In my youth I wrestled between alpine or cross-country ski racer.  One certainty was that I was not going to be a nordic ski jumper.  For alpine race training we would use the outrun (the landing area) of a 50-meter jump as an area to practice our downhill aerodynamic technique.  The experience of pointing the skis straight for a four second ride straight down the steep pitch was heart pounding enough that I could not imagine adding the in-run and then springing into the air to soar over the contour of the outrun.  A few years later I had the opportunity to visit the top of the Olympic 90-meter jump tower in Lake Placid, NY.

I recall standing on the platform and being quite convinced that no sane person would willingly place their skis in-line and swoop off to defy gravity for a hundred meters of flight.  Talking with a couple thirteen year olds who were preparing to jump from the “smaller” 70-meter facility we learned that they had made the first attempts on the big hill around the age of eleven.  The enthusiasm of youth defeated any self-preservation circuit breakers.  Their normal was based on experiences that had expanded their perception of reasonable activity far beyond mine when it came to the concept of flight and skiing.