elusive moose

- Olaf Rye, an officer in the Dano-Norwegian army, was the first known ski jumper. In 1809, he hopped 9.5m in front of fellow soldiers in Morgedal, Norway – the first ski jump ever recorded.

- The first international ski jumping competition was held in Husebyrennene, Oslo in 1879, with another Norwegian, Olaf Haugann, setting the first world record for the longest ski jump at 20m.

- The annual event was moved to Holmenkollen, Oslo, in 1892. The first competition there drew a crowd of 10,000, and was won by Svein Sollid from Morgedal in Telemark, Norway, with a 21.5m jump. Holmenkollen has remained the pinnacle of ski jumping venues ever since.

- Ski jumping has been an Olympic discipline since the first Winter Games in Chamonix Mont-Blanc in 1924. The Large Hill competition was included on the Olympic programme for the 1964 Olympic Games in Innsbruck.

- The winner in a ski jumping competition is decided on a scoring system based on distance, style, in-run length and wind conditions. In the individual event, the scores from a skier’s two jumps are combined to determine the winner.

- The first official jumper at the new Holmenkollen ski jump was Norway’s best woman ski jumper, 25-year-old Anette Sagen, who inaugurated the jump on 3 March 2010 with a 106.5m jump.

- The Holmenkolldagen Annual International Ski Jumping Competition, held in March each year, is also known as Norway’s second National Day, and draws tens of thousands to the hills above Oslo, where the ski jump is located. It is the world’s second oldest ski jump competition still in existence.

- The new Holmenkollen ski jump, designed by JDS Architects, cost 1 billion Norwegian kroner to build. The world’s most modern ski jump, it is completely built of steel, and lit up at night by powerful floodlights, hence its nickname, the Holmenkollen Fyr (Holmenkollen Lighthouse). The start house tower, 60m above the ground, affords great views of the Oslofjord in the background (Holmenkollen is located 375m above sea level).

- Ski jumping is a popular sport in Scandinavia and Central Europe (almost all world-class ski jumpers come from those regions, or from Japan), and during the season many events are broadcast live on Norwegian TV.

- The fact that ski jumping is the only sport where women are not allowed in the Olympic Games has become a major bone of contention as the field of elite female competitors has grown.

- Ski flying is an extreme version of ski jumping. The events take place in big hills with a K-spot of at least 185m (607 ft). It’s possible to fly over 200m (660 ft) in all the ski flying hills, and the current world record, set by Norwegian Bjørn Einar Romøren at Planica, Slovenia, in 2005, is 239m (784 ft).

- 145 years after the first ever ski jump took place in Norway, Oslo remains the undisputed capital of ski jumping, and Holmenkollen has become a national icon – over the years the arena has hosted nine different nordic skiing and biathlon world championships, including the 1952 Winter Olympics. The World Ski Championships will take place here in 2011.

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Want to try the Holmenkollen ski jump for yourself? Yes you can… Check this link out www.visitnorway.com/holmenkollen/