February 12, 1998 transcript #: 220-4
Subject(s): ski jumping, wind, wind nets
Title: OLYMPIC SKI JUMPING

Any outdoor sport is affected by the wind to some extent. Baseball, golf, sailing, track and field, badminton -- you name it. Mostly the athlete or team wants the wind at their backs. But in one sport -- a winter sport -- performance is enhanced by a head wind. Hi, I’m Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather notebook. The sport is ski jumping and we caught up with Tim Tetrault of the US Olympic Nordic combined ski team at a competition in Ramsau, Austria.

Tim: “Ski jumpers definitely like to jump when there’s what we call a head wind to keep you in the air.” They actually try to float down the hill by using the head wind to provide a slight lifting force as they soar 90 or so meters. So to check on the optimum wind, each jumper has a jump coach who is part weather observer.

One of the important roles that a jump coach plays is what we call wind flagging. We wait for our coach to signal us to get out on the starting bar, meaning the wind is coming toward us or up the hill."

And for their own safety the jumpers also have to wait for a green light from officials.

Tim: "The officials will not turn the light on until the wind conditions are within a certain range of wind speed and direction. Often times they put up these wind screens -- this big, green, finely meshed net that allows some wind -- to protect the hill from dangerous winds.”

There is one of these huge wind screens in Nagano Japan where it tends to be windy on the ski hill. Tim and the other members of the Nordic combined ski team start their Olympic competition tomorrow in Nagano. You can check our web page for the results of the skiing competition at www.mountwashington.org. Our show is underwritten by Subaru and major funding is provided by the National Science Foundation.