Bird of Pray

WHAT?

Going from novice to 40-metre flyer at the Utah Olympic Park, venue of the 2002 Salt Lake Games.

WHEN?
The Northern Hempisphere winter months (December-March) are obviously best, but you can experience Nordic jumping all-year round on watered-down astro turf.

WHY?
Overtake and outjump fear. Fly like a bird, and hopefully land like one as well.

HOW?
United Airlines has return flights to Salt Lake City from Sydney from $3459. From the airport it’s a 35-minute drive to Park City (visit pcski.com for more information). For more details on skiing in Utah, visit utah.travel for a free destination guide. The Park City Nordic Ski Club (pcnordicskiclub.org) operates various jumping courses. For more information on the Olympic park, visit olyparks.com.

FEAR IS AN overused word. We’re all guilty of applying it to moments where, if we’re honest, we’re just vaguely nervous or a little apprehensive. But at this moment – high above snow-coated Utah Olympic Park, staring down the unforgiving icy barrel of a 40-metre ski-jump – it doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. This isn’t just fear – this is unadulterated, wet-your-pants terror.

Clutching the rails, I’m transported back to the time, as a nine-year-old boy, I climbed the highest diving board in a bid to impress a new gang of friends. Driven on by false bravado, one glance over the edge persuaded me to shuffle shamefacedly to the ladder and descend to jeers of derision.

Now, 20 years on, I was feeling exactly the same. Could I seriously do this? Would anyone laugh at me if I simply unclipped my skis and walked down the hill? My instructor had warned me about thoughts like this – “the paralysis of analysis”, he called it. Right now, looking at his beetle-like form waving at me from the distant landing area, paralysis seemed a genuine worry.

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED
Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards has a lot to answer for. It was his fearless, high-profile assault on the 1988 Winter Olympics, as the UK’s solitary ski-jumper, that first drew my attention to what was to become one of my great passions: skiing.

At pretty much the same time I was beating my red-faced retreat down that diving ladder, the Eagle – with his trademark glasses and skew-whiff chin – was soaring off jumps in Calgary, breaking the British record and competing in an event few even gave him a hope of qualifying for.

Okay, so he came last, but his bold disregard of the odds and his own skeletal integrity had me glued to the TV – and ultimately ignited my lifelong zest for winter sports. So when, as a keen intermediate skier two decades later, I was offered the chance to experience some Olympic-standard ski-jumping for myself, I jumped (sorry!) at the chance.

The venue, Utah’s state-of-the-art Olympic Park, was originally built to stage the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, but is now an enormous adrenaline playground, offering everything from bobsled rides to Nordic ski-jumping. I’ve signed up for three lessons
– with the initial aim of jumping (and preferably landing) the “K20”. Each jump is measured from its take-off to landing area, where the hill starts to flatten out. The K20 – at 20m – may have been dwarfed by Eddie the Eagle’s record of 71m, but it is still one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. My instructor is Matt Terwillegar – a former member of the US ski team and a long-serving Olympic coach.

It’s apparent from the off that I’m in extremely safe hands.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” says Terwillegar. “Once we’re done, we won’t be able to keep you off the K20. Honestly, jumping can get addictive.”Our first session takes place indoors, where we stand in our socks and Terwillegar demonstrates the all-important body position.

“Believe it or not, your body doesn’t actually want to lean forward and throw itself off a mountain, so you need to teach it how to perform first,” he explains. “The secret is muscle memory – you have to drill your body into performing the right movement without thinking about it.”

The key shape, I learn, is the “inrun” position, which ski-jumpers adopt before taking off. Knees are bent low, with the back parallel to the snow and arms tucked in, palms facing out.

“You need to be aggressive – over your skis to keep your weight in the right position,” says Terwillegar while we practise it, finishing with an explosive spring in the air, over and over.

This laborious rehearsal is known as performing “imitations”, and forms part of a jumper’s daily training, even at the highest level. “It’s like a golf swing,” says Terwillegar. “Once you slow it down, it’s very simple . . . but also very easy to get wrong.” With far more serious repercussions in terms of handicapping.

LEARNING TO FLY
The following morning, I’m kitted out in my jumpsuit – a ridiculously tight and shiny blue all-in-one that leaves nothing to the imagination (including the number of American-size meals I’ve been devouring while skiing the picturesque neighbouring resorts of Park City and Deer Valley). This tasty little number is teamed with a lightweight helmet and special jumping shoes, which look like a cross between boxing trainers and bananas.

But it’s the skis I’m most surprised by – they’re positively gargantuan. At 2.5m, they’re a whopping 50 per cent longer than my normal ski size. Predictably, I struggle to walk in them, let alone ski, and spend a good 20 minutes tottering round like a
little girl in her mother’s high heels before I’m confident enough to get on the lift. With my spangly outfit, helmet and burger belly, I look like a gone-to-seed Evel Knievel impersonator. Less like an Eagle, more like an enormous blue tit.

Nevertheless I’m ready. The first training jump is only about 2m, but with the cumbersome, borderline uncontrollable planks strapped to my feet, it’s plenty scary enough.

“Don’t worry, you can’t get hurt in the air,” grins Terwillegar. True, but this still has all the ingredients of a hospital visit: speed, flight and rock-hard snow. I surprise myself when I’m in the air for less than a second, then land comfortably.

Soon, I’ve graduated to the 5m jump, and Terwillegar decides I’m worthy to tackle the K10. It’s all going suspiciously well. Each new jump is petrifying at first, but ultimately landable. Within minutes, I’m hooked.

Stopping, however, is an issue – the skis are perfectly straight with no edges, so are impossible to turn – but I practise my technique over and over: the aggressive inrun position, the straight legs on take-off and bent legs on impact. Terwillegar shows me how to improve my shape in the air by cocking my ankles, and I even start to attempt an ungainly “V” shape while airborne, in a bad imitation of the pros. By the end of my second lesson, I’m not only confident but also physically unblemished.

“We’ll get you off the K20 tomorrow,” says Terwillegar. “Don’t worry! Yes, you get injuries – but you get injuries walking across the road.” Fair enough, I point out, but I don’t walk across the road at 80km/h in a skin-tight neoprene suit

WINGING IT
Day three and I’m hungry to master the monster: the K20. After a few successful warm-up runs, Terwillegar takes the T-bar lift with me to the next level. Unclipping my skis, I trudge across to the starting gallows, apprehensive, but charged up. It looks a long way down. “You’ll be fine,” Terwillegar reassures me. “Run through your imitations, then switch off your brain and trust your body.”

Taking deep breaths, I imagine an Action Man-esque switch in the back of my head and lock it into the off position. I know what it feels like to break bones, and I know there’s a chance of that sickening throb again in a matter of seconds, but I try to focus solely on folding my body up at speed, then exploding off the jump.

Finally, in a pre-emptive strike against the sensible part of my brain, I push myself over the edge and hurtle towards the take-off point. With a cross between a yell of terror and a whoop of delight, I’m off the lip and soaring through the air. Then, a few seconds later – incredibly, gratefully – I feel snow under my skis again. I’ve done it. The blue tit has landed.

I want more. The feeling of arching through the mountain air – even if only for a handful of seconds – is one of pure, elemental, powerful freedom. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Each jump is different – the slightest shift in body, ski position or wind can make a difference, but that’s part of the attraction. I can’t get enough.

Terwillegar skis over as I come to an ungainly stop once more. “Well done,” he says. “If you want, I reckon you could have a look at the K40 . . . ”

So here I am, one tiny bare foot on the high diving board, one big yellow-booted foot on the scariest drop I’ve ever seen. A simple movement over the edge is what separates me from serious personal kudos (or serious time in traction). It is the most frightened I’ve felt in years, possibly ever. But I won’t let fear win. It’s payback time for the diving board.

Now I’m over the edge and there’s no turning back. Even if I wanted to there’s nothing I can do – unlike the shorter jumps, the K40 has deep tramlines, which my skis are slicing down at terrifying speed. I can’t stop or turn: all I can do is maintain the best possible inrun position and keep my head clear.

“Aggressive,” says Terwillegar’s voice in my head. The knife-sharpening whine of my skis reaches a crescendo, and then, suddenly, there’s the lip. I push my legs straight and I’m terrifyingly, wonderfully, flung out into the sky as if fired from a cannon. It feels like a cross between a giant icy waterslide and an enormous snowy catapult. Fear flies out the window as I’m unceremoniously chucked into the air.

Everything seems to switch into slow motion.

I see the Olympic building, the mountains, the car park, the road. Then, with a thud, it all speeds up again. For a jubilant split second I think I’ve landed safely, then a combination of my speed and appalling weight distribution send me smashing to the ground, finishing with one leg in the car park and the other at the bottom of the run. It hurts. I’ve never been winded before, but this is what it must feel like. (I’ve also never fallen from a first-floor window before, but this is probably what it feels like, too).

Lying there, breathing grateful gulps of mountain air, I know it’s not over. I can’t let my ski-jumping career end like this. It’s probably a mistake, but I’m going to jump the K40 again.

My second crash is worse. I get more spring, which makes the landing even more painful. This time I hit the snow on my backside, with so much force I bounce and land on it again. I steam down the hill at such velocity that my left ski is wrenched off and races ahead, flying out of the landing area, across the car park and into a cafe wall. I come to rest, unable to speak or move. A lady comes trudging up the hill with my ski. “Does this belong to you?” All I can muster is a nod.

But still it isn’t over. There’s time for one more. I know I can do it. Despite the escalating pain in my lower back, I get a much better shape in the air and, keeping my weight right over my skis to avoid another backside battering, I land successfully!
I’m ecstatic and punch the air before inadvertently crossing my skis and piling headfirst down the slope. I have a mouthful of snow and some tourists are laughing, but I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve won.

THE BOTTOM LINE
My time is up. My bottom is in a world of pain (later diagnosed as a hairline coccyx fracture), but the nine-year-old boy in Speedos has been vindicated. I may be battered, but I looked fear in the eyes and launched myself towards it at considerable speed. Plus I got to walk (well, limp) away to tell the tale.

After placing last at the 1988 Winter Olympics, Eddie the Eagle said it wasn’t about finishing on the podium – jumping was reward enough. After visiting Utah Olympic Park, I too finished on the bottom. But it was worth it for that incredible feeling of soaring off a mountain. I didn’t need a medal either – just some industrial-strength painkillers for the flight home and a cushion to sit on at work for the next three weeks.