Bolgenschanze

On 28 February 1909 there were about 1200 spectators attended the antemeridian official inauguration competition on the first ski jumping hill of Ski Club Davos. Winners were the guest jumpers from Norway with Harald Smith (best jump 45 m) in advance of his brother Trygve Smith who fell at 48 metres and of Trygve Myklegaard. In the afternoon the distances were shorter due to a weather change. Individual ski jumps then were shorter than 40 meters and double jumps came up to 36 meters. On 2 March 1913 Thorleif Knudseen jumped 48 metres (157 ft) which was considered world record by Europeans, although Omvedt set world record at 51.5 meters a few weeks earlier.

When the Academic World Winter Games were hosted at Davos in 1929, a renewing of the ski jumping hill was obtrusive. Then the ski jumping hill architects Grünenfelder and Straumann planned a new-construction, which relived a magic moment of ski jumping on 24 February 1931. In an international competition Swiss Fritz Kaufmann won in front of Norway’s Sigmund Ruud and Jakob Kjelland with distances between 60 and 66 meters. Afterwards the athletes went chasing the world record in non-competitive rounds with Sigmund Ruud landing at 80.5 metres (269 ft).[1] So he snatched the former world record of 76 m from his younger brother Birger.

With its modern profile the Bolgenschanze attended a lot of worldwide attention in those days and was assessed very much by the international jumper’s elite, consequently Davos was the jumping stronghold of Switzerland.

In late 1950s several attempts to establish a ski jump tournament with St. Moritz and Arosa failed unfortunately. When the ski club could not realize the necessary reconstruction of the ski jump due to financial reasons and the cure organisation didn’t no longer financially support operation and maintenance, too, the end of the most traditional ski jumping hill of Middle Europe had come. Today the slope is still used for alpine skiing.

Date	Name	Country	Metres	Feet
28 February 1909	Harald Smith	Norway	45	148
28 February 1909	Trygve Smith	Norway	48	157
2 March 1913	Thorleif Knudsen	Norway	48	157
24 February 1931	Sigmund Ruud	Norway	80.5	264
March 1932	Sigmund Ruud	Norway	82	269

     Not recognized! Crash at world record distance.
     Not recognized! Only by Europeans. Stood at WR, set weeks after Omvedt's 51.5 m WR in US.
     Not recognized! He stood and tied Lymburne's WR distance, but hors concours, outside of competition.[2]

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