A good side on view of the lower section where ski jumpers land (hopefully). You can see the leaves used to mark distances. A ski jumper cannot see the round yellow signs indicating distance, those are aids for the judges, and instead concentrate on the leaves.

Each row of leaves appears as a line from the air, and can be compared to an artificial horizon. It is difficult for a ski jumper to actually know exactly how far they have jumped as their concentration is entirely focussed on maintaing their form in flight and preparing for landing. During training the best sense of distance is the perceived length (in terms of seconds/time) of flight. During competition, especially elite competition, it is the amount of noise generated from the crowd.

Click here or on photo to return to previous page (requires javascript enabled).