Winter sports in summer? Thanks to plastic mats, ski jumpers can land safely even without snow. A pioneer was Bischofsgrün in the Fichtelgebirge 65 years ago. The anniversary is now being celebrated – of course with a competition on mats.
Bischofsgrün (dpa / lby) – ski jumping at Pentecost? In early summer instead of in the dead of winter? That still sounds quite exotic. And that was even more so 65 years ago. In Bischofsgrün (Bayreuth district) the first ski jumping competition on mats took place in summer, as Klaus Purucker from the Bischofsgrün Ski Club said. Only in Oberhof in the former GDR had one been faster – and earlier a ski jump had been made suitable for summer.
According to Purucker, 20,000 spectators came to the Ochsenkopfschanze for the Pentecost jumping in 1957. The anniversary will of course be celebrated this Sunday in Bischofsgrün with a ski jumping competition. Ski jumpers mainly from Thuringia, Saxony and Northern Bavaria are expected.
According to Purucker, it is common for newer and converted ski jumps to cover the landing areas of ski jumps with plastic mats so that training sessions and competitions can also be held in summer. After the plastic covering in Bischofsgrün, hardly any ski jumps were covered with plastic coverings in the following two decades.
The three ski jumps, which are now located at the foot of the Ochsenkopf, are mainly used as training facilities for the state training center for Nordic disciplines in the Fichtelgebirge.
