What do ski jumpers do in summer? They hold the FIS Summer Grand Prix and keep on
jumping!
The monastery town of Einsiedeln in Switzerland joined the summer ski jumping circus when it officially opened its newly built facility on 13 August 2005, costing over 12 million Swiss
francs, in time for the second competition in the 2005 Grand Prix series.
Einsiedeln has four different ski jumping hills (HS 117, HS 78, HS 50 and HS 27) – HS stands for hill size in
metres. During the summer, ski jumpers make the descent along wet ceramic
strips, land on green PVC brushes and finally come to a stop on grass or wood
chippings. When jumpers take off on the highest hill, they soar at about 90 km/h some 3 metres above the sloping ground for up to 120
metres. Not a sport for the weak-kneed!
The Einsiedeln facility is the main training ground for many national
teams, including the Swiss ski jumping team with Swiss Double Olympic Champion and World Champion Simon Amman, and World Cup winner Andreas
Küttel, who actually lives in Einsiedeln.
These photos were taken in 2006 and 2007. The winner at Einsiedeln in 2007 was Austrian Thomas Morgenstern, pictured below at the awards
ceremony. He also won the Summer GP series in the same year. |
