Adam Malysz comes to Finland in search of extra metres

Polish top ski-jumper relies once again on Finnish knowhow in sorting out his lost technique

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By Jarmo Färdig
     
      Adam Malysz, who has won nearly everything possible in ski jumping, is puzzled. The 31-year-old four-time World Champion from Poland underperformed so badly at the traditional Central European Four Hills Tournament, which ended on Tuesday of last week, that he discontinued the tournament after the third competition in Innsbruck.
     
“For some reason my form has just vanished. I was forced to make a radical decision”, explains Malysz, who has since been practising in Lahti, where he plans to stay until Tuesday.
      Malysz arrived in Finland in search of his lost metres at the beginning of last week. From Helsinki he travelled to Jyväskylä, where his take-off technique was tested at the university there.
      In Finland Malysz has been assisted by the veteran coaches Matti Pulli and Hannu Lepistö. The test was organised and supervised by Mikko Virmavirta, who for years has studied the biomechanics of ski-jumping at the University of Jyväskylä, and even wrote his doctoral thesis on the subject.
     
The four men sat around the same table to analyse Malysz’s test results and to view video footage of the former champion’s jumps.
      “Adam’s power production at the beginning of the take-off event is still astoundingly quick”, Lepistö says in unravelling the results of the tests.
      “The problem is that Adam should be able to increase the climbing height and speed of his centre of gravity all the way through to the point of separation from the take-off-board”, Lepistö muses.
      “The guy is in amazing, truly outstanding physical condition. The problems lie firmly in his take-off technique”, adds the veteran Pulli, who has seen and experienced just about everything in the realm of ski jumping.
     
To Malysz, Lepistö is a familiar coach already from years ago. The native of Lahti was the head coach of the Polish national ski-jumping squad in 2005-2007.
      That cooperation ended at the Sapporo World Championships last spring.
      In Japan, Malysz returned to the top of the pile and landed his career fourth World Championship title. His trophy cabinet also includes Olympic silver and bronze medals (2002) and four World Cup overall victories, including an unprecedented three-in-a-row from 2001 to 2003.
     
Malysz called Lepistö right after the opening competition of the Four Hills Tournament.
      In Oberstdorf Malysz had finished way down the field in 27th.
      In Garmish-Partenkirchen, the overall Four Hills Tournament winner from 2001-2002 fared even worse: he did not even make it to the second round.
      In Innsbruck, Malysz landed in a humdrum 15th place, after which he drew the necessary conclusions and commenced his journey to Finland.
     
After the Jyväskylä session, Malysz and Lepistö moved to Lahti.
      There the duo have been practising at the largest of the three Salpausselkä hills, the 116-metre concrete hill. Already by Friday Malysz had around 40 practice jumps behind him.
      Malysz skipped the weekend’s World Cup ski flying events at Kulm, Austria.
      Instead he hopes to reap success at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Liberec in the Czech Republic, towards the end of February.
      Lepistö, who has also acted as the head ski-jumping coach both for Finland and Italy, knows that the race against time is a merciless one.
     
”The reasons behind the downward slide are now known. Now the big question is how many repetitions are needed to correct the movement pattern. Nobody knows. Some say thousands”, Lepistö wonders aloud.
      All the same, he remains optimistic.
     
”We really do not have time for thousands of repetitions. Still, it is possible that we may pull it off. After all, we are talking about a top dog, such as Malysz undoubtedly is.”
      Malysz’s main sponsor, energy drink giant Red Bull, has already offered Lepistö a chance to travel to the Zakopane, Vancouver, and Japan World Cup events with Malysz. The 62-year-old coach is in two minds.
      “I had already grown quite accustomed to being idle and leading a quiet life. But of course this kind of challenge at the very top is an attractive one”, Lepistö comments.
      Lepistö also has a contract with Eurosport to act as an expert commentator for the channel on the ski jumping World Cup television broadcasts.
      The regular commentator is his son, Kalle Lepistö.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 10.1.2009


Links:
  FIS Ski biography – Adam Malysz
  Adam Malysz (Wikipedia)
  Four Hills Tournament (Wikipedia)

JARMO FÄRDIG / Helsingin Sanomat
jarmo.fardig@hs.fi