FORERUNNER
OUT OF THE GATE
With Sarah Hendrickson,
U.S. earns first-ever World Juniors Ski Jumping Champs Medal;
Anders Jacobsen is top ski flyer at Oberstdorf BY PETER Q. GRAVES
Alpine Women
Prep for the Games
BY SHAUNA FARNELL
Anders Jacobsen
GEPA (JACOBSEN); USSA
With World Cup races and World Juniors U- 23
Nordic Championships taking place over the weekend of Jan. 30-31, we saw a bronze-medal winning
performance from Park City, Utah’s Sarah Hendrickson at Hinterzarten, Germany, as the Championships wrapped up amid the lovely Black Forest. It
was a great event for the 15-year-old, a junior-high
student. “I don’t think it’s set in yet,” she said. “I am
really happy and I had two really good jumps.” She
is currently ranked sixth in the Continental Cup
standings for the Visa Women’s Ski Jumping team.
Also jumping for the U.S. were Nina Lussi and Nita
Englund.
Italian youngster Elena Runngaldier surprised
the women’s jump field by taking the gold medal;
she is the newest world champion in the women’s
ranks. Second place went to 14-
year-old Coline Mattel of France.
Skiers from eight nations filled
out the top 10, in a good display
of women’s growing depth in ski
jumping.
Dartmouth’s Ida Sargent from
Orleans, Vt., stunned the U-
23 women’s field by racing to a
fourth place in the 1.3K sprints
in Hinterzarten. Former Middle-
bury skier Simi Hamilton of As-
pen, Colo., won the qualifying in
the men’s sprints only to break
a pole in the semi-finals. Sadie
Bjornsen was 13th leading the
other Americans.
Italian youngster Elena Runngaldier surprised the
women’s jump field by taking the gold medal, and is
the newest world champion in the women’s ranks.
Second place went to 14-year-old Coline Mattel of
France. Skiers from eight nations filled out the top
10 in a good display of women’s growing depth in
ski jumping.
In world junior men’s team jumping, not surprisingly the Austrians dominated ski jumping’s junior
ranks with a strong win against Germany.
In ski flying in Oberstdorf, Germany, the HS 213-
meter hill known as the Heini-Klopfer Schanze
entertained a massive crowd, which witnessed a rebound of the Norwegian ski flyers from somewhat
of a season slump for most on the team. Winning
the individual competition
was Ringkollen Ski Cub’s Anders Jacobsen with a pair of
jumps of 213.5 and 210 meters.
Second place went to Robert
Kranjec of Slovenia, who excels
at ski flying, with third going
to another Norwegian, Johan
Evenson. Americans Nick Alexander (Vancouver-bound) and
Mike Glasder did not qualify
for competition.
Neither Thomas Morgen-stren nor Martin Schmitt,
both star jumpers, took part in
the comp. Sarah Hendrickson
Most of the U.S. women’s alpine team is
scheduled to arrive in Vancouver on Feb. 9; they
won’t have much time to take in the ambience
before downhill training kicks off in Whistler the
morning of Feb. 11.
Sarah Schleper, who made her debut on NBC’s
“The Today Show” Jan. 29, was en route to her
hometown of Vail and then to Mexico to decom-
press and do dryland (to get “hungry,” she said)
before joining the U.S. technical team in Jackson
Hole for some training before the Games.
After St. Moritz, Lindsey Vonn traveled to Kap-
run, Austria, for more training, then headed back
to the U.S. for three days during which she said
she wouldn’t be on skis but “in the gym.”
It will be Vonn’s third Olympic Winter Games,
and certainly the most weight-bearing. Comparing
them to her inaugural Games in Salt Lake, Vonn
says it’s a world apart.
“I was definitely a much different person in
2002,” she said. “Looking back, I feel like I was
an outsider looking in. I felt like I was just lucky
to be there. I had no expectations. Nobody had
expectations of me. I was there having fun. I was
in a totally different place then, but I enjoyed every
minute of it.”
Vonn said her mom, two uncles and two aunts
are going to be in Whistler and that her brothers
and sisters are “trying to work things out” but
they’re all in college. Since she’s competing in five
events, the first of which is the super combined
on Feb. 14, Vonn guessed she wouldn’t have
time to enjoy any other Olympic events but if she
had more time, she would like to watch women’s
figure skating and the men’s alpine events.
Megan McJames will be participating in her first
Games and said her parents booked housing in
Whistler last summer. Leanne Smith will also be
entering her first Olympic Winter Games and said
if time allows, she would love to watch a hockey
game.
