Ski jumping would be one of the more death-defying winter sports ever conceived. Andero Kapp takes it in his stride. Fixing 2.56-metre skis atop the Otepää jump, he waits out a gust of wind. Seconds later he is off, a grey streak flying into the sky, skis spread in a V shape, arms stretched out behind him, landing a few seconds later on green artificial turf way below us.
We are reminded of “Eddie the Eagle” who entered history as the first Briton to jump in a winter Olympics, in Calgary, Canada, in 1988. The discipline dominated by slim Norwegians and Finns has become widely known because of the short-sighted and weighty Michael Edwards whose two best jumps were each of 61 metres, finishing last both times.
Tom Hilde, "the mountain eagle", shows how it's done. Postimees, 2017
Kätlin takes us to Otepää’s highest landmark, and translates the coach’s megaphoned words, “Good jump, but you dragged your shoulder a bit.”
Kapp returns to the top, and says in excellent English he started jumping when 8 years old. His personal best is 224 metres in Slovenia. He also trains in Norway with the Estonian champion, Kristian Ilves.
In late 2023 Ilves won a combined Estonian championship in Otepää, in ski jumping and cross-country skiing. The junior champion in the same event was Kapp, aged 18. Two careers to follow in the lead up to the 2026 winter Olympics, to be held in Milan Cortina, Italy.
Why ski jump? I’ll try a hypothesis. Estonia is flat. So is Finland. Although Norway and Sweden have their mountains, a level playing field is also part of their scene. Add snow for months on end, lots of darkness and cold, and someone, somewhere couldn’t take it any more, built a jump and leapt.
According to Wikipedia, the first recorded jump took place in Norway in 1808 in which Olaf Rye managed 9.5 metres. A new sport took off, entering the winter Olympics for the first time in 1924 at Chamonix, France. In 1936 the first jump exceeding 100 metres was made.
In 1949 Swiss jumper Andreas Däscher invented a new technique, launching into space, his skis parallel, and arms close to the body. Däscher scored a world record in 1950 of 130 metres. His style was superseded in the mid-1980s by the V-technique, now universally used, and we saw Kapp use it.
The men’s world record today is 253.5 metres, set by Austrian ski jumper Stefan Kraft at Vikersund, Norway, in 2017. The women’s is held by Norwegian Silje Opseth, at the same jump in 2024, of 230.5 metres.
For a sport in which Estonians are the world champions, view extreme swinging.
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