The Eye of Patrick / Why I watched men off a hill!

Why I watched men off a hill!

But don’t worry, no one was hurt in the harming of this post. The jumping that was taking place, was taken place at The FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2007 took place February 22 - March 4, 2007 in Sapporo, Japan. It is a ski jump competition held around the world to test the best of the best in the ski jump world. For those of you who don’t know what ski jumping is, it is that crazy sport were people actually willing jump of the hill in the hope of seeing who can go the farthest.

The trip to Sapporo started with a bus ride from my town. My town is famous for ski jumping. So as a result there were many people in my town that wanted to go to Sapporo to cheer on the jump team. We were able to get a package deal that made the trip very economical.

Once we got to Sapporo we made our way to Okurayama hill. This is the larger of the two ski jump areas in Sapporo and the place for the main events. The event started I think at 7 but because my town is fanatical about ski jumping, so I think we arrived there at like 3-4 pm. This was a huge shock to me as I expected us to show up just as the event was starting. As a result I didn’t have the proper clothing for staying outside so long and combined with the cold weather made for a disappointing initial opinion. I don’t mean to say I didn’t have fun, but that it was like say having a toothache and doing something you enjoy. No matter how much you enjoy the event, the pain is still there.

The first day was also disappointing for the Japan team as none of the individual athletics performed well. The Europeans dominated the event and took all the top medals. There was a Canadian team but they were not really that good and I only really cheered for them out of patriotic obligation.

After the first day we retired to our hotel and I went out with some of my teachers from my high school for a night out on Sapporo. We mostly went to an Izakaya (Japanese bar) and a ramen shop. The conversation was light and laughs were many. We talked about our shared experiences as teachers and might light matter of our generation gap when it came to cultural events. (I am 23 and most teachers are in their 30s). I had a real fun time and it is usually when you are outside of the school that you bond with your teachers or fellow co-workers. But we were tired from the first day of watching jump and so we retired around 1 am to our hotels.

The next day I woke to a knock on my door and one of my grade six students was there. He wanted to borrow my Nintendo DS, but I thought he was there to wake me up as I had missed the bus. So I rushed down stairs to learn that I was an hour early and a wee bit tired. But happy I did not miss the bus. I read the English newspaper and I talked to other people from my town.

We had free time in the morning to go around Sapporo and do some shopping. I went to the English book store and bought some books to read. Including one on hitch hiking which gave me the desire to hitch hike during golden week to Kyoto.

After our free time was up we head back to Okurayama to watch the final day of jumping for us. This was the team jump and everyone was hoping that Japan would finally show their jump expertise and win a medal. The jumping started off well for Japan and the other countries that did well in the individual competition the day before did not do too well as a team. So this meant that in the final round Japan went in with a good chance of winning the medal. After the four jumpers they were in first, but as in the last round the order in which people jump is from weakest to strongest, So that the last jumper is the best jumper from the first round. This meant that though Japan was at the top, they had to wait to see if they could hold first place. As the weaker countries jumped (Canada, Poland and Eastern European countries) they stayed in first. But when it got to Norway, Germany, Russia and the powerhouses of jumping they began to slip. Though luckily they were able to hold on to 3^rd place and secure the only medal of the competition for Japan. 3 of the 4 athletes on the team were from my town and as you can guess they were very happy. So on the bus ride home there was drinking on the bus and long speeches about the successes of the day. I did not take in on the drinking as my stomach was still recovering.

But all in all I had to say it was a good weekend and I enjoyed it. I think it made a ski jump fan out of me, or atleast made me want to not skip the channel when I watch it in Vancouver in 2010.

Thank you for reading,

Patrick

Links on jumping:

Basic Info on Ski jumping

Sapporo FIS Nordic Ski Championship

Official Sapporo Jump homepage

Comments (2) left to “Why I watched men off a hill!”

Nico wrote:

That is one crazy sport…I wonder who came up with the idea of flying 100 meters on skies? Oh well…all in all winter sports tend to be crazy stuff about going faster and longer on tiny sleds attached to your feet. Still, the craziest is that Norwegian biathlon where you stop to shoot at stuff during the race

Posted on 14-May-07 at 10:43 am | Permalink
patrick1004 wrote:

Yah i know, winter sports is filled with funky activities and fairly dangerous when you think about it. I love the shooting biathlon, if i could do any sport it would be that.

Posted on 27-May-07 at 8:36 am | Permalink

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