Four Hills champion Andreas Kofler and fellow Austrians Gregor Schlierenzauer and world champ Wolfgang Loitzl will be among the favorites for Olympic ski-jumping gold.
But the world record holder at the Whistler Olympic Park venue won’t be there — and neither will would-be successors to the likes of Eddie the Eagle, the British no-hoper who charmed Calgary in 1988, the last times the Games came to Canada.
It’s 200 years since Norwegian soldier Olaf Rye introduced the concept — and it will be at least another four until US world champion Lindsey Van gets her chance to prove her Olympic mettle.
Van has been among those lobbying the Olympic movement to include jumping, but the plea has fallen on deaf ears at the IOC, who rejected the idea in 2006 while a Canadian court last year backed the view that for now there are not enough female competitors for an Olympic tournament.
Nobody has jumped as far as Van on the normal hill at Whistler, who produced the pre-Games record of 105.5m.
“I hope it holds until the Olympics, and then they’ll realize who holds it and realize who should actually be there as well,” she said.
Post-Calgary rule-changes also mean that “colorful” no-hopers such as British competitor Eddie the Eagle (real name Michael Edwards) have also been taken out of the Olympic equation. Athletes have to rank among the top 50 competitors in international events or in the top 30 percent of participants globally.
“It was a bit ironic,” Edwards said recently. “I became so popular in Calgary because I was exemplifying that Olympic spirit and then I got banned because of it.”
IOC president Jacques Rogge has backed the move to keep the jumps to the men and the professionals, though Games historian David Wallechinsky has said with clear regret that “they [the IOC] were not as entertained as the rest of us were.”
Peering through his trademark thick spectacles, Edwards set a British record — of 73.5m — for one of his jumps. But now it’s strictly for the (male) elite.
That elite includes Swiss 2002 double Olympic champion Simon Ammann — battling Schierenzauer in the 2010 World Cup standings — and 2006 champions Thomas Morgenstern of Austria and Lars Bystol of Norway.
Kofler and Morgenstern were also in the Austrian team crowned Olympic champions at Turin four years ago. Kazuyoshi Funaki gave Japan gold on home snow at Nagano 12 years ago but since then the Land of the Rising Sun has had a dry spell and the German-speakers and the Scandinavians have been back at the forefront.
“The pressure is always on at the Olympics,” Morgenstern said. “But I know what it takes.”
German hope Martin Schmitt has struggled to find his form recently, but the 31-year-old 2002 team gold winner insists: “I’ll be ready once the Olympics come around.”
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