Casey Colby, Coach     www.womensskijumpingusa.com

August 15, 2006
Bischofshofen AUT
by Casey Colby

Comp was pretty good today, the speed was maybe a little too much but it made for a fun comp. The cut was about 64 meters on the K-65, making it very interesting for all the countries.

The USA and CAN ladies have been on the road for a long time and I think they are wearing out a little bit, but they managed to have some good jumps today.

Elisabeth started out with a super aggressive trial jump, a little bit off the toes, but a good attempt at making some change. Her 1st comp jump was better but her unfamiliarity with a more aggressive flight position cost her a few meters and left her out of the final round of 30.

Karin had one of her longer jumps in the 1st comp round, 61 meters. She has been having jumps that are good jumps, but very segmented. sometimes a good inrun and take-off and a sub-par flight, and other jumps vice-versa. So she had a better take-off but couldn't quite find her flight position that she wanted.

Avery had a pretty good jump that was long enough to make the cut but she had some trouble with balance when she came in to land, fumbling her telemark landing and getting some low style marks that cost her a spot in the final round.

Atsuko had some good style to make up for her little bit shorter jump and that put in the final round with only 2 places to spare.

I finally convinced Brenna to trust me and feel as though she is flying like a limp noodle, and it made her jump farther and improved her style points from 49 in the last comp to 54 today. I think she still feels weird doing it but the way she was talking about her points today I think she will stick with it for a while.

Abby had some serious trouble in Official training yesterday. We would not call any of her attempts actual ski jumps so we were hoping for a different Abby to show up today. She had pretty solid jumps, 68-69 meters, good distance but still a rookie and trying the telemark landing past the K-point.

Alissa had some good jumps also. in 4 years of this summer tour for her this was by far her best season. She too has a few reservations about jumping a long way past K but she managed to do it pretty solidly today and actually ended up tied with Abby even though she was 1-2 meters behind her.

Jessica was mixed in with a tough group. About 5-6 ladies jumped over 70 meters and anyone that faltered even a little bit fell back a few spots in the final round. Jess was one of these victims today. Good jumps, but not her best. She also had her ankle swollen and taped up from a little accident in the rain the other day. We all know how graceful she can be, and this time her slip and fall in the gas station parking lot actually injured her ankle a bit.

Sagen had the two best jumps, both over 70 meters and the longest that I have seen here in the first round, 73 meters. A top-10 finish for the SUI team for Bigna Windmueller was a also a good sign of the progress being made in that part of the world.

Results summary:                   complete results
    1. Anette Sagen NOR
    2. Juliane Seyfahrt GER
    3. Ulrike Graessler GER
    4. Daniela Iraschko AUT
    5. Jacqui Siefriedsberger AUT
    6. Ayumi Watase JPN
    7. Jessica Jerome USA
   10. Katie Willis CAN
   12. Abby Hughes-T USA
   12. Alissa Johnson-T USA
   15. Brenna Ellis USA
    23. Atsuko Tanaka CAN
   30. Nata DeLeeuw CAN
   32. Avery Ardovino USA
    23. Zoya Lynch CAN
   36. Karin Friberg USA
   46. Elisabeth Anderson USA

August 13, 2006
Meinerzhagen GER - Team Competition
by Casey Colby

The USA entered 2 full teams in today's team comp. This is allowed because the team event is not a COC event and has no bearing in the overall COC points or nations cup points for the season. So we have 8 athletes here in Meinerzhagen, so we put in two fine teams to figure out where we stack up.

Team 1 was made up of Jessica, Alissa, Abby, and Avery. Team 2 was Lindsey, Brenna, Elisabeth and Karin. These were 2 very solid teams that had great potential for good finishes.

The hill here is a K-62, a good hill but still pretty small, the long jumps in official training were around 64 meters. So because of team comp set-up, each team has one person in group of 15 skiers, we were anticipating an entertaining competition because the jury can alter the inrun speed for each group of 15 instead of worrying about the same start for all 60 skiers that is set by only best skiers. We were not disappointed. Each group of 15 skiers had athletes jumping past the k-point which made things very interesting. Each skier was simply trying to win their group which would give them a head start for the next skier of the team. It would be a long drawn out story if I tried to explain everyone's jump each round to capture how exciting it was, but here a few highlights.

Elisabeth and Karin stepped things up and really helped out their team by scoring 177 and 198 points respectively. Karin finished the day with a jump of 60 meters which really boosted their position in a very tight race for the top 6. Avery show nerves of steel again, being the lead-off-hitter for a powerful team that was heavily favored to win. She finished both rounds in 3rd place for her group of 15 skiers with 220 points.

The Abby Hughes that all of the coaches love to see showed up to jump today. Her jumps improved all day winning her group both rounds and even having the longest jump of the weekend so far of 67 meters. (more important than anything for her today was her comment after her final jump, "it was much easier to land that far down the hill than at 62-63 meters. so hopefully she has learned a valuable lesson about sticking with jumps to the end of the flight)

Alissa was also up against some very stiff competition in her group but she had 2 good jumps as well to lead both rounds in her group. Jessica was in the toughest seed, the final seed. She had 2 good jumps, but more impressive than her distances were her style marks. She had the highest marks on the hill, again. (I am sure that she never thought I would be saying such a thing about her after all the grilling I do to her about telemark landings)

Canada also put up a fight in the 2nd round. They were in a tough match-up with the AUT team and the points were very close. Zoya had a better 2nd jump to start things off for the team and then Nata, Atsuko and Katie all had longer jumps than their first round efforts to improve their rank at the end of the day.

Results summary:                   complete results
    1. USA-1   916.2
    2. GER-1   871.0
    3. NOR   850.2
    4. JPN   835.8 (with one athlete crashing)
    5. CAN   803.2
    6. USA-2   797.1
    3. AUT   795.2
    4. ITA   795.1
    5. SUI   778.5 (with one crash and another almost crashing)
    5. SLO   765.2

It was a great show of effort from all of our ladies. They are continuing to prove to the world what a huge force the USA ladies are. It is always a great feeling to have your team perform well but I did not think that we could ever have 2 teams perform so well and have both score in the top 6 among 15 teams.

August 9, 2006
Poehla GER
by Casey Colby . . . (writeup by Alissa Johnson below)

We had a great day at the jump today in Pohla GER., K-60 meter hill. Pretty small for our tastes but still a good event at the end of the day. The weather was a lot better today, a little overcast but no rain for a change. The comp had representation from 12 countries and 54 skiers. But that did not stop the charge from the North Americans. All conditions were fair and everything went pretty smooth throughout the entire comp. The USA has 8 athletes represented here for the last 3 events of the summer tour, and we were represented very well in this competition.

After the first round we had managed 6 of the eight ladies into the final round of 30. Karin and Elisabeth just missed the cut by 1 meter and 2.5 meters respectively, but showed good improvement during the few training jumps that they did get.

Brenna also showed some good improvement also and may finally be understanding a few things that have been troubling her this summer.

Avery was the true surprise today. She came off the plane and was just so excited to be in GER to compete, and that enthusiasm helped her jumping a lot. She was very consistent with all of her jumps on this hill and they were quite good. She was 12th after the first round and managed another good jump to maintain 13th place at the end of the comp. The only athlete to overtake her was one of the Swiss girls that has been in the top group of every official training but faltering a bit on her first comp jump. Abby had two consistent jumps, ranked 9th both rounds, and finished 9th overall.

Lindsey, who hates these small hills and is very vocal about it, fared pretty well, ranked 6th both rounds and finishing tied for 5th with Katie Willis from CAN.

Alissa fine-tuned her inrun position today and it made a huge difference. Her 2nd jump today was the 3rd best jump of the day and she finished in 4th place.

Jessica, who was again in the top 2-3 every round of training, had the 2nd best jump of the day to move her from 4th to 3rd overall.

But the top of the podium belonged to the Germans. Ranked 1 and 2 after the first round, they switched places but did not relinquish the top spots after the 2nd round.

Results summary:                   complete results     current rankings    

1. Juliane Seyfahrt GER     2. Ulrike Graessler GER     3. Jessica Jerome USA     4. Alissa Johnson USA     5. Lindsey Van (T) USA     5. Katie Willis (T) CAN     7. Anette Sagen NOR     9. Abby Hughes USA    13. Avery Ardovino USA    17. Brenna Ellis USA

August 9, 2006
Poehla GER
by Alissa Johnson

The comps today went very well. We were all happy to see that the other members of our team made it here safe and sound (Karin, Elisabeth, and Avery).

Unfortunately Karin and Elisabeth did not make the cut for the second round. Karin jumped well with 52.5 meter jump and Elisabeth with a 51 meter jump. To make the cut you had to jump at least 53-54 meters. The USA had 6 girls who made it into the next round. Avery ranked 12th after her first jump, Brenna was 18th after her first jump, Abby was then ranked 9th, I (Alissa) was 7th after the first jump, and Lindsey was 6, Jess was 4. So as you can see the US was in a good place to get some girl on the podium.

In between the rounds we had a great break...laughed a bit, warmed up again. One reason most of us had such a great day was because two of the German girls accidentally switched their suits and had to change quickly at the top. Juliane had to strip down to her skivvies in front of everyone in order for her teammate to not miss her start. We all laughed, and Juliane got a kick out of it ... everything went well.

August 6, 2006
Klingenthal GER
by Casey Colby . . . (writeup by Lindsey Van below)

Dreary and a little chilly, that was the mood of our day here in Klingenthal for the first of 4 COC events in GER and AUT. Rain pounded us all day long, it never let up. At one point during the trial round a couple of skiers almost hydroplaned out of the track because of too much water in the track. So the trial round was restarted after an hour long break, nobody dried out but at least it wasn't a torrential downpour when we started again.

5 USA ladies and 4 CAN ladies took to the K-80 hill. The event started with 49 athletes after 2 ladies had to pull out due to falls on the outrun during the trial round. After official training we saw some good results from some unexpected teams. The Swiss have a great young team, a 12 year old had the longest jump, and second longest jumps in 2 of the rounds. And the Japanese team had 4 ladies with good showings as well.

Jessica led the trial jump with the longest jump of 84 meters, much like she did in the official training jumps.

During the first round one of the ITA ladies had her best jump of the summer and was 3rd after the first round. Jessica jumped a little late but still managed a good jump and was 5th, Lindsey started getting some feeling back, which is normal for here on this jump, and was 2nd, Alissa was 11th, Abby was 16th with her shortest jump so far on this hill, and Brenna was 19.

There was a bit of shuffling during the 2nd round. Nata (CAN) had some trouble in the air with her clip coming out and she fell after an off-balance landing. Abby was the first to shake things up by having the longest jump of the competition, 83.5 meters, but she saw the bottom of the hill and prepared for the worst causing herself to land in the cannonball position which severely hurt her style points. Then Izumi Yamada, in 14th place, had a good jump of 81 to pull ahead of Abby. Katie (CAN) had a decent jump putting her in between the JPN and Abby in the top group. Jessica had a good jump with the best style points of the day to help move her up, Lindsey still managed a pretty good jump after some trouble on the inrun, and Anette Sagen had her best jump in the past 2 days to move up from 4th to 1st.

Results summary:                   complete results  &  current rankings

1. Anette Sagen NOR     2. Juliane Seyfahrt GER     3. Jessica Jerome USA     4. Lindsey Van USA     5. Izumi Yamada JPN     6. Katie Willis CAN     8. Abby Hughes USA    12. Alissa Johnson USA    18. Atsuko Tanaka CAN    21. Brenna Ellis USA    29. Nata DeLeeuw CAN    34. Zoya Lynch CAN

August 6, 2006
Klingenthal GER
by Lindsey Van

Today was the competition in Klingenthal, Germany. The weather has been pretty crazy. It's been about 50 degrees and raining since we arrived. It's amazing to see how much it can really rain here, but it's a nice change from the desert in Utah. It was raining cats and dogs so the trial round was restated about half way through, and delayed 40 minutes. We were all soaked by the time we took our first competitive jump.

Brenna woke up pretty sore this morning, because she crashed yesterday in training in her brand new jump suit. She had an o.k. jump and was in 19th after the first round, and finished the comp in 21st. Abby had foggy goggles and a weird jump that landed her in 16th after the first round, but had the longest jump of the competition in the 2nd round moving her up eight places to finish in 8th place.

Alissa jumped much better on this hill than she has in the past, and better than she was in training yesterday, and finished in 12th place tied with Line Jahr of Norway.

I have been struggling the last couple weeks with my jumping technique, and didn't train so well yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised with my jump in the 1st round that landed me in 2nd. The 2nd jump was not so good, but I had my best result of the summer with a 4th place.

Jessica kicked butt yesterday in training and many people had picked her to win today. She was late on her first jump with a fifth place effort, but had a much better 2nd jump that took her up to third place. Also her best finish of the summer.

Anette Sagen won, with the leader of the Continental Cup Juliane Seyfahrt finishing in 2nd. 5th place went to the oldest competitor Izumi Yamada of Japan, and rounding out the top 6 was another North American, Katie Willis of Canada. Overall, today was a successful day for the U.S. team, but we are all looking forward to jumping the new K125 hill in the morning. The next competition will be in Poehla, Germany on Wednesday.

July 26, 2006
Calgary CAN
by Casey Colby

Day Two in Calgary was actually a beautiful day. After about half of the competitors had jumped in the 1st competitive round the headwind died causing me some concern because all of my athletes were after bib 10. But for the most part it was pretty fair. And as the old adage states, "the better I am the luckier I get" held true today as a slight headwind picked up for the last 2 skiers of the 1st round, allowing the current Overall leader to be ahead by 4 meters and 15.5 points with only a mediocre jump. After round 1 we had some sad faces on the team. Brenna 19, Lindsey 13, Abby 12, Jessica 10, and then Alissa in 6th only 1.5 meters behind 2nd place.

For the final round the air picked back up and was still a little too unstable to call it totally fair, but what comes around goes around, and we had a couple athletes get good wind and a couple that got average air.

Lindsey, the most frustrated of the crowd after years of being among the top skiers even with a bad jump had a better jump and managed a 91.5 meter jump that moved her up significantly. Abby faltered on her take-off a bit but still managed 85 meters. Jessica followed Lindsey's cue and had a 91 meter jump just toping Lindsey's point score for the 2nd round. Alissa, who has been the most consistent skier here in Calgary put a jump down to 83 meters. Anette Sagen showed her form of last season and had a great last jump of 94.5 meters, easily moving her onto the podium.

Results summary:                   complete results
    1. Juliane Seyfahrt GER
    2. Daniela Iraschko AUT
    3. Anette Sagen NOR
    4. Jessica Jerome USA
    5. Ulrike Graessler GER
    6. Lindsey Van USA
    6. Ayumi Watase JPN
    8. Alissa Johnson USA
    9. Atsuko Tanaka CAN
    10. J Siefriedsberger AUT
   11. Nata DeLeeuw CAN
   12. Katie Willis CAN
   12. Abby Hughes USA
   10. Brenna Ellis USA
   20. Zoya Lynch CAN
   23. Jaklyn Devos CAN

July 25, 2006
Calgary CAN
by Casey Colby

The day was really long. Training last night had perfect conditions after the hill crew fixed a couple of problems that the jury found with the landing hill. But everything was good and training went off without a hitch. This evenings competition however was interrupted by a storm. Halfway through the round we had some close proximity lightning strikes so the ladies scrambled down the tower and we took about a 45 min break waiting for the storm to pass. Eventually it did and we restarted the comp from the beginning.

In the first round the wind came and went and so it was the luck of the draw for a while. Unfortunately the COC leader was one of the lucky ones and she led the round by 4 meters. Jessica was not one of the lucky ones, she had to jump in some unfavorable air and with her habit of being too aggressive in the flight she wound up 14th after the first round. Lindsey was 4th, Alissa 5th, Abby 9th and Brenna 18 after having to make another jump because she took her first jump before the lightning hold.

The second round didn't star until 9pm, but up here in Calgary the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and was still high enough on the horizon to shed enough light. From the coaches stand we were looking directly into a beautiful sunset. But along with the end of the storm and clearing skies came a strong tailwind for all of the athletes. Some had less than others but when we are talking about 1.5 meters per second tailwind being good conditions it doesn't really matter what the difference is.

Jessica was one of the few that had a better 2nd round jump, as did Abby. Abby actually had the 3rd best jump of the round but it wasn't enough to make up the gap on the ladies in front of her. Lindsey didn't have a very good flight and she landed a little short and lost a few places as Alissa hung on with a consistent jump to hold onto her placing. The story of the day came from the local favorite Katie Willis. She was in 6th place after the 1st round and had the best jump of the 2nd round to move her up into 4th place, just 3 points away from the podium. Showing good form at home is a difficult thing to do, especially when you are trying to prove to the next hosts of the Winter Olympic Games that your event belongs in the OWG with a few hometown ladies in medal contention.

Results summary:               complete results
    1. Juliane Seyfahrt GER
    2. Daniela Iraschko AUT
    3. Ulrike Graessler GER
    4. Katie Willis CAN
    5. Alissa Johnson USA
    6. Anette Sagen NOR
    6. J Siefriedsberger AUT
    8. Lindsey Van USA
    9. Abby Hughes USA
   12. Jessica Jerome USA
   14. Atsuko Tanaka CAN
   16. Brenna Ellis USA
   17. Nata DeLeeuw CAN
   19. Zoya Lynch CAN
   23. Jaklyn Devos CAN

July 21 & 22, 2006
Park City UT
by Adia Waldburger, for the Park Record  (Park City newspaper)

Did we watch a palace coup last weekend at Utah Olympic Park?

German teenager Juliane Seyfahrt - who turned 16 during the Olympics in February - showed up late for training last week because the team didn't arrive until late Wednesday night. They trained Thursday on Bear Hollow's 100-meter jump, a.k.a., the normal hill, and then stepped into Showtime at sunset Friday for the VISA Women's Ski Jumping Festival.

And Seyfahrt, ice cool despite the 90s-plus temps, laid down the longest jump of each round to win. And then she did it again - not quite as dominating but still victorious - Saturday sunset, too.

For the Yanks, Parkite Jessica Jerome led in each competition, finishing fourth each time; Lindsey Van was fifth Friday and 10th Saturday while Alissa Johnson was ninth Friday and fifth Saturday. High schooler Abby Hughes wowed folks with a seventh-place result Saturday and U.S. Coach Casey Colby wanted to make certain no one missed the two top-20s (18th Friday, 15th Saturday) for 14-year-old Avery Ardovino in the second meet.

"We had some good jumping, but Abby and Avery were particularly impressive," he said. "They really showed us something. It should give them plenty of confidence."

Blockbuster crowds attended each evening's festivities, which started with music at 5 p.m. and in between the rounds of jumping. It was a festive picnic for all as they saw some world-class competition and got to beat the heat on the grassy grounds below the Olympic jumps.

Softball uniforms speckled the crowds as the young women from around the country who were in Park City for their softball tournaments came up to watch their colleagues, who hope to keep marching forward to the 2010 Olympics. The 2009 World Championships are assured, and the Olympics are next on the horizon, including Vancouver organizers' approval and then the International Olympic Committee okay by the end of the year, if things fall into place. If...

Meanwhile, the focus for women jumpers was on UOP and their sport, and the start of their third season with a Continental Cup schedule. Seyfahrt's performance overshadowed Norwegian great Anette Sagen, who won the gold medal in 2004 when women's jumping was added as an exhibition event for the World Junior Championships (Van took the bronze), and who has won both Continental Cup titles - seven wins in 2005 and nine wins last season.

Not that Sagen had a total dogfood weekend - seventh Friday night and then second, just a point back of Seyfahrt in the finale. But Seyfahrt, who won the World Juniors crown last season, was pretty solid. And U.S. Coach Casey Colby and American athletes nodded their acknowledgement.

"I think Juliane's going to be tough to beat this season; she's a really good jumper and this was another good victory for her," Jerome said after the second comp.

Colby echoed her, marveling at Seyfahrt's almost robo-like precision. It reminds him a bit of Poland's Adam Malysz, who returned to World Cup jumping with the 2001 season after a couple of seasons away. He had put together a team of biomechanics and assorted coaches, and Malysz went on to win three straight World Cup titles, 2002 Olympic silver and bronze behind Harry Potter look-alike Simon Ammann of Switzerland, and a small handful of World Championships medals.

"She's a rock. She is so calm and collected," the U.S. coach said. "She does the same thing on every hill. Even when you see her in-run position change a little bit, she still pushes down against the ground [in-run track] and goes up and away from the hill.

"And she's small and she's light and she knows what position she wants to be in, so it's a piece of cake for her. Yeah, just like Malysz. The best guys can do that they're in the groove and they adjust, and they do the important things well and it works on every jump...and Juliane brings that to her jumping."

"That's why she beat everybody by so many points [30-plus] at World Juniors. She's small and light and she does it well."

U.S. women were upbeat about handling the pressures of the week, and also were smiling about finally shifting from the training phase to competition.

"I didn't do terrible, I didn't do great. But it's nice to get this weekend out of the way," Jerome said. "I'm jumping, technically, way better...I'm getting it, slowly..."

The women moved on Sunday to Calgary, the 1988 Winter Olympic host for midweek competitions (Tuesday, after The Park Record's press deadline, and today) before the schedule lurches back to Europe for August jump meets, three in Germany and a fourth in Austria.

"Not shabby at all to get things started,' Colby said. "Two top-fives each night, top-10s...a good start..."

"Technically, Jess was probably the top skier on the hill [Saturday]. She just got a little too aggressive, pushed a little too hard at the bottom, but it's July - we can fix that."

U.S. Nordic chief Luke Bodensteiner agreed. "We had girls up top and close to the podium, and we had a lot of girls in the top 15. They're coming along nicely. It's a good start."

Johnson's final jump - a 93-meter pearl that lifted her to fifth - brought a smile.

"The first couple of competitions of the year there's always a lot of stress and tension because nobody knows how she's going to do. So, it's definitely nice to get these out of the way and finally be competing," she said.

Van, conceding the second night "wasn't what I was hoping for," said she doesn't think she applies more internal pressure when she jumps at home - after all, she won one of the 2005 Continental Cups at Bear Hollow "but I seem to jump better everywhere else in the world, so maybe."

But, like almost everyone else, knowing there are still 20 events on the women's calendar - all of them elsewhere, she smiled and said, "I feel better about the next 20."

A quick recap of the VISA weekend:

Friday - Seyfahrt, looking weary, ignored obvious jet lag and the heat to out-muscle the field. She had the longest jump in each round but shaky style cost her points on her first jump, even though she was three meters farther (96-93) than Austrian Daniela Iraschko - who swept both meets two years ago at UOP. On the final round, though, Seyfahrt was longest again at 92.5 meters and when Iraschko could squeeze only 88.5 out of her jump, Seyfahrt won. Iraschko was second with Norway's Line Jahr completing the podium.

For the locals, Jerome was fourth and Van fifth, Johnson ninth, Hughes 11th, Brenna Ellis 12th and Ardovino 18th.

Saturday - Sagen jumped 97.5 meters and Seyfahrt went 96.5, just a point between 'em. But Seyfahrt croaked Sagen on the final jumps - she went 94.5 and Sagen couldn't match, coming up two meters and one point short. Seyfahrt: 245.0 points with 244.0 for the Norwegian champion.

From four in the top 12 Friday to four in the top 10 Saturday - Jerome fourth, Johnson fifth, Hughes seventh and Van 10th.

Colby noted, "Okay, we're underway. We'll get better from here...but this was a hectic week, lots of distractions, and the girls handled it well. I'm smiling."


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