Viking Magazine - January 2022 - 25

flou ished. According to Lundin, in
the Midwest, between 50,000 and
100,000 spectators swarmed to the
competitions, and 5,000 to 10,000
regularly watched in the Northwest.
These supporters traveled far and
wide to follow the tournament
circuit, and trekked steep hills to
reach the jump sites and endured
often frigid and snowy conditions.
Two entities did a lot to build
the public hype. The fir t was the
press. " Newspapers throughout the
country were real supporters of this
crazy new sport of skiing [and] gave
extensive coverage, " Lundin says.
In the 1930s, he recounts that the
Seattle papers included six or eight
articles about skiing or ski jumping
in each edition, and writers covered
tournaments not only locally, but
in the Midwest, California and
Competitors Gene Kotlarek, Oyvin Floystad and Jon St. Andre hike up the steep hill to
reach the takeoffpoint at the 1959 National Ski Jumping Championships and Olympic
trials at Leavenworth, Washington.
Fight for Flight
Norwegian world champion ski
jumper Johanne Kolstad (right)
and her sister Kitty at Earls
Court, London, 1938.
At the first Winter
Olympic Games in 1924 in
Chamonix, France, men's
ski jumping was among the
program's six sports. Female
jumpers, on the other hand,
had to wait 90 long years to
compete in the Olympics,
thanks to the " inherent
sexism that dominates our
country and our sport, " says
John W. Lundin, a lawyer
and historian, and the
author of " Ski Jumping in
Washington State: A Nordic
Tradition " and other books
on the sport's history.
But that doesn't mean
women hadn't been in on the
fun since the beginning. In 1862-at the world's first public
ski jumping event in Trysil, Norway-Ingrid Olsdatter Vestby
flew nearly 20 feet. In 1917, Norwegian skier Olga BalstadEggen
came to the U.S. and competed against men in some
early tournaments at Mount Rainier. She even took top
honors in one, Lundin says.
@sonsofnorway
Several ski clubs in the northwestern U.S. included female
members who participated in events. Then in 1934, champion
jumper Johanne Kolstad, a.k.a. " The Queen of Skis, " came
to America when her home country of Norway banned her
from events because she'd beaten her male counterparts
several times. For years she toured the States, promoting
ski jumping, battling in a couple of tournaments and
demonstrating at exhibitions that women could indeed jump.
By the early 2000s, North American female ski
jumpers had had enough, pushing for acceptance from
the international community. A group filed a lawsuit in an
attempt to enter the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada,
but after a months-long battle, they lost. " The Olympic
Committee from the beginning was always one of the most
conservative and resistant to change, " Lundin says.
Since at least the 1930s, athletes have fought with
the Olympic Committee over who could compete in the
Olympics; most notably who was a professional athlete and
who wasn't. " It kept the people who made their living from
skiing from competing as amateurs, " Lundin adds. " That very
rigid concept of who was able to be 'an Olympic athlete'
permeated the Games for many years. "
Between litigation and lobbying, the international
community finally altered its tune. In 2014, female ski
jumpers competed at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
January 2022
25
TOP PHOTO COURTESY LEAVENWORTH SKI HERITAGE FOUNDATION, BOTTOM PHOTO BY H. F. DAVIS / GETTY IMAGES

Viking Magazine - January 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Viking Magazine - January 2022