squashed in the prologue to the inaugural competition in Oslo. Morten Solem was responsible for a string of disqualifications. He sent world class jumpers home before they even landed. One of Solem's victim was Anders Fannemel. And that must have been a bitter pill to swallow, especially since he was a world record holder at that time. Trondheim proved to be a turning point not just for Kamil Stoch. The Norwegian team was going through a difficult time too. They weren’t achieving good results but Andreas Stjernen, a ski jumper from Levanger situated not far from Trondheim, finally managed to be back on form and won the second place twice. He lost only to Kraft and Stoch, who was bouncing back from a bad patch as well. The Norwegians finally got their hero. And it wasn’t Daniel-Andre Tande, as it had been predicted before the tournament. Ski jumpers from Norway had to wait for the headwind (literally) until Vikersund. Ski flying was always the Norwegian domain and even though they weren’t at the forefront this season, their jumps on Vikersundbakken were superb. Very good performance in the team competition sweetened the poor results in RAW AIR. The celebration couldn’t be impeded even by
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Stefan Kraft, who broke the world record. From Norway’s point of view the whole tournament belonged to the "outsiders”. Hardly anybody would have bet on Stjernen in the beginning of the season. In the meantime, one of the oldest ski jumper in the team was the only Norwegian to stand on the podium in RAW AIR. While eating waffles with Brunost and drinking coffee, we were discussing who could break the world record. Fannemel
and Forfang were among those who were mentioned the most. Luckily for us, an inconspicuous man with a moustache made it clear to us how little we still knew about ski jumping. Even though the Norwegians' jumps (with some exceptions ) weren’t impressive during competitions held in their own country, they probably will get a chance to redeem themselves. While on the subject of redeeming oneself, in the windy
As of now, RAW AIR Tournament is a rough diamond among the Ski Jumping World Cup competitions. It is an imperfect and a little bit disorganised tournament with controversial rules. And it is far from being ready to be called the Norwegian version of the Four Hill Tournament. The time will show if the Norwegians will successfully organize the second edition of RAW AIR but, for sure, they deserve a second chance!
issue no 05 | july 2017