#bc youse are all so keen to share your entire life stories :

[vierschanzentournee]

Ski Jumping Survey 2020/21 - The Results

So, 2020/21 was… a season. It’s certainly had its ups and downs, but I’m grateful that we were able to have the majority of a season, including the world championships, despite whatever the hell has been going on the in the wider world!

Luckily, there’s no reason that coronavirus should have an impact on my third end-of-season survey — in fact, I got an absolutely awesome 103 responses this year! For reference, last year I got 68, and the year before that I got 66. I don’t know whether my survey just reached more people this year, or whether the ski jumping family on Tumblr has grown, but either way I’m super happy.

The results for overall favourite jumpers were scored the same way as usual: a vote for favourite was worth 3 points, a vote for second favourite was worth 2, and a vote for third favourite was worth 1. The jumpers were ranked based on their total number of points, which meant that the most popular World Cup ski jumpers this year were…

Maren Lundby & Daniel-André Tande

I always knew this season would be an interesting one for my survey (...and yes, I do start thinking about it quite a bit in advance), because the male winner of the previous two years, Stephan Leyhe, wouldn’t be an option due to his injury. Daniel, however, wasn’t a completely unexpected winner — he came second to Stephan last year. I do wonder whether Daniel got an extra little boost because of his terrible fall in Planica at the end of the season, which meant he was very much at the forefront of everyone’s minds, but I’ve got no way to confirm or deny that! The full results for the men are below - if two jumpers had the same number of points, ranking was based on who had the highest number of votes for favourite (if that was identical, it then went down to who had the highest number of votes for second favourite). If two jumpers share a ranking, it means they had the exact same distribution of votes.

1. Tande (78 points)

2. Stoch (57)

3. Geiger (57)

4. Granerud (51)

5. Eisenbichler (38)

6. Boyd-Clowes (31)

7. Schlierenzauer (30)

8. P Prevc (27)

9. Lindvik (26)

10. Wellinger (22)

11. R Kobayashi (18)

12. Stekala (16)

13. D Prevc (15)

14. Y Sato (15)

15. Lanisek (12)

16. Pavlovcic (12)

17. Freund (10)

18. Freitag (8)

19. Hayboeck (8)

20. Wolny (7)

21. Aalto (7)

22. Nakamura (6)

23. D Huber (6)

24. Hamann (6)

25. Kubacki & Kraft (5)

26. Schmid (5)

27. Johansson (5)

28. C Prevc & Jelar & Semenic (4)

29. Fettner (4)

30. Kot (3)

31. Klimov (3)

32. Paschke (2)

33. Forfang (2)

34. Kytosaho & Aigro & Markeng & Aschenwald (1)

Karl Geiger defends his third place from last year, while Kamil Stoch jumps a few places from 5th to second (perhaps courtesy of his third Four Hills victory this year?). Obviously, the biggest winner here is Halvor Egner Granerud, who has gone from only 2 points last year (when he struggled immensely in the World Cup and finished with only a few points) to finishing fourth with 8.28% of the vote (Tande had 12.66%, while Stoch and Geiger had 9.25% each). Others who have moved up include Eisenbichler (from 10th to 5th) and Stekala (who I believe did not compete in the World Cup last year and so wasn’t available as an option, but has clearly won a lot of hearts this season). Conversely, there are also a few who seem to have lost out — Marius Lindvik fell from 4th place to 9th, while Andreas Wellinger, who wasn’t an option last year due to his injury but dominated the non-World Cup vote, could only manage 10th in comparison to his second place in 2019.

The women saw another season of dominance from Maren Lundby in this survey, although not so much on the hill. The full results for the women are:

1. Lundby (103 points)

2. Takanashi (85)

3. Kramer (62)

4. Althaus (57)

5. Kriznar (52)

6. Opseth (50)

7. Freitag (19)

8. Klinec & Pinkelnig (15)

9. Vogt (13)

10. Hoelzl (13)

11. Rogelj (12)

12. Iraschko-Stolz (11)

13. Voros (11)

14. Rupprecht (9)

15. Karpiel (8)

16. Bjoerseth (7)

17. Pagnier (6)

18. Twardosz (4)

19. Rajda (4)

20. Avvakumova & Stroem & Haralambie (3)

21. Maruyama (2)

22. L Malsiner & Strate (2)

23. Kvandal & Ito & Eder & Seyfarth & Iwabuchi & Brecl (1)

Although Lundby has secured the win yet again, her share of the vote is a little lower this time at 16.74%, compared to 21.27% in 2020. Sara Takanashi has overtaken Katharina Althaus for second place, but undoubtedly the highest climber is Sara Marita Kramer, who received no votes at all last year (despite ranking 9th in the overall World Cup), but this year won 10.06% of the women’s vote. Many other results were largely stable — Kriznar, Opseth, and Freitag are in the same area of the rankings as they were last year — but Ema Klinec made some gains, moving up from 15th to 8th.

The votes for favourite teams were simply added up, and the team with the most votes won. For the men, the rankings were:

1. Norway (34 votes)

2. Poland & Germany (23)

3. Slovenia (9)

4. Austria (7)

5. Japan (4)

6. Finland (1)

7. France (1)

Interestingly, the Norwegians have overtaken the Germans — possibly this has something to do with the Germans essentially losing their two most popular jumpers, Wellinger and Leyhe, while the Norwegians saw excellent results from Halvor Egner Granerud. Poland have also overtaken Slovenia, by a significant margin, which I’m not entirely sure I can explain!

For the women, the rankings were:

1. Norway (28 votes)

2. Slovenia (24)

3. Germany (19)

4. Austria (12)

5. Japan (9)

6. Poland (3)

7. Russia (2)

8. France (1)

Again, Norway have taken the lead from Germany. Slovenia have jumped from fourth to second, leapfrogging both Austria and Germany, while Japan are steadily catching up to Austria too. 2020/21 was a strong season for the Slovenian women on the whole, with Nika Kriznar winning the overall and Ema Klinec becoming a world champion, which perhaps explains why they’ve been on people’s minds more often.

The vote for favourite male athlete who didn’t compete in the World Cup this season wasn’t actually quite as much of a slaughter as I’d thought it would be — the winner was exactly who you think it is, but others mounted a strong challenge!

1. Leyhe (29 votes)

2. Fannemel (12)

3. Gangnes (9)

4. Bickner (8)

5. Morgenstern (6)

6. Kasai (5)

7. Pedersen & Peier (3)

8. Hautamaki (2)

9. Stjernen & Schmitt & Ahonen & Malysz & Raimund & S Huber & Larinto & Hannawald & Descombes Sevoie & Kranjec & Aune & Hilde (1)

There was a far greater variety of answers this year, probably thanks to the much larger sample size - so while roughly a third of respondents were still missing Stephan, plenty of people also found room in their hearts for long-time absentees like Fannemel, recent retirees like Gangnes and Kranjec, those relegated to the Continental Cup or below like Kasai and Pedersen, or those who have long since retired but whom we still miss, like Morgenstern, Schmitt, and Malysz.

The same question didn’t get a huge amount of responses for the women:

1. Hendrickson (8 votes)

2. Seifreidsberger (3)

3. N Prevc & Wuerth (2)

4. Sagen & Straub & Van & Iakovleva & M Malsiner (1)

Sarah Hendrickson, one of the first legends of women’s ski jumping who announced her retirement at the end of this season, was at the front of many respondents’ minds — others were looking towards the future with Nika Prevc, the younger sister of Peter, Cene, and Domen.

It’s a little bit difficult to compare the results for favourite tournament each year, as 2 out of the 3 years I’ve run the survey have seen the cancellation of various tournaments. The one consistent, however, has been the Four Hills Tournament, which still remains the favourite of most of the fanbase:

1. Four Hills Tournament (75 votes)

2. Planica7 (14)

3. Willingen Six (13)

I didn’t ask about favourite podiums this year, as the headache it caused me last year was not worth repeating, no matter how interesting the comparisons might be!

One of my favourite elements of this survey is the predictions. The most popular predictions for the winners of season 19/20 were correct; the predictions for 20/21, however, were much less accurate — no one at all saw Granerud coming, and only one person correctly predicted that Nika Kriznar would win the women’s World Cup. The most popular predictions to win this season were Geiger (who finished 6th, after a busy season which involved catching Covid-19, welcoming a baby daughter, and winning a variety of ski flying and world championship medals) and Lundby (who finished 8th, struggling to find her best form in early World Cup competitions but hitting a groove towards the end of the season and winning several world championship medals). Inspired by this rather topsy-turvy season, we’ve got a wide variety of predictions for next year:

1. Geiger (29 votes)

2. R Kobayashi (17)

3. Eisenbichler (12)

4. Lanisek (8)

5. Pavlovcic (5)

6. Lindvik (5)

7. Stoch & Granerud & D Huber (4)

8. D Prevc (3)

9. Boyd-Clowes (2)

10. Y Sato & Zajc & Fannemel & P Prevc & Schlierenzauer & Kubacki (1)

Interestingly, not many people seem to think Granerud can do it twice in a row — this certainly fits the pattern we’ve seen over the past few decades, with the last male jumper to win two consecutive titles being Janne Ahonen in 2003/04 and 2004/05. Despite his failure to deliver on the overall title this year, Karl Geiger has again received a vote of confidence, while his teammate Eisenbichler is being seriously considered for the title for the first time. There’s also a lot of support here for jumpers who haven’t even had a World Cup victory: Lanisek, Pavlovcik, Huber, and Boyd-Clowes have never won a competition. There are a few other long shots here too, considering that Fannemel has been out for three consecutive seasons (and isn’t even confirmed to be jumping next season), and Schlierenzauer finished 65th in the World Cup this season (although it’s of course worth noting that Granerud was 61st last season, and we all know that Gregor knows how to win!)

There’s far less variety to be found among the women:

1. Kramer (49 votes)

2. Takanashi (13)

3. Lundby (11)

4. Opseth (6)

5. Kriznar (3)

6. Klinec (2)

Again, not many people think Kriznar can do it twice in a row — instead, all eyes are on Sara Marita Kramer, who came within touching distance of the crystal globe this year but was stymied by various cancelled competitions. This is the first year that Lundby hasn’t been the fandom’s top prediction, and it seems that when it rains for her, it pours, because she’s not even the second choice. That title goes to Sara Takanashi, who hasn’t won an overall title since 2016/17 but who finished second to Kriznar this season.

Sadly, only one of the jumpers tipped for a first victory last year actually managed to achieve one this season — Nika Kriznar. Many of the other favourite picks, such as Constantin Schmid, Philipp Aschenwald, and Ziga Jelar instead suffered something of a downturn in form, while others like Anze Lanisek and Silje Opseth have performed well, but not quite well enough for a win. This year’s votes are:

1. Lanisek (21 votes)

2. Stekala (20)

3. Pavlovcic (17)

4. Opseth (9)

5. Boyd-Clowes (6)

6. Schmid (3)

7. Bjoerseth (2)

8. Jelar & Nakamura & C Prevc & Pedersen (1)

Towards the end of the season, Pavlovcic in particular seemed to be knocking on the door of victory; Lanisek was a consistent top 10 finisher; and Stekala achieved his very first podium. It’ll be interesting to see where these jumpers go next year, and I hope that it’s not quite as much of a curse as it was last year!

As ever, the final part of the survey was focused on demographics — who are the ski jumping family?

According to this year’s survey, the average ski jumping fan on Tumblr is 21.6 years old, a German-speaker who is from and lives in Germany, and has been watching ski jumping for slightly over 7 years!

I put together charts showing the data collected about respondents’ country of origin, country of residence, age, languages, and time watching ski jumping:

So, all there’s left to do now is thank everyone who took the survey for their invaluable contributions to “science” — thank you to @telemarcs @queen-maren @na-woke-i-nakamura​ @damn-d4niel @louddreaming @skiijumpingg @hill-record @june-skijumping @ificouldflyhigh @flautist10 @blueplastichairbrush @vixmise @skijumping-is-my-aesthetics @startgate13 @lewanarta @oneoutof @sportschaos @sparflamme @anagraves @turquoiseheart1 @jumpingtodreams @entropuff @paringeverywhere @omi-om @blueberryfriday @rpntws @jokkeblobfish @reindeersonmytshirt @ski-jumper-stan @cryingismyonlyhobby @itsloveit @mlledevoltaire @prinshoppmarius @skiijumpinng @czarnewino @ski-schlieri @badlandings @one-more-jump @ilovenearlyeverything @iliketheusual @lipasworld @jensontodd @scandinavianbyheartt @ryoyuftw @sarcasticlilkid @moon-ascendant @eksperimentgaj @damnconfused @flegm-a @witchsdog @byeseefeld @stephanleyhes @anttiaaltostan @magioghvitetekopper @merlex93, the person who gave me an Instagram username when asked for a Tumblr username, and, last but not least, the person who replied “wouldnt you like to know weatherboy” when asked for a URL. I will never know who you are, but I love you.

#ski jumping #survey 20/21 #apologies to the people whose tag didn't work - tumblr does that and i have #no idea why or what the logic behind it is #anyway this year i figured out how to make google sheets do maths FOR ME #so i had a far less terrible time doing it this year! #it also helped that i updated the results like every 20 responses or so rather than counting them all at the end #and also not letting people type into the 'years watching' box was a big improvement #bc youse are all so keen to share your entire life stories :/ #mine: ski jumping