Coffee Table Book of: Ski Jumping (Paperback)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Ski Jumping is a large format book of ski jumping, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: long skis and close fitting suits, tall towers, steep inruns and landing hills, the hills and skis made ready, the trails of Nordic combined, and a few jumpers and skiers seen far off in plain dark clothing.

The kit is laid out plain: a pair of long, wide jumping skis, a tall boot that leans forward at the ankle, a boot held in its binding at the toe with the heel free, a one piece suit laid flat on snow and another hung on a hook, a hard helmet, goggles and thin gloves, and for the cross country race, light skating skis, long poles and roller skis for summer.

The making and care follow the light wooden core of a ski, a waxing iron, a scraper and a brush, the steel start bar and the start light, a wind gauge on its pole, a groomer held on a winch cable on the landing hill, snow lances before dawn, a line dyed across the slope, spruce twigs strewn on the snow and summer matting kept wet by sprinklers.

The past runs from old wooden skis, long and heavy, a heel band of twisted willow, stiff leather boots and a wool sweater and cap, through skis clamped in a press to keep their arch and a form for bending tips, to a farm slope with a heap of snow for a takeoff, an old judges’ stand and timber towers left to the woods.

Short notes run through the book, on the skis, suits and hills and how they are made ready, the way a jump is judged, and the history of jumping and Nordic combined: the takeoff slopes gently down, so the lift comes from the jumper’s own leap and the air, landing hills are so steep that grooming machines work them hanging from a winch cable, wax is melted into the base with an iron, then scraped thin and brushed for speed, and the start bar can be moved up or down the inrun, making jumpers faster or slower as the wind changes.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a paperback.