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Symbol of senseless bloodshed:
the ruins of the former ski jumping facilities of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.
Eight years later the Bosnian War began: the ski jumps on Mount Igman were destroyed, professional ski jumping never took place in Sarajevo again.
The conversion plans around 2010 had no consequences: Like almost all facilities of the legendary Winter Games, the ski jumps are spooky wasteland 38 years after Jens Weißflog's Olympic victory.
Photo:
Dado Ruvic / REUTERS
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Once the most modern ski jump in the world:
The Trampolino Olimpico Italia in Cortina d'Ampezzo was inaugurated on the occasion of the 1956 Winter Olympics. The facility has not been in operation since 1998 - it is known today primarily because some scenes from the James Bond event were filmed there in 1981. strip »For Your Eyes Only« were filmed.
Photo: Eberhard Thonfeld / IMAGO
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Closed for cost reasons:
the Alberta Ski Jump Arena in Calgary.
From 1985 five ski jumps were constructed in the Olympic Park for the Winter Games in Canada.
After the 1988 Winter Olympics, in which the Finn Matti Nykänen won three gold medals, Calgary never hosted a World Cup - but the facility was the scene of numerous lower-class international competitions.
In 2018 the ski jumps were finally closed.
Photo: Walt Disney Television Photo Archives/ABC/Getty Images
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Completed two years too late
- and then they also cost the equivalent of 230 instead of the expected 35 million euros: the ski jumps of Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Olympics were held.
The German team's Olympic victory eight years ago was the last international competition at the Russian facility.
Since then, little has happened there, also because the ski jumps are in an unsuitable place and the slope is slipping.
"In ten years," joked Gian-Franco Kasper, President of the International Ski Federation (FIS) in 2014, "the ski jumps will no longer be up on the mountain, but down by the sea."
Photo: Sergei Bobylev / ITAR-TASS / IMAGO
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The Hakuba ski jumps
were built for the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano.
Six years later, the last World Cup took place on the facilities on the Japanese main island of Honshu in Nagano Prefecture.
Photo: Norbert Eisele-Hein / imagebroker / IMAGO
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Today mainly a training center:
The Whistler Olympic Park with its two ski jumps was built for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
The only World Cup weekend for jumpers took place before the Winter Games at that time.
Since then there have mainly been lower-class competitions;
Whistler also serves as a training center for the Canadians.
A small ray of hope: in 2023 the facility will be used for the Junior World Championships.
Photo: Lars Baron/Bongarts/Getty Images
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Two Olympics!
If that's not sustainable - athletes have been using the ski jumping facility in Lake Placid (New York State) since 1920, and in 1932 the Winter Olympics were held there for the first time.
A good half century later, the games were held there again in 1980 – winners of the jumping competitions were Jouko Törmänen (Finland) and Anton Innauer (Austria).
Photo: Karl Staedele / AFP
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Not green at all:
the Alpensia Jumping Park in Pyeongchang, South Korea (2018).
"Sites have been built that will never be needed again," said DLF sports journalist Jessica Sturmberg in an interview.
According to Sturmberg, 60,000 trees were felled for the construction of the alpine ski slope - including some that were 500 years old.
The Alpensia winter sports center, which was built by 2009 and also included five ski jumps, cost an incredible one billion US dollars.
The benefits were manageable: the only post-Olympic competition was a third-rate FIS Cup 2019, also due to the pandemic.
Photo: Dominic Ebenbichler / REUTERS
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High up:
At 2,237 meters, the Utah Olympic Park Jumps are the highest competition jumps in the world.
The small one dates from 1993, the large one was built for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City (Utah).
It was used regularly until 2008, since then nothing has happened internationally in Utah with the exception of the Junior World Championships in 2017 and a guest appearance of the third-class FIS Cup in the following year.
Today, the US association uses the facility for competitions.
Photo: Photoshot / Construction Photography / IMAGO
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Years of shadowy existence:
the facility in Courchevel, France, which originally dates from the 1940s and was rebuilt for the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville.
Only after a renovation in 2011 is the Tremplin du Praz a central part of the Summer Grand Prix.
Photo: Sven Simon / IMAGO
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Unmanned flying object:
Albertville hosted the 1992 Winter Games.
The Tyrolean photographer Lois Hechenblaikner was particularly merciless in his judgment on the French Olympic sites: "For me, the negative example par excellence is Albertville," Hechenblaikner told the Swiss "Tagesanzeiger" in 2013.
»So something of terrible and sad, unbelievable!
Stadiums rusting away like a misplaced UFO, a town center like a run-down Wild West town, architecturally screwed up to no end.«
Photo: Sirotti / IMAGO
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Well utilized:
An example of good subsequent use are the »Lysgaardsbakken«, ski jumps built in Lillehammer for the Norwegian Winter Games in 1994.
They are still the regular venue for Nordic World Cups today.
The women last jumped there in December, the men are guests on the first weekend in March.
Photo: GEPA pictures / IMAGO
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Official opening:
This facility was also used twice for the Winter Olympics – the Bergisel ski jump in Innsbruck, scene of the Innsbruck games in 1964 and 1976 (photo) and for decades also part of the Four Hills Tournament, which takes place every year around the turn of the year.
Photo: RDB / ullstein bild
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A little human comes flying:
Arttu Maekiaho from Finland jumps from the Bergisel ski jump in Innsbruck (photo from 2019).
In 1988, Pope John Paul II came and showed how an Olympic ski jump can still be used in this way: The head of the Catholic Church celebrated a mass on the Bergisel with around 60,000 people.
Photo: Hendrik Schmidt / dpa
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Dead pants in the valley of the Squaw:
The facilities of Squaw Valley (California), built for the 1960 Winter Olympics, were also shut down - today the dismantled ski jump is used as a ski slope.
Photo: San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images
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»Sustainability for the future«?
The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are being advertised as completely carbon neutral – which is a joke given the tons of artificial snow being produced.
A village had to be relocated for the construction of the monstrous ski jump, the exact construction costs are not known, but are said to be around one hundred million dollars.
Whether a World Cup will ever take place on the donut-like facility in the snow-poor region of Zhangjiakou seems at least questionable.
Photo: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
With material from sid
