Users Flip for New Olympic Ski Jumps

First, find a big mountain.

Salt Lake City architect Peter Emerson admits that when his firm was chosen to design a $25-million ski jump attraction at the XIX Winter Olympics here, that was the sum total of his knowledge.

“Obviously,” he said, “no one had a lot of experience building ski jumps.”

And so the principals of a medium-sized firm in the habit of building schools and jails piled into a van for what they dubbed the Ski Jump Tour of Europe. Five guys, six countries, 14 days, 12 hotels. In their downtime, the architects from Edwards & Daniels also checked out bobsled tracks.

Five years later, with the Winter Games just days away, Emerson stood atop what is widely acclaimed as the crown jewel of the Utah Olympic Park here. Braving a 7-degree morning, Emerson brushed snow from his eyes to better see the world’s newest--and highest--ski jump, known universally as a K120.

‘Large Hill’ Expected to Draw Great Interest

Built in harmony with the hillside, the jump is viewed as an aesthetic marvel. One of only 10 internationally approved ski jumps in the U.S., it is expected to boost interest and participation in a sport in which only about 200 U.S. athletes compete.

Athletes will attain an average of 58 mph on the 38-degree jump, known here as the “large hill.” From the start of the run to the bottom of the landing hill, the steepest point of the jump is 462 feet, more than a 40-story building. The elevation at the top is 7,323 feet--said to be higher than any other ski jump on the planet.

Adjacent is the newly constructed “normal hill,” the K90. It is 168 feet shorter and, with a gradient of 37.5 degrees, only slightly less steep. Its elevation at the top is 7,221 feet.

“These jumps,” said 17-year-old Lindsay Van of Park City, the fourth-ranked female ski jumper in the world, “are just so awesome.”

Construction of the jumps started after Salt Lake City lost a bid for the 1998 Winter Olympics. State officials vowed to show their commitment to winter sports by building a mountaintop center with a skating oval, ski jump, bobsled run and luge track. Even before the Olympics, the park attracted 250,000 visitors a year.

When Utah got the green light for the 2002 Olympics, the state opted to upgrade the plans for the Games and for future generations of athletes.

“The idea was to create a legacy, a facility that could operate year-round,” said Emerson. “And also to avoid having a white elephant after the Olympics.”

Wal-Mart Lot Offers Prime View of Jumps

To accommodate the new jumps, more than 400,000 cubic yards of rock and dirt had to be excavated. Blasting the mountainside turned into a spectacle for residents who discovered that the parking lot of Wal-Mart affords a glorious view of the jump.

“People would come out with their beers and just watch us blast,” said Ranch Kimball, director of construction for Utah’s permanent Olympic venues.

Situating the jumps was only one of the challenges facing Emerson and his colleagues. Scattered across the landscape were tiny wooden chalet-type structures, built to house equipment, power sources and, in some cases, athletes.

Emerson’s architectural team came up with a more modern image: steel, concrete and glass buildings as spare and functional as the mountains around them. The roofs curve like wings--or like ski jumpers in midflight. A sports museum Emerson and his crew put on the property and all the outbuildings associated with the sports events echo the ski jumps’ simple splendor.

The broader metaphor, said Emerson, was a machine.

“You think about that jump, it is a machine,” he said, “a machine that a jumper can take advantage of. It is an extension of the jumpers’ skis.”

The big jump accentuates the mountainside, especially at night when it is lighted and visible from miles away. Despite its drama, Emerson stressed that the jump “is not a monument. It is a structure designed for a specific purpose. That is its signature.”

The architects and engineers decided to carve into the mountain rather than projecting outward. This approach kept the jump from becoming an environmental eyesore, Emerson said, “sticking out of the ground, towering over its surroundings, like the jump in Calgary [Canadian site of the 1988 Winter Games]. That was not our intent here.”

Changes in standards and technology also came into play. High-tech materials--such as a ceramic track and plastic sheathing that make a jump as easy to use in summer as in winter--had to be included.

In addition, there were foot and vehicular traffic patterns to address, since the Olympic organizing committee in Salt Lake decided to break with tradition and place the ski jumps next to the luge and bobsled runs. At most Olympics, the venues for those events have been separate. Putting them together meant bigger audiences--and more congestion.

But the main obstacle was the thin air. Ski jumps abound in Europe, where the sport is so popular that one recent competition attracted 100,000 spectators.

Most jumps in Europe are in big cities at sea level. Even in Europe’s mountains, a ski jump’s base elevation tends to be low, 2,000 to 3,000 feet.

The design team here aimed to turn the air into an asset. The K120’s “flying V” pattern allows jumpers to use the air, Emerson said, explaining: “It creates more wind surface.”

But former Olympian Joe Lamb, the leading U.S. specialist on ski jumping, said the altitude of the Utah jumps makes the air density significantly lower than most jumpers are accustomed to.

“Aerodynamics plays a huge, huge part in the flight trajectory of the athletes,” Lamb said. “I think these jumps will be challenging to many of the competitors because they’re not used to jumping at this altitude.”

Still, Lamb maintained that the new specifications make the Utah jumps the safest in the world. He predicted they will attract one of the largest audiences at the Games.

And, said Lamb, “These jumps will be a great asset to American ski jumping in the future, I can guarantee you that.”

Days before the Games begin, Emerson said it feels as if five years of design effort flew by. The ski jump, he said, can take care of itself now. Down to the wire, the unglamorous essentials of the job consume Emerson’s 14-hour days: Will the toilets work? Will the food concession areas function properly?

Those involved in the project like to say they have accrued a vast body of knowledge about something they will never have to do again. Oh, well, Emerson shrugged, something else will come along. Meanwhile, as he watched jumpers fly off the K120, was he tempted to try it himself?

“It looks like fun,” he said. “But at this point, I think I’ll pass.”