Posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 5:02 pm.
With the season of Big Air city comps now over, the SkiUnion team found itself in an office discussion (argument) about which was the first one (yes, we know we are all incredibly sad!). We were expecting to go as far back as the first ICER Air (which moved into a stadium in 2005), or Freestyle.ch where snowboarding was introduced in 1999…and then we stumbled upon something we were totally unaware of, and frankly it makes the current city air comps look like child’s play. There’s no need to say much more, as these shots kind of speak for themselves…they are as beautiful as they are scary. Most of these temporary Ski Jumps were erected in North America before the era of health and safety… Oh, for the good ol’ days!
Empire stadium in Vancouver, April 30th 1958...what a beast!
Errr anyone heard of an elavator...today's competitors don't know how good they have it.
Soldier field In Chicago, 1954...and yes we probably agree with the accompanying statement.
Oh yeah we forgot to add that the slope was covered with tons of crushed ice rather than snow...and that if a gust of wind came along at the wrong time you'd probably end up in the crowd.
To put things into perspective, the tallest structure in this years big-air events was Barcelona at 115 ft...this bad boy from 1963 in Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles) is a whopping 167ft!
London Freeze is certainly no looker compared to the 1953 Empire Stadium Jump in Vancouver...
photo courtesy of Vancouver Public Library.
And here’s a video from a similar event at Hampstead Heath that one of you alerted our attention too.
Tags: air, big, history, jump, old, ramp, school, ski, ski jump, skiing, stadium
