Events
The Holmenkollen Ski Festival is an annual Nordic skiing event which takes places at Holmenkollen. Until 1932, jumping was part of Nordic combined, and the events were completely dominated by Norwegians. In 1903, Oslo hosted its only version of the Nordic Games, dubbed the Winter Sports Week. Regarded as the precursor of the Winter Olympics, the event featured among other things ski jumping in Holmenkollbakken. The Ski Festival was first held on a Sunday in 1926. Starting in 1933, there was a pure ski jumping competition, which made it easier for foreign jumping specialists to compete for the top positions. Originally, the style scores were secret, creating public discussions about the fairness of judges in even races. This was changed in 1951, when the style scores started being announced over the PA system.
The Holmenkollen Ski Festival has been regarded as the de facto World Championships prior to the 1924 Winter Olympics. The Norwegian Ski Federation had been an opponent of establishing World Championships and Winter Olympics because they felt it would take away the prestige of the Ski Festival. Oslo was awarded the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 1930; with exception of Sweden's Erik Rylandet who finished fifth, Norway had the top ten positions.
Holmenkollen was the venue of the Nordic skiing during the 1952 Winter Olympics. Two events were held at Holmenkollbakken: ski jumping and the jumping part of Nordic combined. The exact number of people attending the ski jumping event on 24 February is not known, but it somewhere between 120,000 and 150,000, with the official report stating 143,000. The event was won by Arnfinn Bergmann ahead of Torbjørn Falkanger, both from Norway, and Karl Holmström of Sweden.
The next World Championship was held in 1966. By then both normal and large hill competitions had been introduced, and the normal hill competition would be held at Midtstubakken, as they would later also be done in 1982 and 2011. The 1966 large hill competition was won by Norway's Bjørn Wirkola, while the 1982 event was won by Matti Nykänen of Finland.
From the 1979–80 season, FIS introduced the Ski Jumping World Cup. The FIS Nordic Combined World Cup was first held in the 1983–84 season. By 1990, a conflict had arisen between the ski jumpers and the International Ski Federation. On the day of the Ski Festival, the jumpers collectively demanded NOK 150,000 in increased prize money, or threatened to not jump. It was stated that the money would be used for charity, such as resurrecting Romanian ski jumping. The demand was rejected by the organizers, who stated that they would have to disqualify the jumpers, as they would be regarded as professionals, rather than amateurs. Since 1997, the World Cup jumps in Holmenkollen have been part of the Nordic Tournament, which includes four successive jumps in four Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish ski jumps, inspired by the Four Hills Tournament.
During summer, the old hill had a lake, which made it possible to use the amphitheater for concerts, plays and entertainment. The venue was then often referred to as Sommerkollen. From 1963, a temporary, small in-run was built down the southern grandstand, which allowed skiers and divers to make a jump and land in the water. Between 1963 and 1983, a competition was held nine times. Starting in 1983 was Ta sjansen, which was televised annually by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and became Sommerkollen's most popular show. It was an informal competition with two main events: one where a home-made craft was to first slide down a short in-run and then slide along the water surface to hit a mounted bell in the shortest possible time. The other was a cycling competition where the cyclist had to complete a track on a wobbly floating wharf.
Read more about this topic: Holmenkollbakken
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“A curious thing about atrocity stories is that they mirror, instead of the events they purport to describe, the extent of the hatred of the people that tell them.
Still, you can’t listen unmoved to tales of misery and murder.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along the primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one’s way to where the country is.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)