Stories About Great Seasons

4.10.02

Story about the great season of 2001-2002 by Jonathan Kling.

    Hey everybody, I know its been a while since all this happened, but Alexei has been telling me to get it written, so here it is.
    During this season, my jumping throughout the East was very good.  I have been really happy with my performances.  At the eastern comps I was pleased with my 8 out of 10 wins.  After these comps, it was time for JO's, I went to the JO's expecting to maybe get a top 5 finish in the J1 Nordic combined and maybe a top 10 in the J1 Special jumping competition.  The first few days of training went really well and I was jumping great.  Competition time came and I did even better.  In the J1 Nordic combined jumping event, I set two consecutive hill records and my team (me and Marshal Ambrose) ended up in an awesome first place position.
    The second Competition, the team special jumping, went equally as well with my team of Jeremy Carter, Matt Delaney, Evan Bliss, and myself jumping to a solid 2nd place.  In the J1 individual event, I jumped 75 and 75.5 meters and skied very well to wind up with another gold medal.

The last competition of the week and the most important was another good one for me.  I jumped 77.5 and 72.5 meters and ended up in a close 2nd place. The 77.5 meter jump was my 3rd hill record that week and still stands
unbroken.

At the end of the week, the coach from Park City Utah approached me inquiring if I would be able to attend a trip to Norway.  I was not sure at the time whether I would be able to take off school or not.  It turns out that I was able to get my work ahead of time and go to Norway.  The trip was awesome.  My first European experience couldn't have been better.  We stayed in Drammen
Norway which was a nice town with good food and good people.  The jumps at
vikersund were also very nice.  I qualified all three days of competition,
but was not allowed to jump the first day because my suit was too thick to
pass the legal limit.  In the second two competitions I did extremely well,
making the cut both times and competing in the second round.  I finished in
42nd and 48th place out of 90 European skiers.  Needless to say, European
skiers like with almost every other sport are much better than American.  I
was really pleased with my performance and the quality of the trip. The
flights to and from were not quite as enjoyable.

The last trip I went on was to Steamboat Springs Colorado for the US National
Championships.  This trip was also really fun.  It was so warm though, that
we had to start our competitions at 6:30 am just so that it would be cold
enough to not ruin the hill.  I placed 9th on the k90 hill and 20th on the
k114 hill.  I was very pleased with my first competition but on the 114 I
just couldn't seem to get it quite right. 

I feel I have had a really successful season and I cant wait to get out there
next year and have another go at it.