Meet a cross-section of people who enjoy ski jumping  . . .  our   A I R   F O R C E

Joe at Madison     Joe at Wirth Park, Minneapolis

Joe Berens     In 2002, at the age of 41, Joe Berens strapped on some jumping skis and took his first ride in nearly three decades. Though a little rusty, Joe was hooked again. Joe's very first time skijumping was way back in 1972. Starting at the age of 11, he ski jumped for two winters at Wirth park in Minneapolis under the instruction of Selmer Swanson. By the end of his second year, he had three rides on the old K55 jump at Bush Lake. The icy track, side start and size of the jump intimidated Joe. At the same time, he was getting good at gymnastics and he ended up leaving ski jumping behind. He competed for the Robbinsdale High School gymnastics team, eventually helping his team to two state championships. Though he was no longer ski jumping, Joe watched the Olympic jumpers on TV every four years and remembered how fun it is to fly through the air. Finally, after the 2002 Olympics, he got some equipment together and rejoined the Minneapolis Ski Club after a three-decade lapse in membership. By the end of the season, he was jumping the K70 in Minneapolis. The next year he conquered the K90 in Eau Claire. In 2002 and 2003, he participated in the national masters tournaments at Iola and Madison and placed second in his age group. One of Joe's goals for this year is to not have the shortest ride of the weekend at the Eau Claire tournament. Joe expects to stay with ski jumping until it is no longer fun. He cites Don West as a key inspiration and is indebted to the entire ski jumping community for being so helpful and friendly to him as he jumped back into the sport. An Information Technology Professional at the University of Minnesota, Joe is a UNIX System Administrator for the Departments of Psychology and Electrical & Computer Engineering. By the way, if you ever visit the Minnesota State Fair, be sure to stop by the Creative Activities building. Joe's dill pickles have won numerous awards, including the Gedney Award for best cucumber pickle!

Taylor Lyons     (photos by John Lyons) The Central Division's Taylor Lyons (St. Paul Ski Club) started jumping when she was five years old. She has left behind the baby blanket she's holding in the bottom photo, but we have found out through unnamed sources that it is actually still on her bed! She hopes to someday follow in the footsteps of her grandfather who was a two-time national champion. After years of competing on the Central Division circuit with her cousin Johnny, Taylor qualified for the Junior Olympics in Lake Placid in 2000 and tackled her first 90-meter hill there. She has since had the opportunity to train some in Park City on the 90, and had quite a trip recently to Steamboat Springs. She went to train and compete on the K90, but once there, was compelled to try the K118. Her coach, Martin Bayer, watched through the viewfinder of his video camera with amazement as she jumped 75 meters on her first attempt! Another few tries found her floating to the 90 meter mark. That was enough to convince Coach and Taylor that she should try to compete on the big hill the next day. She did, placing 3rd in her class! Another trip to Lake Placid and the 120-meter hill over the New Year Holiday resulted in an invitation to travel to Germany and Austria in February to compete with America's top girls in the 2003 FIS Ladies Grand Prix. As a team, the U.S. girls won the event. For those unfamiliar with this sport, kids do start at this age, and yes, there are a lot of little girls. The St Paul Ski Club, where Taylor started, has one of the largest junior programs in the country. There are a lot of girls and young women in the sport; we encourage you to see for yourself ... come on out to St Paul or any of our other clubs to see how youngsters learn and become proficient at ski jumping!

	Tom Ricchio     (above & left) Tom Ricchio began ski jumping competitively in THE fifties, and now he's in HIS fifties! Retired from a career as a corporate pilot for John Deere, Tom is a frequent competitor in Masters 3, for jumpers age 50-59. He and his wife Jane live in Iola, WI where Tom is actively involved in the junior development program. Tom's first exposure to jumping came in 1957 at Pine Mountain in Iron Mountain, Michigan. He told his dad at the time that he'd jump that big hill some day, and did it in 1966. He started jumping on a 20 meter hill in Racine, WI, coached by Brady Emerson, whom he credits with teaching many important life lessons such as respect for others and a strong work ethic, in addition to coaching jumpers. Tom is pictured here with his mom, age 86, at the Norge summer tournament in September 2002. She first saw him compete here in 1961, and hadn't seen him jump since!
Photo by Mark Nalbach - 2003 Photo by CC Sheldon - 2003	Nick Schott     Nicolas Schott is a 15 year old who has jumped with the Black Hawk Ski Club since January 1999. He was born in South Korea, but is now an American citizen. He enjoyed seeing both American and Korean ski jumpers at the Salt Lake City Olympics. After the 2002 season, Nick had to modify his technique. Previously, he could not bend his left ankle forward from the upright position, making it hard to achieve a good inrun position as well as impossible to cock his ankle in flight. This is because Nick was born without a left foot, and  he wears a prosthetic left leg. In the spring of 2002, Nick's prosthetists, Byron Backus and Tony Fruci of the Shriner's Childrens Hospital in Minneapolis, came to watch him jump in St. Paul and decided they could help him a little. Though Nick cannot wear an artificial leg with a moveable ankle joint, the angle of his ankle could be changed! He can now achieve a proper inrun and flight position, using the special ski jumping leg. So Nick now has two left legs ... one for ski jumping, and one for everything else.   NOTE: In most places there are no lifts. Jumpers WALK up the hill. How did the new leg work? In his first tournament of the 2003 season, on the 30 meter jump in Minneapolis Jan 4, he tied for the second longest jump of the day at 28 meters. In the 2003 picture above, he's flying from the 52 meter jump at Wisconsin Rapids. A big "thank you" to Byron and Tony for helping Nick to fly! Webmaster note, 2006:  Nick has continued to progress to larger hills, competing often on the 70 and 90 meter hills in the midwest, and on the Olympic 90 meter hills in Park City & Lake Placid. He is usually near the top of the season points standings. He was selected to represent the Central Division in the 2006 Junior Olympics, and finished 12th among 39 athletes in Men's individual jumping. He also finished 7th among 44 in the individual distance elimination (target) event. This young man "CAN DO!" When he's not ski jumping, he likes to play soccer (he has a wicked right and left kick), skateboard, and listen to music. And he coaches younger jumpers, too. His brother Will, a year younger, is also an outstanding competitive jumper. He was the winner of the Men's individual jumping at the 2006 Junior Olympics. Their older sister Kaitlin coaches kids and jumps for fun.
Rastbuchl, Germany 1999	Blair Tomten     In-flight photo by Dave Tomten Blair Tomten was born October 13, 1982, the daughter of former U.S. Olympic jumper Dave Tomten. It seemed that as soon as she could walk she was skiing. Both Blair and her sister Berit could be found at an early age, imitating jumpers by leaping off the stairs in their house, and jumping off real (but small) jumps built in the woods alongside their home in Eau Claire, WI. All of these fun games soon turned into a ski jumping career. In high school, Blair participated in soccer and was on the swim team. She also played basketball, softball, and was a gymnast. She also skis cross country, being one of very few female Nordic Combined competitors in the U.S. She competed in the 1995 Nordic World Championships in Thunder Bay, Canada; also five Junior Olympics beginning at age 13, one National Championship, and the FIS International Ladies Grand-Prix in Europe. Currently coaching young skiers at the St Paul Ski Club, Blair is a structural engineering atudent at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis engineering. She hopes to some day help design and build a ski jump.
	Martin Bayer     Sue Denney (top), family photo (bottom)   Martin Bayer has been in the U.S. for the last couple of years coaching in Ishpeming, Michigan. Last summer, he relocated to Coleraine to coach the Itasca Ski & Outing Club's junior ski jumping team, and to assume co-coaching duties (along with Norge's Scott Smith) of the newly developed Central Division Elite Team. Martin spent his youth in his home country of Slovakia, part of the former Czechoslovakia. There he learned to ski under the watchful eye of his father, Peter Bayer, who recently retired after several decades serving as the national team coach. A two-time Olympian (1992 Albertville, 1994 Lillehammer), Martin is a veteran of 36 world cup competitions. He holds 8 Slovakian national championship titles, won the junior national championships in his home country, and was the 1991 European Cup champion in Nordic Combined. He has brought a wealth of talent and energy to the Central Division program. The upper picture was taken in November 2002 by Sue Denney; that's the Coleraine 70 meter jump in the background. The lower picture shows Martin, age 5, outside his grandparents' home in what's now the Czech Republic. We at SkiJumpingCentral.com, along with the entire ski jumping community throughout the midwest, want to express our appreciation for his work with our young skiers!
(click image to enlarge - 315K) (click image to enlarge - 152K)	Karla Keck     Photos by Carol & Bob Keck Karla Keck grew up in Wisconsin, ski jumping in the winter, playing soccer in the spring and fall and sailing a 16-foot cub boat and crewing on 20-foot C scows in the summer. She started jumping at age 5 with father Bob and brother John. Her career evolved through 12 years of competition in the Central Division (4 U.S. Jr. Olympics), 9 more consecutive years of competition (2 years at the U.S. Olympic Education Center at Northern Michigan University) and 7 years living, training, and competing in Europe and Scandinavia. Karla's tenacious drive culminated in 1999 by placing 2nd overall in the FIS International Ladies Grand-Prix 5-Event Series held in Germany and Austria and by winning the Series Finale at Ramsau, which was set up as the Women's World Championship. A three-time Women's Sports Foundation Travel & Training Grant recipient, Karla is recognized abroad and among her peers for her role in promoting International Women's Ski Jumping with the ultimate goal of adding Women's Ski Jumping to the Winter Olympics. Karla was one of several jumpers featured in a US News & World Report article in January 2002 article on the growth of women's jumping. The article, authored by Nell Boyce, questioned why it is the only Winter Olympic sport not open to women. She was a member of the U.S. Women's team that won the Ladies' Grand Prix in 2003 (multiple events in Europe). In the middle photo at left, Karla is flying from the 118 meter jump at Westby, WI in 1998. The lower photo, also from 1998, was taken at Stams, Austria. Karla placed second to Daniela Iraschko of Austria. Another outstanding Austrian, Eva Ganster, placed third. Also in the picture are Kristen Schmidt (Germany), Tanja Volczak (Slovenia), Sandra Kaiser (Austria), and Michaela Schmidt (Germany).
Copper Peak, Oct 2002	Bob Immens     Alvin Liikanen photo Bob Immens, well known throughout the midwest as a jumper, judge, and downhill instructor, began ski jumping as a boy about ten years old in the mid-1930s. A long-time member of the Norge ski club in Chicago, Bob hung up the jumping skis in 1971 at age 45. The following year, he and his son Scott were on a recreational ski trip to Czechoslovakia. They attended the national jumping championships, and were invited to jump. Both were called to the podium afterwards, a great honor back when few Americans visited there. Bob passed away on November 5, 2003. He will be greatly missed but he certainly won't be forgotten. After he hung up his jumping skis, he worked as a downhill instructor for many years at such places as Fox Trails, Wilmot, and Brule Mountain. He remained involved in jumping as an FIS certified judge, retiring in 2003. In summers, he volunteered at Copper Peak, and enjoyed chatting with visitors, who in turn enjoyed meeting a real jumper ... with a shock of white hair, an ever-present smile, and a twinkle in his eye.   Click here to read more about Bob.
Norge Ski Club / Chicago - Sept 2002	Andre Denney     Sue Denney Photo Andre Denney was seven years old when he took his first ride off the 70 meter jump in his home town of Coleraine, Minnesota in March 2002. His dad, Jon, and uncles, Jim and Jeff, were outstanding ski jumpers. His brothers Garrett and Karl, twin sister Arianna, and several cousins are all active jumpers, too. Like many youngsters, Andre started very young on tiny jumps. He was having fun, and moved to bigger jumps when his skill and confidence grew, and when his coaches permitted it. His buddy Tyler Hutchins, a year older, joined him in tackling the big hill. While this may seem unusual, many of the world's best jumpers start young, and are immersed in the sport with friends and family. Treat yourself - attend a junior meet, or just come on out and watch these kids practice!

 
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