Ski jumping is a winter sport in which competitor try to achieve the longest jump after descending from a specially designed ramp on skis. It’s also good to remember that along with distance, jumpers are also scored on style and technique.

SKI JUMPING IN POLAND

For the last 9 years, I’m proud to say that I’ve been living and working in Poland. Many of my friends and colleagues here are big fans of Ski Jumping (as am I), and it’s also a sport we cover with our live sports trackers. Why is it so popular here? Because they are very good at it! Even before I started working for STATSCORE, I got the bug for this great sport.

Poland can boast the likes of Adam Malysz and the great Kamil Stoch, but it doesn’t end here, there is a great depth of talent and have two venues here that I know are used for international competitions. The first and probably most well known is in Zakopane and the second is in Wisla, where the season just kicked off with a win for Team Poland on home soil! Told you they were good 🙂

POLISH JUMPERS

I think it’s safe to say that Adam Malysz started the success here. He competed from 1995 to 2011 and is one of the most successful jumpers of all time. I was lucky enough to catch the last few years of his career, with the highlight being the two sliver medals he won at the 2010, winter Olympic games in Vancouver. Although he has 4 individual gold medals from the World Championships among his many successes, the Olympic gold was not to be. But after his retirement, Poland didn’t have to wait too long for their gold medal, because along came Kamil Stoch! Who won two gold medals at the 2014 Olympics and another gold and a bronze medal at the 2018 games and is still jumping great. But Poland are not the only ones with well know jumper.

BRITISH JUMPERS

Ok, stop the laughter! Not many people outside of the UK know that we have a ski jumping hero! If not a winner. Who? When? Wait, I will tell you! I had not seen much ski jumping growing up, although I do remember watching a program called Ski Sunday when I was younger that covered all forms of down hill skiing. This all changed in 1988 with the great “Eddie the Eagle” Edwards (a little note to all my Polish friends, We had the first ski jumping eagle). Eddie was the first person to represent GB in this sport since 1928, and he was awful, but he was British and we were proud! He came last in both the 70 & 90 meter events. For the 70 meter event, he jumped 50 meters in both rounds, I know! Consistent! And in the 90 meter event, he was not so good and only jumped 30 & 27.5 meters for a joint total of 57.5 (the winner had 224). They say this can only happen in Britain, but he became a star, and has been in and out of the news ever since. This all came to a head in 2016, when they released a film about his life! So OK, it was a comedy, but Eddie will always be the first ski jumping eagle!

Read more: what does Matt think about football (not soccer!).