Cav's Place

At the start of 2012 I was wondering whether we’ll lose ski jumping to climate change, and what I saw in today’s season opener struck me as a desperate attempt to prevent or, more likely, delay that for a while longer, at least when it comes to the lack of snow, since it doesn’t do anything to tackle the increasingly unstable weather. Yes, they found other justifications for a plastic landing area, like the season starting earlier than ever, and it’s also true that the increasingly heavy reliance on artificial snow or on transporting “real” snow can’t in any way be seen as sustainable, more and more effort being required in order to present what was quite clearly a lie, but the problem is that it’s necessary. Or at least it was, because even though they say that this will only happen this one time this season, it’s intended to set a precent and allow for more such events in the future.
Such a surface may actually make it easier for jumpers to land properly, but I wouldn’t care and, either way, being at the highest level of a sport isn’t supposed to be easy. What I care about is that it blurs the line between the summer competition, which I still don’t see as “real” ski jumping, and the “proper” one, and the very fact that this one round took place, even if it will indeed prove to be the only one of its kind this season, is likely to make my interest in the sport drop significantly… Not that this is anything new, seeing as my interest in other sports that I used to enjoy watching has been plummeting for quite a number of years because of the direction that they’re being steered in. It probably makes it even sadder, however.