Sport: Norwegian Jumpers

At the age when the average U. S. moppet is getting a tricycle from Santa Claus, the average Norwegian child is getting a pair of skis. In Norway children start to ski when they are 4, can usually jump 60 ft. when they are 8 and 150 ft. when they are 12. To encourage the sport, the Norwegian Ski Association each year gives 5,000 pairs of skis to children who cannot afford to buy them.

So it is not surprising that the best ski jumpers in the world are developed in Norway. Last week, when 9,000 ski enthusiasts gathered in the little town of Brattleboro, Vt. to witness the ski-jumping championship of the U. S., the entry list looked like an Oslo telephone directory. Sprinkled among the Class A competitors were a few native Americans but the majority were Norwegians sojourning in the U. S. A dozen or so were topflight, but the performer the crowd had really come to see was Birger Ruud, the No. 1 product of Norway’s extraordinary ski-training system.

The crowd was not disappointed. With gaping mouths it watched jumper after jumper slant through the air—eight with leaps of over 200 ft.—but it was 130-lb. Birger Ruud who made the spectators gasp with his prodigious and perfect jump of 216 ft., a whizzing arc ending with the wood slapping evenly on the hard snow.

It broke the hill record by 19 ft. and clinched the championship with a total of 229.8 points (based on best distance and form in two jumps). Six out of the first ten placed were Ruud’s countrymen.

Winning championships is an old story to Birger Ruud. Olympic jumping champion twice (1932 and 1936), and world champion thrice, he has competed in 200 meets, placed 190 times, won no times, broken 50 records. His older brother, Sigmund, won the U. S. championship while on a visit last year and placed fifth last week. The Brothers Ruud are—next to Sonja Henie—Norway’s greatest athletic pride. Born in a little silver-mining town of Kongsberg near Oslo, which has produced more topflight ski jumpers than any other spot in the world, little Birger Ruud won his first championship when he was seven years old. Since ski jumping is a matter of confidence and body control, Birger Ruud, like all Kongsberg children, supplemented winter jumping with summertime diving to keep in trim and help develop good technique. The Ruuds have a younger brother, Asbjorn, 18. who has already outjumped Birger. This is Birger’s second visit to the U. S. and this trip is his honeymoon. When asked if he can speak English, his answer is “a little.” Those two words are practically the limit of his English vocabulary.