V for Victory

On the 10^th of December 1988, Jan Boklöv turned a former mishap into a triumph – and changed ski jumping forever. The Swede won the ski jumping competition in Lake Placid; not with parallel skis (as was customary at the time) but with skis spread wide, forming a V.

Boklöv invented this ground-breaking technique by chance. In the mid-1980s, he fluffed his jump during training and went into a spin. The skis began were torn apart. “Suddenly I was flying 20 meters further than usual”, Boklöv recalled years later. However, because the judges marked him down for his posture, it was not enough to win - until that day in 1988.

To begin with, Boklöv’s competitors still competed in the classic style. By the early 1990s, though, the V-style had prevailed. Judges adjusted their scoring, and the discipline was changed forever. Today nobody jumps with parallel skis.

“Back then, we all wondered how someone with such a bad technique could be so successful,” said Jens Weißflog, three-time Olympic champion and one of the greatest ski jumpers of all time. In the end, however, he felt that Boklöv deserved more recognition for the revolution he brought about: “It should be called Boklöv style and not V-style.’