The 2103 IMC on the shiny new Chaykovsky jumping facility (below) offered competition on four hills: K-95, 65 & 40 meters, and a 20 meter for the "Golden Oldies", plus cross country races for Nordic Combined competition, and two team events.
Five brand new hills in Chaykovsky, K-95, 125, 65, 20 & 40, ready for the Old Boys.
Participants at IMC 2013 report that the new hills are beautiful and were in excellent condition throughout the IMC. One skier suggested that the word "perfect" may not be strong enough. Another said that the hills were probably the best in the history of the IMC. And the facility provides good waxing rooms and changing room. The weather can be summed up in one word: "COLD." The temperature was -28 C (-18 F) at the beginning of the first competition! The shedule provided for open training on Sunday, March 3, and then on Monday and Tuesday, open training but with the nations divided into two groups assigned to separate sessions to reduce the waiting time at the tops of the jumps. Among the items that each skier received was a beautiful number bib, personalized with his name and nation. Long time favorite at IMC, Arne Jens Jorgensen (right) wore his new bib during big hill training. On Tuesday evening, participants gathered in the Chaikovsky town square (below) for the opening ceremonies.
When we think of the central square in a European town, we think of a public space hemmed in by ancient buildings, but not so in this town. Here the town square has an open feel and the buildings all look fresh and recently built. The town of Chaikovsky was established in 1955 and was named after the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who was born in the nearby town of Votkinsk. If you look carefully in the picture above-left, you can spy a statue of the composer in place of honor (closeup above-right).
At the opening ceremony, teams lined up behind placards bearing their national flags, and were entertained by singing and dancing, and more dancing and more dancing.
A cross country skier (below, right) came skating into view carrying a flaming torch -- we are told that this was lit from the Olympic flame bound for Sochi for the 2014 Olympics. A flaming cauldron was lit that burned throughout the IMC (below, left).
Somehow in the process, not one but two fires flared up on the two front corners of the stage. We don't know if that was staged or if it was really an accident. At right we see an official trying to stamp out the flames before it damaged the equipment.
Competition began the next morning, Wednesday, March 6, with the premier IMC event, the K-65 meter jumping. The skiers were greeted by a temperature of -28 C but the show went on.
Organizers divided the 123 skiers into two groups with the younger skiers (those under 50) competing first on that frigid morning. The sun had warmed things up a bit by the afternoon when the older skiers (50 and up) had their turn to jump. Here are two class winners on the K-65 who each won a second gold medal on another hill.
The Thursday afternoon 40 meter competition for the younger skiers was postponed until Friday, but the cross country for the older age groups ran as scheduled.
Friday was a very long and busy day, but the good weather returned. The schedule was changed to make time for the added 40 meter competition. The day started with 29 skiers lining up at 9 am for the 20 meter jumping. This competition was just for the oldest skiers with four age groups for jumpers 60 and up, plus a single class for those under 60. Here are two Old Boys on the K-20 who are long-time IMC competitors with contrasting styles of jumping -- one in classic form, the other getting his 'V' on.
At noon, 39 competitors under age 50 took to the 40 meter hill for their competition postponed from Thursday. Finally, at 8 pm 66 jumpers competed under the lights on the big hill, K-95. Here are two jumpers on the big hill -- each of them took home two golds and a silver.
The Russians spared no expense when they built this facility. We see that the start area on the big hill, and the other hills too for that matter, enjoys every modern luxury. They have a zillion starts, and the flat areas where skiers put on their skis are long enough for the largest jumping skis and still leave room for other jumpers to walk past. LOOK MA, NO SNOW!! The two large hills, according to skisprungschanzen.com, are equipped with all-season refrigerated track made by Ski-line. These provide an ice track in summer and winter without snow. At right, we see jumper Ari Noponen of Finland just settling into the track -- he knows that it will be straight and smooth and fast. Saturday was the day for team competitions with the team jumping on the K-65 at 10 am, followed by a Nordic Combined team relay at 1 pm. In both events, the teams have four members aged 30+, 40+, 50+ and 60+. These competitions are usually usually shootouts between Norway and Finland for bragging rights, but this year it was different. In the jump, Finland placed fourth following NOR-I, RUS-I & NOR-II.
The tables were turned in the Nordic Combined with Russia taking the first two spots, then Finland -- Team Norway had to settle for fifth place.
In the NC Relay, Russia took first and second and Finland finished third. IMC participants were welcomed with songs sung by a group of women in traditional costumes and a man playing accordion, and by a line of girls in costume.
Inside the banquet hall, a feast awaited, with drinks for all.
After the eating and drinking, after the speeches and gifts, after the singing and dancing, the participants at IMC 2013 in Chaikovsky began the many warm goodbyes as they parted from their friends for another year.
We have been pleased in the past when every nation at the IMC took home at least one medal, but this year three of the eight teams went home empty-handed. The 178 athletes posted 388 individual results, compared to the record of 408 results by 191 skiers at Taivalkoski in 2008.
IMC rules restrict a skier to two jumping events plus Nordic Combined, so an athlete can take home at most three individual medals. In 2013, eight athletes did win three medals, led by Stanislav Dubrovskiy (RUS), Seppo Kinnunen (FIN) and Arnold Lund (NOR) who each won two golds and a silver. You can find the five others in the medalist list below.
Four IMC athletes in age groups V and up (50+) chose to compete in the two larger hill competitions plus Nordic Combined, but an IMC rule required Nordic Combined competitors 50 years old and older to earn their NC jumping points on the 40 meter hill. This required the four to compete on three jumping hills. Of the four, only one skied in both team events -- that athlete was Aatto Lamminpää (right) who was chosen for both of Finland's A-teams, making him the Ironman of the 2013 IMC, competing in six events. Meetings of the IMC Committee produced a new Board to lead the movement for the next two years. The Board consists of Manuela Steinki & Klaus Günther of Germany and Stein Arne Hoel of Norway but the roles and titles of these three were not designated. The meetings did not name a host for IMC 2014. Thank you to Erkki Ahtiainen and Manuela Steinki for their written reports on IMC 2013 -- these provided much of the story recorded above. And thank you even more to Manuela for providing thousands of pictures. We mined her photo galleries for almost all of the pictures shown here.
Chaykovsky organizers produced results in .pdf files, one for each age group on each hill, plus Nordic Combined, 57 files in all.
Results for the Nordic Combined jumping in class 50-54 are not available so we have linked to the full jumping results instead. Nine of the 14 skiers shown there competed in the Nordic Combined cross country race. Here are links to the results.
[ K-20 ]
[ K-40 ]
[ K-65 ]
[ K-95 ]
[ N.C. ]
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K-20 meter K-40 meter K-65 meter K-95 meter Nordic Combined Cl. 10 1 Anatoliy Chistyakov RUS Kurt Brausse GER Martti Lamminpää FIN . . . . . . . . . . . Teuvo Koljonen FIN 75-79 2 Kurt Brausse GER Martti Lamminpää FIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anatoliy Chistyakov RUS Teuvo Koljonen FIN Teuvo Koljonen FIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martti Lamminpää FIN Cl. 9 1 Arnold Lund NOR Arnold Lund NOR Knut Gustav Wester NOR . . . . . . . . . . . Igor Sedinkin RUS 70-74 2 Igor Sedinkin RUS Knut Gustav Wester NOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arnold Lund NOR 3 Vladimir Chertovikov RUS Igor Sedinkin RUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Knut Gustav Wester NOR Cl. 8 1 Gennadiy Pukhachev RUS Rolf Markussen NOR Rolf Markussen NOR Aatto Lamminpää FIN Valerii Chuikin RUS 65-69 2 Makhmut Khusainov RUS Matti Kaseva FIN Aatto Lamminpää FIN Antti Kokkonen FIN Makhmut Khusainov RUS 3 Boris Shvetsov RUS Boris Shvetsov RUS Jan Willy Oskal NOR . . . . . . . . . . . Jan Willy Oskal NOR Cl. 7 1 Anatoliy Zamorin RUS Aleksandr Travin RUS Vladimir Frolov RUS Vladimir Frolov RUS Grigoriy Isaev RUS 60-64 2 Olavi Leinonen FIN Olavi Leinonen FIN Torbjorn Haugen NOR Torbjorn Haugen NOR Jan Skevik NOR 3 Risto Koivisto FIN Viktor Kolpakov** RUS Aleksandr Travin RUS Dennis Kavli NOR Viktor Kolpakov RUS Cl. 6 1 Markus Zürcher SWI Alf Tore Haug NOR Olav Hage NOR Olav Hage NOR Vladimir Kondratiev RUS 55-59 2 Aleksey Mironov RUS Viacheslav SkorokhodovRUS Stein Arne Hoel NOR Arne Jens Jorgensen NOR Ivar Sturla Skaarset NOR 3 Jani Antero Vaili FIN Rashid Rakhmatullin RUS Mikhail Pirozhkov RUS Mikhail Pirozhkov RUS Alf Tore Haug NOR Cl. 5 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . Aleksandr Barkov RUS Knut Bjerke NOR Knut Bjerke NOR Yury Mikhaylov RUS 50-54 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . Jurgen Stielow GER Vasiliy Groznov RUS Per Ole Vik NOR Leonid Vologzhanin RUS 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . Rastem Khusnutdinov RUS Frode Hermo NOR Frode Hermo NOR Rastem Khusnutdinov RUS Cl. 4 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . Fidel Terentiev RUS Seppo Kinnunen FIN Oyvind Villesvik NOR Seppo Kinnunen FIN 45-49 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . Axel Dorn GER Oyvind Villesvik NOR Seppo Kinnunen FIN Oyvind Villesvik NOR 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . Erkki Ahtiainen FIN Flarid Gabitov RUS Nikolay Chirkov RUS Fidel Terentiev RUS Cl. 3 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrey Sergeev RUS Bruno Reuteler SWI Bruno Reuteler SWI Aleksandr Motovilov RUS 40-44 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . Dmitriy Makarov RUS Pavel Kuzmin RUS Dmitriy Sherlynin RUS Andrey Sergeev RUS 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . Valeriy Minin RUS Anders Bechmann NOR Pavel Kuzmin RUS Valeriy Penkov RUS Cl. 2 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . Fredrik Berger NOR Juha Nykänen FIN Stanislav Dubrovskiy RUS Stanislav Dubrovskiy RUS 35-39 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . Petr Virolainen FIN Stanislav Dubrovskiy RUS Juha Nykänen FIN Vladimir Tigliaev RUS 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . Ilnar Safin RUS Vladimir Galochkin RUS Vladimir Galochkin RUS Petr Virolainen FIN Cl. 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . Evgeniy Bolshakov RUS Juha Miettenen FIN Juha Miettenen FIN Timo Tapani Maukonen FIN 30-34 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . Jani Antero Vaili FIN Torgier Anzjoen NOR Torgier Anzjoen NOR Igor Predein RUS 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ari Noponen FIN Joakim Helland NOR Salavat Fatikhov RUS Guests 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aleksandr Sintcon RUS Aleksandr Sintcon RUS . . . . . . . . . . . 25-29 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Timofey Predien RUS Timofey Predien RUS . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grigoriy Stoyanov RUS Aleksandr Novikov RUS . . . . . . . . . . . (** Dennis Kavli, shown third in K-40, 60-64, competed for NC points only and was not eligible for a medal.) |
the end of the banquet, to announce the host for IMC-XXV.
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