed down to the final World Cup of the season, on the biggest hill in the world, Planica HS215. The weather was great and the hill was in good shape. His official training jumps were decent, 191m, which even 2 years ago would have been pretty good, was only in the 30-40's. Clint missed the qualification of the top 40 the next day, so we were forced to watch the weekends competitions.
Thats a damn tough thing, but its part of 'taking our medicine' and learning more as well as adding to the hunger to be on top. Saturday was just an average day of ski flying with the longest jump only at 228m, but Sunday was epic. It was the best ski jumping competition ever held. The already-huge world record of 231m was broken and re-broken many times. The weather had cooled down, and made the track faster and more free, as well as summoned up some head wind at the bottom. Bjorn Einner Romeren set a new record in the trial at 234.5m, then Hautamakki took it back at 235, and when they were interviewing Matti, he was saying that there is just NO hill left, Bjorn came down, nailed it perfectly, and stuck it at 239.5m! It was epic! The world cup overall winner, Janne Ahonen was up next and to top it all off, had a monstrous jump of 240m, but landed and immediately fell back. He was unfortunately injured, but the broken rib was from a previous accident earlier in the season. This has brought a lot of second guessing about the jury's choice to let the comp continue with jumps this long, a controversy that will be debated for years. It was unfortunate for Janne, but I spoke to his coaches later that night, and even he was psyched with a jump that huge. We were proud of him, now we just need a bigger jump!

The next morning we flew straight into Nationals in Steamboat. Its pretty anticlimactic to go from a monster like Planica, to a small K90 at 7000ft, but National Championships is a great event. We all need to continue to search for better places in the schedule, but thats another discussion for later this spring. As the theme of our season has gone - "horseshoes and hand grandes", Clint was close, but couldn't quite sneak out a win. He was second on both hills, which was better than last year, when he didn't even reach the podium, but not good enough. The conditions were challenging again, and when Todd had a good first round jump with the skies dumping snow, I knew it would be tough to catch him.
We didnt have Alan nor Johnny due to injuries, it was also unfortunate to not have our top juniors in Steamboat, as they were in Northern Finland for Jr World Junior Championships. Despite the crazy timing and conditions, the results were fairly consistent with where everyone is.
Tommy Schwall did a good job, grabbing 3rd both days, and Chris Francis picked it up to with the coveted Ragnar Cup for the top Junior on the K90.

We put a close to this long and challenging season Friday 3/25. It was not where I expected to be at this time, but I can say that things are in a better place for US Special jumping than a year ago. (soon) well have Alan Alborn back again. We have more educated juniors, and Clint and the boys have another season of learning under their belts.
Although the results didn't come together, I feel that all of the individual pieces are better; technically, physically, and mentally.
And thats at least something to go with. We have all had better success in the past, Clint, Alan, myself as a coach, so we all know where we need to get, but ski jumping is ever-evolving, and at a unbelievably high level in the world right now. All the major countries have millions of dollars, and hundreds of kids, not to mention the culture and support from their entire community. Our budget, athletic pool, and facilities continue to shrink, but there still is a way to get the USA to the top of this amazing sport. We have something that none of the European and Scandinavian superpowers have; we are Americans. We have a history of observing whats good, and improving upon that to make a hybrid thats even better. We have ingenuity, technology, and the worlds largest economy.....we just need to tap into that for our sport and team. We also have a great history of loyalty, not like those finicky Euros that only watch their team when they are winning (by their own addmission). So, I know there are a lot of you out there who watch and follow US jumping, and who all have a lot of vested interest in the sport. I now challenge you to do what you can, and turn all of that energy into support for our team. The more of that we can get; moral, financial, time, etc... on board, and funneled into one direction, the sooner we will succeed at all levels.

Thank you all for your time, support, and dedication to US Ski Jumping

Corby Fisher
Head Coach
US Jumping Team