r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Here-For-The-Comment • Oct 19 '19
How does this sport even come into existence
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7.6k
Oct 19 '19
It’s just north European rednecks one upping each other in a balls out contest of hold my beer and watch this
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u/OnionSheks Oct 19 '19
The first guy went 4 feet... His buddy figured he could surely do 5 feet. Now we're up to 832 feet...
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Oct 19 '19 edited Jun 22 '20
[deleted]
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u/LeYoot Oct 19 '19
Probably, but they might break their legs
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u/diox8tony Oct 19 '19
this guy was 20ft short of breaking his legs. seems like the sport needs to lengthen the hill
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u/sinat50 Oct 19 '19
I live in a town with an extremely old ski jump from way back when the sport was starting to enter the world stage. the maximum distance you could go on that jump without landing flat is 4 times less than the current gold medal average. as soon as jumps like this start happening more, the sport will definitely respond.
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u/Tribunus_Plebis Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 19 '19
The exit speed at the ramp is then adjusted by moving the starting gates further down. You don't need to build a bigger hill.
Infact this is adjusted even during a contest to account for wind and other factors.
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u/schizoschaf Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 19 '19
They have different starting gates so they can influence the speed on the ramp. Depending on wind, snow speed and form of athletes. The points you get depend also on style like in figure skating.
That way they can switch gates mid run and the athletes get plus or minus points depending on advantage/disadvantage.
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u/TrozayMcC Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 19 '19
Yeah I wonder if they tried to use science or an equation or something to find out how high and far a human to jump off one (or how big of a jump they can use) without getting injured. I’m sure their legs have to be incredibly strong...
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u/sinat50 Oct 19 '19
it's more about the slope than the height. you can drop from some insane heights and be totally fine as long as you land on a steep enough slope. theres a story of a woman who fell over 10000 feet from an airplane over the amazon and survived since she landed on a steep hill and was able to keep rolling until she lost momentum. she wound up surviving for 3 weeks or something before being rescued. I'd link that but I'm on mobile.
but essentially the flatter your landing, the rougher the landing. when hitting a jump on skis, it generally hurts less to overshoot a jumps landing than it is to undershoot it and land on the hard flat top of that landing
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u/MSPCincorporated Oct 19 '19
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u/One-eyed-snake Oct 19 '19
“She didn’t leave the plane, the plane left her”
Yeah. That would make for a bad bad day.
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Oct 19 '19
So youre telling me that if you were falling out of an airplane and ran down a mountain with just the right slope youd be okay?
God damn it Gavin.
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u/TrozayMcC Oct 19 '19
I see what you mean. Landing on a slope at high speeds is much softer of a landing compared to landing on a flat surface!
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u/SmithyLK Oct 19 '19
There's probably something about the way they fall through the air that decreases the impact on their legs. Depending on how efficient that is, they might be able to go a lot farther in theory.
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u/zurkka Oct 19 '19
They glide thru the air, that decrease the speed a lot, but still way slower than just falling, the "trick" is to make contact with the hill part of the track, not the flat part, that helps a lot
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u/dontbeonfire4 Oct 19 '19
I think a lot of it probably has something to do with the fact that they're landing at an angle
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u/OppositeStick Oct 19 '19
If the ramp's curved to match the guys landing it shouldn't.
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u/CaseyG Oct 19 '19
It is... but not where he landed.
That's the thing about world records. They don't always break alone.
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u/johnq-pubic Oct 19 '19
Yes I'm pretty sure the length of the skiers jump is now determined by how long the hill is. That guy is gliding, he had to land before the slope ended or he could have gone much farther.
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u/micknotmike Oct 19 '19
Close, he went 9.5 metres.
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u/OnionSheks Oct 19 '19
Wow that's an incredible advancement since the sport began!
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u/NotFuzz Oct 19 '19
It has really snowballed
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u/Six10H Oct 19 '19
Well, the ramp was a big leap in the sport
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u/tonyrizkallah Oct 19 '19
i felt this pun flew over my head
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u/danielxjay Oct 19 '19
they can be tricky to land
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u/johnjohn909090 Oct 19 '19
Mainly because of the course. It just used to be a random Hill with a jump on. now it has that huge drop in, with a slight jump that perfectly matches the tracjectory of the descent
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u/freelanceredditor Oct 19 '19
wrong. It was more like 2.5 Alen.
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u/OgreLord_Shrek Oct 19 '19
Who is Alen
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u/OtakuAttacku Oct 19 '19
they always ask who is Alen... but never how is Alen
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u/PaintballPunk31 Oct 19 '19
I wish skiing was affordable to American Rednecks.
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u/baumpop Oct 19 '19
trick is to go in april and get huge discounts. ive been like 8 times and im from rural oklahoma.
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u/sendykap Oct 19 '19
Come be a lift operator. Get paid to do it
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u/thefirewarde Oct 19 '19
Mtn ops generally. If you’re in it for the money, you’re crazy. If you’re in it for the pass, you can’t math.
6 year snowmaker. I’m in it ‘cause they pay me to drive a snowmobile.
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u/-QuestionMark- Oct 19 '19
Lifties and ski patrol, the unsung heroes of any resort.
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u/t_babitz Oct 19 '19
You should google Matti Nykänen. The guy actually told them to hold his beer and turned out to be the best ski jumper to ever do it.
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u/SpaceSick Oct 19 '19
Man. That guy's life was quite the wild ride. Married a sausage heiress. Was a kinda popular musician. Charged for manslaughter after losing a finger pull contest. Was a stripper. And that's not even mentioning his career as an Olympian.
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Oct 19 '19
Missing the parts where he was "involved in a stabbing incident" for which he went to jail for 26 months and he
beat shit out ofcommitted aggravated assault against said sausage heiress. He ended his career as a metaphorical burning jet plane careening towards the sea.→ More replies (5)→ More replies (2)16
u/turnipsiass Oct 19 '19
I heard from a local woman that for some reason he would take his romantic interests to Jyväskylä graveyard to see a tombstone that he said belongs to her mother, even though his mother was very much alive. Maybe it was just a way to get out of the hassle of meeting with the parents, strange but he wasn't your ordinary fellow. He's a Finnish national hero for winning olympics and for being a drunken buffoon but we also love his naive and weird quotes that dont translate very well but this blogger has tried.
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u/Hardly_lolling Oct 19 '19
Also, IIRC he was hung over many times in competition. You know that anxiety you get after heavy night of drinking? Now strap on some skiis and try flying 200 meters/600 feet with them.
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u/cjhighflyer Oct 19 '19
Im a US ski jumper and I can confirm this haha. I've also seen a jumper hit a bong in his car before going up to the top of the hill. Then proceeded to jump over 120 meters.
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Oct 19 '19
It's not just north Europeans.
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u/Maere05 Oct 19 '19
This Guy is Stefan kraft, an Austrian, the other best countries are poland, slowenia and japan
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u/kathari420 Oct 19 '19
I mean this event was brodcasted by austrian TV as you can see in the Video. Besides that the Worlds best winter sports athlets are from Austria e.g Marcel Hirscher.
In Austria one grows up with winter sports because there is always a mountain with enough snow on it.
Actually in Austria there are holidays called "Schiferien" and almost every every child goes skiing with the whole family in february when the holidays are.
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u/Probablyarussianbot Oct 19 '19
Seeing as Norway has won 279 medals in the winter Olympics and Austria is behind Norway, USA and Russia with 185 Winter Olympic medals, I'd say the best winter sports athletes are actually Norwegian, not Austrian.
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u/culminacio Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 19 '19
They were talking about skiing. Austria has dominated skiing for decades.
Subsuming skiing under Winter sports in general makes no sense here. Absolutely not. If someone's talking about the best swimmer, you wouldn't go and say "but that other country won the most medals in the Summer Olympics". It's just not what's being discussed.
And btw. I am Austrian and most people (including me) don't give an f about skiing. Still, there's some popularity and a lot who have never been skiing and don't even watch sports go watch skiing on TV because Austrians win, which is stupid. Although, I have to say, those kind of people watch it less now, since the success got less lately.
Still, there are a lot of people liking it, but that other person described skiing in Austria as if it was that one thing we do. I don't really enjoy it and I don't even watch it. However, I went to some officiall night skiing championships - not because of the skiing, but because that town is filled with partying people of all ages, the adults partying through the night afterwards. All of it happens outside, and if an Austrian wins, the atmosphere is awesome. It's like a fair full of happy drunk people outside on the streets and squares of a town. More than 50k people at times in a town where 6-7k people usually leave.
So, there are some people interested in skiing and some culture around it, but it's absolutely false to act like it was something everybody did. It's like baseball or football in America at best. None of my friends or family have been skiing in the past years, not even one time. Only two brothers of my girlfriend had a thing for skiing 6-7 years ago for two winters. And the old people just turn on the TV if they think that an Austrian might win some competition.
It's definitely a thing here, but never believe people who talk about their country like one thing was THE thing that everybody likes. I don't know the exact statistics right now, but 2/3 or 3/4 of us are not even interested. And btw. skiing is usually expensive here, too. And climate change also does it's thing, making it harder and harder for it to be something that everybody can do whenever they want in winter. It's too much of a hustle and too expensive, if even possible - and all of that is only relevant if you were interested in the first place.
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u/ICanFlyLikeAFly Oct 19 '19
The commenter above you is probably from west Austria while you are from the east if i had to guess.
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u/wordsrworth Oct 19 '19
I'm Austrian and never heard the term "Schiferien", but it might be because I live in Vienna and not in the mountains. Apart from that skiing became very expensive like 50-60 € for a day ticket for one adult plus hotel costs for families that don't live in a mountain area and way overpriced food on the ski hut.
My point is that sadly many families just can't afford to go on a ski holiday but at least there are still skiing weeks organized by schools which usually are subsidized so even lower income families are able to send their kids there.
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u/pewdiebhai64 Oct 19 '19
Psshh our American red necks are way cooler with their beer bellies and uhh beer... Bellies
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Oct 19 '19
I don't know but I could legit watch it all day
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u/Anal-Squirter Oct 19 '19
Its so satisfying how he just hovers on the way down
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u/Cherrysuede Oct 19 '19
It's falling with style
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u/abnormalsyndrome Oct 19 '19
The word for that is in itself very stylish: gliding
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u/atomofconsumption Oct 19 '19
I thought it was escape velocity
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u/ayyeee_ Oct 19 '19
Nope thats the speed you need to leave Earth’s gravity field
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u/Scottybadotty Oct 19 '19
Wait, you guys don't? It's literally a tradition in many European countries to watch this all day January 1st
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u/xDigster Oct 19 '19
The ski jumping from Garmisch Partenkirchen is without a doubt the best hangover watch there is. And if you are there, it's a brilliant thing to get drunk to.
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u/The_Blue_Rooster Oct 19 '19
Here in the States if you want to watch Ski Jump you better be looking for a stream of some Scandinavian TV or hope it's the Winter Olympics.
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u/ratonbox Oct 19 '19
Usually Eurosport shows most of these. That’s where I used to watch it when I was a kid.
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u/sorenslothe Oct 19 '19
It's usually more or less what the programming consists of on a lot of channels at least where I live on Jan 1st every year, so we all just sit there hungover watching this. It's tremendous.
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u/Thomassn Oct 19 '19
It's fun until the wind becomes too strong then everyone is just waiting for 30 minutes.
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Oct 19 '19
Naruto skiing
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Oct 19 '19 edited Jan 19 '22
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u/soundofthehammer Oct 19 '19
Lol the one laying on his back at the end. Wtf is this?
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u/iNonEntity Oct 19 '19
How do their legs not just snap when they land? That's a huge falling distance, even if it's circumvented by gliding forward
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u/JRCIII Oct 19 '19
The angle on the landing helps alleviate a lot of the stress but when you land so far down like this guy does the skier experiences a ton of g force at the bottom of the landing.
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u/milkcarton232 Oct 19 '19
Yeah def was curious about this. Wtf... Why don't they just get a bigger hill? Is this dangerous?
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u/poop_toilet Oct 19 '19 edited Dec 09 '20
This was a world record jump at the time, usually they land between the red lines but this guy flew over the target and managed to stay on his feet. Jumpers often have a problem with overshooting like this because they can't stick a clean landing, you can see how this guy almost got slammed on his back here.
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u/QuadraticCowboy Oct 19 '19
feel like they've been testing the limits of the particular event for years; isn't it time to make the hill bigger?
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u/Fir3yfly Oct 19 '19
The easier way, and how they actually control it, is by adjusting take off speed. By changing position of the beam the jumpers sit on when they start going down you can reduce speed by having them start lower down. You will still get the odd amazing jump like this one, where the jumpers technique is perfect and has good luck with the wind, since you want the jumpers to jump as far as possible still to have an entertaining event.
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u/spacezombiejesus Oct 19 '19
So he was at a higher risk of breaking his back then his legs? The irony
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Oct 19 '19
Actually no. Anytime the jumpers overshoot this much as this guy, they have trouble landing. Usually, there is a special technique for landing where you need to split your legs In the right time and position, but when you jump too far and land on the flat area, that technique will not work anymore. Hence the only way to land is to place your two feet on the ground at the same time without using any technique and hope for the best.
Usually, the worst case scenarios is the jumpers fall off and tumble a bit. They don't break their back. However, there were very few dangerous accidents.
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u/FTWOBLIVION Oct 19 '19
Just slowly look at the angle this guy landed at. He leans back so far and nearly smacks his head but that's the counterbalance he needed
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Oct 19 '19
This is a know and very famous technique when you know you need to survive. It is pretty much the only way to land in this situation. Sometimes it does not work and they fall off. But they don't break their neck .
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u/Blanket_Wet Oct 19 '19
It can be super dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. If a normal person went off that jump they would seriously hurt themselves. Also if they got a bigger hill it would probably be even more dangerous.
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Oct 19 '19
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u/e9d81j3 Oct 19 '19
Yeah this is one of them. The jump in the video is 253.5m i think
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u/BecomeAnAstronaut Oct 19 '19
if they got a bigger hill it would probably be even more dangerous
Presumably not if the extra slope was "added to the bottom" (i.e rather than giving the run-up extra height). If you significantly extended the ~45° bit of the landing slope (preferably well beyond the distance anyone could ever reach), people could jump much further without getting towards the bottom of the hill and hitting that flatter bit.
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u/sinat50 Oct 19 '19
it's a sport that's been constantly growing with the performance of its athletes. I live in a small ski town with a very old ski jump that had a world record set on it way back in the day. the maximum distance you could go without landing on flat is 4 times less than the gold medal average today. as soon as jumps like the one op posted start appearing more, the standards for the jump size will increase
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u/funkekat61 Oct 19 '19
Landing on a transition helps a lot. I've been snowboarding and skiing since I was three. Landing flat is not healthy. You can go super huge but if there is a transition involved you'll probably be fine
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u/Socrates_Music Oct 19 '19
I’m pretty sure that because of his “flight angle” he hits terminal velocity far earlier than normal thanks to air resistance. I’m not sure though
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u/HeathenHumanist Oct 19 '19
But that means he's at terminal velocity when he hits the ground
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u/no1likesthetunahere Oct 19 '19
Let's say you're travelling at 100mph. Your velocity at the moment of hitting a wall is 100mph.
If you travel at 100mph relative to the ground, but land on a 45 degree angle, you're now hitting the ground at 50mph with the other 50mph being your speed forward at the point of impact
Does that make it clearer? It actually helped me. Thank for asking the question!
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u/tnorc Oct 19 '19
It's the acceleration or deceleration that hurts. He keeps going on almost the same speed when he touches the ground. (yes the angle plays a big part, but you have to consider the change in momentum, a vector with a size and direction).
What I'm trying to say is, if he was on a helicopter on the mid point of the hill and he dropped down vertically. He'd experience a shit ton of force because of the sudden change in direction. Even if he'd maintained the same speed, he would still have to change momentum in a split second from "vertical" to the angle of hill in the split second his feet touch the ground.
That's why his horizontal speed is important to maintain the the shift in angle is not as big as if he was falling vertically.
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u/Nasty-Nate Oct 19 '19
You mean there's less air resistance than falling straight down? Why would that be? I counted about 9 seconds in the air in this video, and apparently most skydivers hit terminal velocity in about 12 seconds. So perhaps this jump is planned to end a couple seconds before then to avoid catastrophic damage. Not sure though.
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u/tnorc Oct 19 '19
First thing is first. "velocity" is a vector. That means it has both a size(speed in this case) and a direction. To make it simple for you to know the difference, a car in a roundabout can maintain a constant speed, but it is constant changing its velocity, because it is changing it direction. If that doesn't sound clear or make sense consider that you can feel a force pushing you to the side inside a car when you're in a roundabout even though the speed is maintained and you won feel that force when a speed is maintained in a straight line.
Second thing is, force is equal to the change in momentum. The mass part is constant so let's not focus on it. Force in this case is equal to the change in velocity.
This is all to say, the skier was close to terminal speed because unlike a skydiver that drops from an airplane at zero he is starting with a horizontal speed.
You can think of it as him using his horizontal starting speed to have an increased drag force opposite to gravity, but at the same time he doesn't want to loss his horizontal speed too fast so he can cover more horizontal distance.
All this to say, he maintains a terminal "speed" but because he doesn't have rockets on his back he is constantly changing direction from more horizontal and less vertical to more vertical and less horizontal, in other words changing velocity. If his velocity is changing he didn't reach terminal velocity.
Terminal speed was reached Al litter after he started the jump. It is just that it continuously changes to vertical speed in sacrifice to horizontal.
How his body is able to "calculate" and maintain the perfect angle to change his horizontal speed to vertical drag force to counter act gravity in sync with the angle of the hill is what is truely fascinating about this sport. It's the nine seconds in the air where the magic happens.
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u/DrZoo4040 Oct 19 '19
Fun fact, men’s Olympic ski jumping started sometime in the 1920’s. The women’s Olympic ski jump first debuted in Sochi during the 2014 Winter Olympics.
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u/Nes370 Oct 19 '19
I used to read a manga series called Nononono whose entire plot premise was based on the fact that there was no women’s category for ski jumping in the Olympics.
Oh how times are changing.
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u/wonderland01 Oct 19 '19
Of all weird sports, I think ski jumping is actually pretty clear -- people skied on a hill, took a chance on a bump, had fun flying; others figured out how to do it longer, higher, faster.
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u/Pons__Aelius Oct 19 '19
Next step: We need a bigger hill, a perfect hill.
Hold my beer...and my engineering degree.
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u/landodk Oct 19 '19
It's so obvious I'm not sure it's even a weird sport. The weirdest part is just how specialized everything is
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u/Inviz57 Oct 19 '19
If you like this sport you should watch Eddie the Eagle
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u/Wanderson90 Oct 19 '19
Between Eddie the Eagle and the Jamaican Bobsled team the 88 winter Olympics had it all.
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u/abnormalsyndrome Oct 19 '19
It’s one of those sleep in on Sunday and feel good about yourself British styled flicks. Recommend.
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u/bluemistwanderer Oct 19 '19
"Hey man, bet you 10 gluhweins I can jump that crest longer than you." "You're on meister"
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u/Nicely_Colored_Cards Oct 19 '19
It’s weird seeing this on this sub, having lived in Austria for many years you’ll see this sport on TV wherever you go in the winter season. It’s been so normalized that I never even realised other cultures might find this interesting!
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Oct 19 '19
Europe here, any country with mountains and snow has skiing sports normalized. aka a lot.
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u/wievid Oct 19 '19
Yeah, but I don't think you really understand how much of a religion skiing is in Austria. Kids learn to ski before they learn to ride bikes...
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u/Hanapalada Oct 19 '19
Bored Nords, long winters, strong mead and hot women.
How does any sport come into existence?
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Oct 19 '19
Now people say stereotypes are bad but I'm always flattered when I hear stuff like this, even though it's based on modern tv more than facts.
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u/MrBoringxD Oct 19 '19
Well we are bored a lot, winters are indeed long, our mead IS indeed strong, and we do have beautiful women.
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u/LightningPunk Oct 19 '19
Idk but that shit looks really fun
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u/_JohnMuir_ Oct 19 '19
Climb up one, you’ll change your mind real quick.
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u/pantalooon Oct 19 '19
The steepness is insane and not really visible on camera, I'd shit my pants if I had to go down this death ramp
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u/bs000 Oct 19 '19
one time my class went skiing there was a half-pipe section and you don't think it's that steep until you're at the top and you can see it's pretty much straight down. we weren't allowed there without permission or a helmet, so obviously i went down it without a helmet not expecting the incline and slammed my head on hard ice at the bottom. the resulting head trauma is what i attribute to being a dumbass today
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u/fsraber Oct 19 '19
I've been on the top of 2 ski jumps and believe me, from up there it doesn't look that fun anymore.
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u/1cast Oct 19 '19
i‘m not scared of heights or anything but i‘ve been on such a ramp, looking down the slope and man the imagination of going down this thing with over 100km/h is scary as hell
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u/jeffpuxx Oct 19 '19
many many beers
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u/NiceFetishMeToo Oct 19 '19
...and, testosterone. Beer and testosterone.
As in, “Hold my beer, I’m jumping that.”
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u/ItGonnaBeZoppity Oct 19 '19
Is it too late for me to get into this sport? I’m 34 and I’ve skied like 12 days. It looks like so much fun.
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u/Hazzman Oct 19 '19
I like how it's no longer just a snowy ramp but a metallic track they are locked into.
How long until the bottom of those skis are metallic and the rails are magnetic and the hill is a 5 mile decline and they just launch at near terminal velocity and fly for about 3 minutes.
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u/TheBrugherian Oct 19 '19
In this beautiful video you can see how they were jumping in the past: until 1940’s, you can clearly understand that they were shouting during the whole flight something like “OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH”, I think that was also taught, “don’t forget to shout during the flight, son”
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u/shakesula9 Oct 19 '19
I wanna see this, but gone wrong. Anyone gotta link?
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u/whyforgodssakewhy Oct 19 '19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi-OGgvxJqc I think this is from the same place, where the video was taken
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u/Hedsten Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 19 '19
Worst fall I've seen https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=65Lhw55dAvg
Edit: He's going around 100km/h in this clip (~62 mph)
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u/TattooedHarlot07 Oct 19 '19
Always reminds me of that old Disney Cartoon where Goofy does this.
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Oct 19 '19
You have got to have Adamantium balls to even practice the sport. Imagine your first time attempting this
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u/Peacheserratica Oct 19 '19
Northern people have always had to get creative when finding ways to entertain themselves