8-10-04

Hello Ski Jumping Friends,

Now that we are to the half-way point of the summer training season, (already), we can start sending out some team updates on all the happenings with the US Ski Jumping Team. Its been a great start to the

2004/2005 jumping season, with all six USST members jumping and training here in Park City. We have also invited all of the other "young seniors" to train here with the National Sports Foundation, so we are all close to each other, learning and pushing the level higher. This was a major goal for the year, as our isolation here in the US is a big hurdle, and with the lack of a budget, this is a great compromise. I have done my best to try and meet with and help all of the jumpers and coaches that are committed to making it happen, and this summer in Park City has been a good start.

On the A Team we have Clint Jones along with Alan Alborn returning from an early retirement. On the Development team, we have Anders Johnson, Chris Francis, Blake Hughes, and Kyle Kessler, all young talents that are making tons of progress in every aspect of the sport so far. In the NSF, training group we have the "young seniors", consisting of Tommy Schwall, Jim Denny, Tim Nelson, Brian Welch, Logan Gerber, Hartman Rector, and Lindsay Van, along with all of the other dedicated jumpers from around the country. The goal of the summer for everyone being; identifying what is keeping them from achieving their goals, and using the whole summer to permanently change those challenges. We have met individually met with them all, and personally identified these challenges, and a plan of action to fixing them. This process is something I call "Markers" and feel its a great way to see the steps of progression in this fickle sport. So far, so good!

On the competitive side, we chose to push the serious competitions back into the fall, to give a good time frame to achieve their technique goals. Inevitably, there are some early summer comps scheduled, and they have gone well so far. The first Super Tour in Lake Placid was held over the traditional 4th of July weekend. All of the special jumpers were in attendance, except for Alan Alborn, who we have on a even more delayed competition schedule, due to his year off last year.

There were two competitions held, one Friday night, and the SuperTour on Saturday afternoon. The wind played a role in the comps, but as we say, it is still an outdoor sport! The comp on Friday was great though, with virtually no wind effecting the jumpers, it was all up to good technique. Clint is jumping at a higher level, with some good changes made this summer, and showed that by winning by over 40 points, with two jumps at 97meters. Eric Camerota and young Anders Johnson rounded out the podium. On Saturday, when the money is awarded, the wind was a bigger challenge for the jury. With Clint jumping better, it had to be a low gate with the headwind, but when it shifts, its pretty low speed for no/tail wind..... Clints first jump was a terrific 104.5meter hill record, he actually had more in it, but I was happy that he landed it down there! Unfortunately, the wind was playing its usual tricks, and made the second round a bit tougher for everyone, but it was good to see who could keep their competitive edge and stick to their game plan, and who let the ups and downs of a wind comp get to them..... Even with the totally different contitions, the top 3 jumpers remained the same. It was a good week for everyone, being on a different jump, and having the pressure of competing, to work through, I know they all learned a lot.

>From there, it was back to Park City for some training and getting back

to work. The next competition was the second Super Tour of the summer, paired with the first ever, womans FIS Continental Cup event in Park City. It was great to see all the top woman ski jumpers from around the world come and compete in a FIS competition. The level is rising, but our US women showed that they are right with the international pace, with Lindsay winning the K64 and Jessica placing 3rd on the second day of the K90 COCJ event, earning some valuable COCJ points. We also had a great group of younger US girls showing who will be the next wave as the sport continues to gain international acceptance. On the mens side, there were also two competitions held, with the latter being the Super Tour. Again, the wind played a big part in the results, but it was great to see such a deep field here in the US. With the US Jumping and Nordic combined teams here with a full roster, as well as the Canadian National team, and almost all of our regional teams here; NSF, East, and Central, it was a very realistic look at what these guys need to do to win over in Europe. On Friday evening, Alan had the longest jump with 101.5m, but his binding broke under his foot, resulting in a fall.

Clint had to jump later in the round, with a lot less headwind, but pushed through, made some technically good jumps, and came out ahead in 1st place. Todd Lodwick, Johnny Spillane, and Billy Demong from the US N/C team are all looking good, and gave Clint a big run for his money.

The next day for the SuperTour, we had the same seeding issues, unfortunately not keeping all the top guys together from the night before. Clint and Alan jumped well, but Todd is so strong on K90's and took the top place. Alan was a close 2nd and Clint just behind in 3rd.

The top Junior was Stephan Reed from Canada, in 6th place overall. As I mentioned, despite the changing winds, I was really excited to see the level of jumping substantially raising here in North America. This competition showed that to win these days, you need two jumps, 10 meters past K, from low speeds, one falter, and you are 10+ places down the list. Its this kind of competition that we need to continue here, if we ever want to be successful in Europe where its the rule, not the exception.

Next, Clint and I prepared to head over to Europe for the first two Summer Grand Prix competitions of the year. In years past, these have been a big program goal, but in an effort to peak in the winter, we are just using them to check in with the current international level, learn from that, and use it as inspiration to be ready for this winter. Due to that, we decided to only bring Clint, and let the rest of the US jumpers, stay home and continue to make positive changes to their technique. We headed to Hinterzarten first, a good K95 hill in southern Germany. Clint had some good training jumps, and equipment testing days. In official training and one round, official training day, he was attempting some technique jumps, and didnt quite execute what we were working on, resulting in a 92.5m jump, ending up one meter shy of qualifying to compete.... It was disappointing, but he learned a lot from that day, and will be better for it. " Sometimes you get bucked off just a little early" out here on the road....It was really interesting to see the overall level, and who is on this early in the season. Two of the strongest teams from last winter, Finland and Norway, were obviously struggling, with only 3 Finns and 1 Norwegian qualifying for the final round of 30 jumpers. The Austrian, Polish, and Japanese teams looked good, and had the winning jumpers of Malysz, Morgenstern, and Kasai, respectively.

>From there, Clint and I headed off for the long drive to Courchevel

France. This is a good K120 up in the French Alps, and lifted our spirits for a good week. Clint had some good training jumps, and on the final day, was turning some heads from all the other teams. The qualification went well, and he was in for the next day.

The comp was scheduled for the evening, and that brings the settling air of mountain valleys, so we prepared for that fact, and Clint made some good jumps. His first round was a decent jump, in some bad air, resulting in 115.5m and 23rd place. From there, Clint stepped it up, and had a good 2nd round jump of 117.5m. It was better because all of the jumpers that went in front of him, went 5-10 meters shorter than their previous jump. Despite some tailwind, he made a better jump and moved up to 19th place overall. This jump was +/- 2meters of some of the top jumpers in the world; Morgenstern went 119m, Roar Ljoekelsoey 117m, Sigurd Petterson 115m, etc... so its great to see that with a good jump, Clint and the USA are right in the pack! Top 20's were our goal coming in, so to accomplish that was a great step towards our winter goals. It was solid jumping, in an extremely competitive field, and I was proud of Clint for stepping up, and satisfied with our first trip 'across the pond'.

Now we are back in Park City, ready to assess the first half of the summer, mark the progress, and look towards the future. I will host a Team Video night, with all of the jumpers in the area to go over all the videos from this most recent exposure to the top Jumpers in the world.

It will be a great tool for our athletes and coaches alike, as we continue to make progress in having a realistic level of training here in North America. In the future, I hope to be able to download video from our trips, so we can broadcast this info and discussion to the entire country, this list, to help our updates be even better.

For the rest of the summer, our schedule only gets busier. We have the annual Summer SpringerTourne competitions next week. A great competition, based on the famous 4-hills tournament in Europe, geared towards all the juniors in North America. Staying true to the format, they have 2 comps up in Calgary this week, and the final 2 back here in Park City next, with the overall winner of the K20, K40, K60, and K90 getting their names on the huge 'traveling' trophies. Its become a great tradition of getting all the kids in this continent together to compete and become friends. For the second year, we are here at the National Team are pitching in and having a USST guest coaching day, where the National team jumpers go down and help out the young up and comers on the K20 and K40. I will also be holding a coaches education/discussion night to give a progress report, review the goals and pipeline for the countries development, and talk about what we are seeing in the other nations around the world. Its a great event for all.

For the fall, we are taking the top 2 jumpers back to the second phase of the Summer Grand Prix in Europe. For the first 2 weeks of September, we will be competing in Zachopane Poland, Predazzo Italy, and Innsbruck Austria. We come back to round out the plastic season here in Park City and Lake Placid with some Super Tour and COCJ Team qualifying comps, then back to Europe for a fall camp with all the USST jumpers as well a few select regional athletes who have checked off the most summer markers.

Thanks to you all for your interest. For us to succeed, we need your support, so keep in touch and keep up the good work. Ill be back with another update soon, until then well be here working on being the best in the world!

Corby Fisher

Head Coach

US Jumping Team