Ski jumpers brave? Let 'em board media bus

Posted: Thu February 12, 1998 at 8:50 AM ET

By Dave Barry, Miami Herald

After hurtling through the sky, ski jumpers somehow manage to land on their feet   AP

HAKUBA, Japan (Knight-Ridder) -- I went up to this picturesque mountain village to watch the ski-jump competition, along with what I believe is the entire population of Japan, including deceased ancestors. Ski jumping is hugely popular here, which is not surprising: People who are brave enough to eat octopus on a stick are not going to be afraid of hurling themselves off cliffs.

I had never seen ski jumping in person. My only exposure to it had been while lying on the couch at home, watching TV, and when you see it that way, you can't appreciate how spectacular this incredible, death-defying sport is, because so much of the screen is blocked by your stomach.

So I was looking forward to seeing it, and I will never forget my reaction when the first skier hurtled down the ramp and launched himself into space. My reaction was: "I wish could see that!"

At the time, I was still on the press bus, which was creeping along toward Hakuba in a massive traffic jam on a road that was designed for vehicles no wider than a subcompact gerbil. I don't mean to harp on this bus thing, but it tends to be on your mind when you are spending six or seven hours per day in a crowded, hot, airless space as part of a press corps that has been wearing the same garments for so many consecutive days that our pants come running when we whistle for them in the morning.

Finally got to Hakuba, where thousands of Japanese were thronging in the narrow streets. (This is a thronging culture. You can openly throng in public here, and nobody says a thing.) People were blowing horns and, as we trudged past, calling out the traditional greeting, "Chiketto ga hoshii desuka?" ('Anybody need tickets?') The demand was so great that scalpers were getting 10,000 yen for a single ticket. Do you have any idea how much money that is? Neither do I! And I've been here for a week!

Finally I got to the ski-jumping stadium, which was packed with 40,000 spectators, who were making a lot of noise by Japanese standards, by which I mean they were about as loud as a single New Yorker hailing a cab. I made my way to the bottom of the hill and looked up. From where I stood, I couldn't see the top, but I could hear the crowd murmur as the skier started down. Suddenly, WHOOSH, he rocketed into view WAY overhead, soared through the air a ridiculous distance, and then, with an impossibly easy grace, splatted on the ground so hard that his internal organs were scattered over an area the size of a tennis court.

No, that is what I thought was going to happen, but somehow the jumper managed to land safely. In fact they all landed safely, although the cumulative impact of all these landings has clearly taken its toll in the form of causing the letters in their first names to get all jumbled up. There were competitors out there who are now saddled with such comical monikers as 'Bjarte,' 'Magnar,' 'Tambet,' 'Roomet' and 'Urs.'

After each jump, the jumper received a score calculated from the distance of the jump in meters (one meter is equal to seven degrees Celsius) and "style points" -- usually around 18 or 19 -- awarded by the judges to indicate how many quarts of sake they would have to drink before THEY would ever participate in this sport.

The gold-medal winner was a Finnish jumper named Jani Soininen, who hails from the town of Jyvaeskylae (civic motto: "We Can't Pronounce It, Either"). According to his official Olympic athlete biography, his coaches are named "Lepistoe," "Risto" and "Kalso," and his hobbies are listed as - I swear - "Rock Music, Dog."

After the jumping it was time to leave the stadium and participate in what has now become the most hotly contested sport at these Games: The 800 Reporters Trying To Get On A Bus With A Capacity of 62 Event. As usual, the German reporters won. They must have some kind of bus-boarding training facility. If America is going to compete at the Olympic level, we need to build one, too. But first we need to do our laundry.

Dave Barry is a columnist for The Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132-1693.

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