Our weekend of Ski Jumping in Brattleboro, VT was full of firsts. But before we could even start jumping on the brand new jump, the hill crew had to make a huge effort to fight back against the warm weather of the days prior to the event. Dan "Mouse" Warner led a crew that bagged tons of snow, actually carried bags of snow, all day Thursday to make sure that we had our event. Not to mention all the efforts, for the months and years prior, to build this new jump.
The honor of taking the first jump went to local boy Spencer Knickerbocker on Friday morning. With the chants from many school children at the base of the jump, "Spencer, Spencer, Spencer..." He climbed out on the start and prepared himself for his biggest jump yet. The story of the first jump ever on a new ski j ump is always an interesting one. Spencer chose a high start and launched himself off the jump as many dozens of onlookers celebrated for him and with him. Spencer is the youngest person that i have known to ever "christen" a new Olympic size hill, so congrats Spency.
The events on both Saturday and Sunday were accompanied by near perfect weather...and a bunch of new hill records. The first official athlete was Jon Farnham and he set a record of 50 meters. Next up was Danielle Lussi and she set a mark of 60 meters before Tara Geraghty-Moats managed to jump in the high 80's. As the Jr. boys flung off the jump AJ Brown set a mark of 96.5 meters before Alex Madden, in the Sr. class, topped him with a 97.5 meter jump. By the end of the first trial jump the hill record was set at 98 meters and was claimed by Andrew Bliss and 2 of the visiting skiers from Slovenia and Austria.
After the competition was officially concluded the hill record was set and owned by the days winner from Austria Christian Reiter at 100.5 meters.
Andrew Bliss showed the best NYSEF performance and finished in 4th place with a long jump of 98.5 meters and a mere 1.5 points off the podium. USST member Davis Miller was 5th and Cooper Dodds finished 6th.
other NYSEF Athletes and alums: Willy Graves 9th, Alex Madden 11th, Pete Frenette 12th, colin Delaney 15th and Pete Freire 16th.
For the ladies...Tara Geraghty-Moats dominated the field on Saturday and won by 16 points over Karin Friberg 2nd, Nita Englund 3rd, Nina Lussi 4th and Danielle Lussi 5th
The Jr. boys class saw Zach Daniels from NYSEF and Northwood school finish 3rd while Brattleboro native Spencer Knickerbocker finished in 4th position.
On Sunday we had another perfect day for jumping and another record crowd came to watch the boys and girls jump far. In the Sr. class the same winner prevailed but the rest of the field was much more competitive. USST members Alex Miller and Willy Graves, and NYSEF skier Andrew Bliss were finished 3rd, 5th & 6th respectively. Alex Madden finishing in 8th and Cooper Dodds rounded out the top 10. The distances were for most of the athletes were longer today but the scores were tighter; Between Willy in 5th and Cooper in 10th the point spread was only 5.5 points.
Definitely a tougher challenge for the Girls and Jr. boys on Sunday as the podium shuffled around a little bit. Karin Friberg brought her A-game and finished on top today. Tara Geraghty-Moats finished 2nd, Nita Englund 3rd and the Nina and Danielle Lussi were 4th & 5th.
For the Jr. boys the young Slovenian managed to take home the win on both days but he was definitely pushed by Will Schott on Sunday who switched classes to try and take the title, but he came up just shy
and finished a couple meters behind in 2nd place. AJ Brown finished in 3rd place but had a hard time holding off NYSEF's Zach Daniels in 4th place who may have had his best ever K90 competition to date. Close behind was Spencer Knickerbocker who managed his longest jump of the weekend of 83.5 to finish in 5th.
The longest jumps of the weekend were definitely had by the crowd of athletes that participated in the target jump after the official competitions. On Day 1 we saw a memorable jump from Karin Friberg as she sailed way over the target to about 98 meters. During Sunday's Target Jump the mark was set farther down the hill at 97 meters. this made things much more exciting and we saw much longer jumps. Due to a 5-way tie there had to be an extra jump, and it was a great round. the winner of the target jump was the only guy that didn't out-jump the mark. Willy Graves soared down to about 100 meters and still celebrated for the crowd even though he knew he couldn't win. Alex Miller had the longest jump of the weekend when he went flying over the mark and landed a jump at 102 meters. These boys and girls really proved to the crowd, and to everyone else, that Harris Hill was a great new jump, it was in great shape and was set for a lot of years of long and exciting jumps.
Casey Colby
