PREDAZZO, Italy — “I know if I get too excited or try too hard, then I’ll get tense,” explains Canada’s Nicole Maurer, moments after her final jump in the women’s large hill. “That doesn’t work in ski jumping. You want to relax. Clear your mind. You want to breathe.
“When you’re about to jump off a ski-jump at 100 kilometres per hour, ultimately nothing else really matters.”
There are two definitive images of ski jumping. One is obvious; the body in flight, legs wide, arms behind, daring-do meets passive resistance. But the other, to my mind, is equally vivid.
It is the athlete sitting grim-faced in the start gate, bug-like in their oversized helmet and goggles, when all that is visible is a rigid jaw. Their bench is known as “the bar,” and they are only on it a short while, perhaps 10 seconds on average. Below them is over 100 metres of runway, and up to 250m of air.
Jumpers may have their eyes on their coach’s starting flag, but in that moment, a tiny marble at the top of its run, it is underscored they are utterly alone. Usually, there’s a deep breath. Then they push off.
Athletes speak of ski jumping as a mental game. “When you are going down the slope, everything is already set,” two-time Olympic medallist Dawid Kubacki explained in advance of these Games. “There’s not much you can do.”
So what happens on that bar? What kaleidoscope exists behind the visor? The Athletic spoke to 10 jumpers to ask what runs through their mind in the moments before jumping. Spoiler: for most of them, nothing.
It is usually a terse atmosphere on top of the jump. Athletes are cramped for space; not just by their fellow athletes and their 10-foot skis, but also by the pressure implicit in sport where jumpers will often receive just two attempts.
Everybody has their own methods. Paige Jones is one of Team USA’s great hopes, the 23-year-old having made her Olympic debut this year.
“I do a couple of odd things,” the Utah native told The Athletic. “I wear ear plugs when I compete so I can’t hear the announcers. I started it last year, actually, because I’m very analytical and a bit mathematically minded.
“If I can hear the announcers, I can predict how far I need to jump to make the second round or go into first place. So it’s better if I can focus on what I’m doing, rather than the result I want.”
A common theme is for jumpers to bury themselves in the details, especially in later jumps — that one tweak or correction which could eke out two or three more metres.
“I try to keep my technical points close to the base technical idea,” continued Jones. “For the past two seasons, I’ve been working on setting a balanced position, what my coach and I call ‘smooth operator.’ It’s about not forcing anything, just being relaxed in the air and getting my skis wide in the second part of the jump.”
“I’m just trying to think through a couple of simple technique cues,” American Tate Frantz says of the moments just before hopping off the bar and starting the jump. (Huang Wei / Xinhua via Getty Images)
Tate Frantz agrees, the 20-year-old New Yorker who has been the breakthrough star of the U.S. men’s team this season. Having finished 21st in the normal and 19th in the large hill at the Olympics, as well as making it to the final of the team competition alongside teammate Kevin Bickner, there is excitement around the jumper he could become.
“For me, I’m just trying to think through a couple of simple technique cues that I’ve been working on,” he explains. “As strange as it sounds, I’m trying to, like, remove myself from the moment as much as possible. I want to get away from the stress, especially in a packed stadium or a high-level event.
“You just want to hope that the muscle memory kicks in — because that’s gonna do a much better job of producing a good jump than to give it your all and try too hard.”
“It’s never good if you’re too tense trying to do something perfectly,” added his teammate, Jason Colby. “Just focus on one or two simple things. For me, it’s just about keeping the same position, and not ‘floating away’ as my coaches call it.”
Others may choose to analyse externally. “Conditions can always vary, so the way you think has to be flexible,” said Bickner, the American record holder, speaking during the men’s large hill. “Today, there’s a lot going on with the speed of the track (the grooves running down the runway chute). Its cut was very strange yesterday, which was throwing people off, and the rain on it was affecting the feel. Some people were much slower than they’d like to be.
“It’s all about figuring out what you can do on the track differently to figure out speed — or other times, it might be thinking about the wind. That’s not a variable we have today, thankfully, but these things happen. But then you’ve got to make sure that you don’t think about them affecting your outcome. A good jump is still a good jump.”
Is there ever fear? “I think that, as for fear, it kind of goes away naturally as you’re working up the hill sizes,” said Frantz. “Fear is natural, of course, especially if there’s a big gust of wind or scary conditions. But generally, my fear and nerves are around whether I can do my best, rather than my safety.”
“Of course, there’s a bit more fear at the Olympics,” said Johannes Rydzek, a German competing in Nordic combined, the discipline that combines ski jumping with cross-country skiing. “You’re feeling more tension, the excitement is higher. It’s different to handle. You have to tell yourself that it’s just another jump.”
For many athletes, their sports psychologist is almost as important as their coach. Almost all the major nations use one — a notable exception, given their two gold medals at the meet so far, is Slovenia.
“Working with a psychologist is so, so crucial because our sport is in our heads,” said Finnish athlete Niko Kytösaho. “Everything happens so fast — and we just can’t practice it as much as other disciplines because it takes so long to set up these jumps. Each one is mentally really hard.
“We always have to deal with different situations. You can feel pressure, you can feel really calm and confident, it changes every competition, so you have to know how to adapt.”
“One thing I’ve spoken about with my psychologist, as I get onto the bar, is using all five senses,” said Frantz. “I want to envision how I want to feel, what I want to see, what I want to hear when I’m doing a good jump. It just gets that feeling into my body and my muscles.”
Germany’s Philipp Raimund, shortly after leaving his perch on the bar during the men’s super team competition on Monday. (Maja Hitij / Getty Images)
For Jones, much of the work with her psychologist is about using the mind to control the body.
“I’m definitely an anxious person to begin with,” she explained. “So it’s important for me to keep my heart rate and my blood pressure low. I do a lot of box breathing to help that — breathe in for five seconds, hold it for five seconds, breathe out for five seconds. If you look at me closely enough on the bar, I’ll be doing a lot of that.”
Rydzek says his breathing exercises also slow his heart rate. Bickner talks about doing “meditation” on top of the bar.
“I just want to go out and jump,” he said. “At the end of the day, that’s the only thing I have control over, so you just have to work with what you have.”
This is what the athletes yearn for. For them, mental emptiness leads to physical clarity. The rest follows.
“For me, it’s about thinking about nothing,” said Maurer. “There can be a lot of time on the bar, you can be pulled on and off. If you think about what you’re going to do in the jump every time you’re on the bar, it could be 10 seconds, it could be one minute, or it could be 20 minutes.
“I know that if I’m thinking of too many things on the bar, it will not be good. I’ll be too stressed. I’ll do something wrong. I think I can tell before I’ve even jumped whether or not it’s going to be a good jump.
“I just want to think of nothing until it’s the green light. Then I can put a plan in my head — and go.”