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US Ski Team - Men's Ski Jumping (use BACK button to return to previous page) Corby Fisher, Head Coach - Men's Ski Jumping 2004-2005 Season Archive
March 30, 2005 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 Pragelato were great, 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 Einar Romoeren set a new record in the trial at 234.5m, then Hautamaeki took it back at 235, and when they were interviewing Matti, and 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 grenades", 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 that's 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 jumping 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 ... 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
March 13, 2005 The Sunday Continental Cup competition was crazy in Zakopane ... after a long day, they cancelled the comp with only a few jumpers left. We had Clint in 3rd place, but never saw official results, due to the cancellation. It would have been great to post this result, but at least Clint and I knew he was back in there where he belongs. Off to Planica for the BIG hill!
January 24, 2005 Hello Skifriends... After a challenging SpringerTournee and a few really bright spots at Ski Flying, we are back in Park City for a pre-world Championships training camp. Unfortunately, we had a setback a few days ago, when Alan tore his ACL in an alpine skiing accident. It was a major blow to our efforts to ramp up for the second half of the year, and his efforts in making a comeback from retirement. He had just gone 212 meters, only 2 meters from the hill record, in Ski Flying the other day at Kulm, and was really gearing up for World Championships. He feels terrible, but is already looking towards the future of re-habing hard, and getting ready for the summer training season. As we all know, that is part of athletics, but the timing is certainly tough.... Clint is motivated and training hard. We have also named Brian Welch to the World Championships team based on his good performances in the COC's in Japan. He is excited and will be a welcome addition to our small team. We continue to learn lessons and keep trying to break through in this difficult sport. Ski Flying was a great time, and we are already looking forward to Planica in March. I think that 2 weeks of training here in our home environment is just what Clint and Brian need. They are closer than the result sheet reads and are on their way to being in the hunt. Thanks for all your support and interest, keep believing and well make it happen!
December 14, 2004 We just returned from the first period of the ski jumping world cup, and boy, is that level high! Clint Jones, Alan Alborn and myself spent the past month in Finland, Norway, and the Czech Republic. We are now here in sunny Park City for a week training camp before heading back over for the 4 hills SpringerTournee in Germany and Austria. Due to the lack of ANY ski jump open in North America, or the world, we had a later start than expected, but once the word came in that Kussamo was getting close, we headed over to take the first jumps on that beast. It had gone from +5 to -20 in one day, and it was 100% winter by the time we stepped off of that plane into the darkness of mid-day Finland. Things started off well, picking up right where they had left off on plastic in the few training days we had. In the competitions, the inevitable wind came, and made this hill even bigger, but Clint skied tough and started the season off with those valuable world cup points, in 25th. Alan was close, but ended up in 37th, not bad for coming out of retirement. The second day was even windier, and the guys did their best, but didn't quite come into the points. The good news was they both are qualifying in every event, and these days thats a sign of good jumping in itself. Every week there are recent World and Olympic Champions that dont even qualify to ski both rounds, the sport is just at that high of a level. After 10 days up on Mt Ruka, we finally packed up and headed for Norway. Trondheim had more snow that usual, which ended up being a good thing, because it poured rain the whole comp weekend.... We got one day of training, and things went well. In the comps, the rain and wind came ensuring it was another crap shoot. At this level, and with such low speeds (88Ks on the HS132), even the slightest change in weather makes it tough. The boys jumped better in the qualifications, but the comps were very difficult. With the pressure of live TV, and bad weather, the jury just chose a low gate, and ripped people off, two jumps at 99m finished in the top 25....so not the most stellar comp special jumping has ever had. The top guys are still on their game, Janne Ahonen won his 4th straight this weekend, coming from 15 points down after the first round to over take hometown boy Roar Ljoekelsoey, who fell to 4th... We had scheduled to train in Trondheim the next days, but with the cold December rain continuing to fall, and the local hill crew, not as excited about our open training as we were, we had to look forward to the next weekend in The Czech. We had some great immo sessions, made those necessary adjustments, and were looking forward to getting the chance to jump again. Luckily, we made it to Harrachov to find snow on the hill, and something resembling the sun in the sky. We got to jump on Wednesday on their newly modified K125. Clint and Al had both jumped the Ski Flying hill that towers over all other jumps in Harrachov, but never this hill. Its a really unique jump, with the inrun and landing being really flat. Despite its looks, it is a great ski jump. The track was in great shape, and the feel is awesome. We transferred the changes from immos to jumping on the hill, and at the end of the day on Wednesday, were looking much better. Both Clint and Alan had some of the best jumps I had seen them have in years, and were feeling great. The local organizers got wind of this, and suddenly scratched the training session for Thursday...as it tends to happen over there. I was hoping for at least one more session to really groove this feeling in, but thats how it goes out here on the road. In official training and Quali, they were both in the top 35 every jump. It seems that it wasn't just our team that loves this jump; all teams stepped it up, and by the weekend comps, was the highest level World Cup I have ever seen. Both guys were coming into the comps with confidence and good ideas, starting to be where we need. On Saturday they both had good, solid jumps. Some tailwind had picked up early in the round, and was the difference of 10m, but still Clint went 126.5m and was in. Alan ended up 34th, those elusive 2m out of qualifying for the second round and points. Clint hung in there, and had a good day, ending up 27th, and scoring 4 points. Things are SO tight out there, and all countries have some good jumpers, who are firing on all cylinders on any given weekend. Sunday was similar, in the quali, Clint was 22nd and Alan 28th, and in the comp, followed the same good feelings, ending up with Clint 26th and Alan 34th again. They were a bit disappointed, but I was proud of them both. To have come from where they were the past 2 years, and from a long summer of technique training, they really made a significant step this last week. They went from hoping to qualify and trying to believe they should be on World Cup, to Knowing they are top 30 jumpers. It is a big step in this sport, and our first major one on our way to the top! Clint didn't have a jump out of the 20s and is just a heartbeat away from those 5-7m that will put him in the top 15 in a hurry. So, overall a really good first period for the team. We all learned a lot and are excited to groove in a few things here at home, then come in hot to the SpringerTournee and Ski Flying at Kulm. Thanks for your support, and keep cheering for the US Team, they are on their way!
November 25, 2004 The US Ski Jumping Team is ready for winter. We wrapped up a great summer of training in late October and spent the early part of November putting the final touches on the preparation for the winter. Our final plastic camp to Lake Placid and Central Europe was to extend the season and get some more exposure with the European hills and jumpers. We had the whole A and Devo Teams there, as well as a group of jumpers from the NSF. The jumping in Oberstdorf, Innsbruck, and Stams went well and it was great to walk away from Europe with some confidence on a few important hills for this upcoming winter season. We spent November wrapping up physical programs and testing, with everyone making considerable gains in every area. These guys are now stronger, quicker, and more coordinated than ever before. The Development Team averaged 25% gains in all areas! We also did a lot of video analysis and immos, waiting for snow and cold weather. Unfortunately the mountains got tons of snow, but the jumps in Park City and Steamboat just missed. Fortunately, the rest of the world was in the same boat, with no jumps open until last week, so everyone starting out with a clean slate. Now we are in Kuusamo for the season opening world cup. We took our first jumps on snow Sunday and are ready for the comp tonight, only 4 training days after. With the quantity and quality of our summer training and jumping, the guys are ready to take it straight to the snow. Alan Alborn's first jump of the winter was past K, and by the end of the first session, Clint had gone past 140m. So, they are ready! We will compete here this weekend, then to Trondheim, Norway next weekend, and finish up our first period in Harrachov, Czech Republic after that. The COC team was decided in October and a 4 man team will go with coach Alan Johnson to Finland for the first period. Chris Francis, Anders Johnson, Tommy Schwall, and Brian Welch will compete in Rovaniemi and Lahti, with a chance to continue to Harrachov, depending on results. They too had a great summer of jumping and are ready to step it up when the get that bib on. So, we are ready to compete. It was a great summer of training, and now we are ready to make the steps towards the top of the mountain! |