Walter Hofer: Legendary FIS Ski Jumping Leader

TRANSCRIPT (NOTE time references are not accurate)

Ep 1 - Walter Hofer

Peter Graves: [00:00:09] Thank you very much, Tom Kelly, and welcome everybody to USA Nordic Ticket to Fly. We'll be talking to newsmakers in the sport of ski jumping and Nordic combined every month. And we're very, very happy to have all of you listeners with us. A very exciting show today. We are going to have Walter Hofer who for almost 30 years, was the FIS ski jump race director. He has done a wonderful job and at recently retired after a great tenure. First of all, Walter, let me welcome you to the show, and it's a joy to have you with us.

Walter Hofer: [00:00:59] Thank you very much for that invitation. Thank you.

Peter Graves: [00:01:01] Well, you are so welcome. So let me start at the beginning by asking you, how did you get into ski jumping? I don't believe you were a jumper. But is that right?

Walter Hofer: [00:01:17] No, but I was always involved in any kind of sport. Mostly in football (soccer) myself. But then I started to do a second educational system. I started to study physical education. And at the age of 25 when I was searching for a job to do work in between my study. And I was asked by the Austrian Ski Federation. They were looking for a physio. And they were looking for a kind of service men. And they took me. I saw this offer in a newspaper and I made a telephone call. And they took me just right away. And that was the first day of a full time job. For the next thirty eight years. So who was my stepping in as standing on the sideline watching ski jumping? I was always interested in ski jumping on TV. But I have never seen it onsite yet.

Peter Graves: [00:02:19] Very interesting. So you grew up in Austria, where did you grow up?

Walter Hofer: [00:02:25] In the southern part of Austria as ski jumping fans know it's nearby, Planica in Slovenia and nearby Villach, which is a small town nearby. My village is on the lake, Millstätter See, and the village is known. Seeboden.

Peter Graves: [00:02:48] Ok. OK. Well, Austria, of course, such a big hub of ski jumping activity. So you played such a decisive and important role in charting the course for ski jumping. And let me ask you to begin with what your you retired had plenty to. That was the final day for you. So it's near your home. And you must have been reflective of what you had achieved in the different things you did. Tell me a little bit about maybe your thoughts going in your mind that day and in the subsequent months about what you did for the sport of jumping.

Walter Hofer: [00:03:42] First of all, it brings me back to my first engagement in ski jumping when I was servicemen and the second coach for the Austrian Ski Federation, then I was asked by the Germans Ski Federation for another four year to be the second coach for the Rudi Tusch who was the head coach at that moment. So all in all, ten years I was standing on the sideline and I was watching ski jumping and whatever it takes, I saw that there is a certain value in this sport. It also very small, tiny side event - it was not very much taken by the popularity, by the spectators. And what I saw there is something in this sport which has to be shown, has to be wrapped up in another way because ski jumping was already. very interesting to see. But at that time, the TV coverage and access for the spectators onsite was very limited.

Peter Graves: [00:04:49] And you know, it's interesting to me, having spent time in the World Cup circuit and Olympic Games with with jumping and and I think this is during your tenure, the ratings. And this is particularly in Europe. But the ratings for ski jumping are simply off the charts. They are amongst the highest rated shows ever. And so maybe a two part question. What draws people in to watch it on television? And secondly, you must be very proud to have been part of that, a tremendous resurgence of what is a very old sport.

Walter Hofer: [00:05:32] I start to answer the second question. I never took it as my work. I had obviously feeling that I was just coordinating a group of people, mostly the members of the Jumping Committee of FIS. I had great support from the FIS. Yes, from from the president Gian Franco Kasper. And they let us work and do what we wanted to do. So it was teamwork starting from the athletes, the coaches, the officials. And finally, I was just kind of coordinating system and it was small enough - the discipline. So to do it n one table, this was very good in the very beginning because it started very, very deep with all the changes. Because when I started to to try and if I ask to join ski jumping in my race director's role, ski jumping had four different formats. Nobody actually knew what's going on in ski flying when they had three rounds and only two were counting. And compared with Olympic Games or championships, which was also different. And the World Cup also had enough at another regulation. So the first three years to just to unify, to form one and the same rule. And this is this was the basis to create one and the same format. And the format was actually the first step to the popularity. That means in the old days when I was coaching, we had starting fields of more than 100 or 120 athletes.

Walter Hofer: [00:07:19] So you can imagine in the first round then the old system, and you had to change the inrun gate after number 70 and number 71 was continuing and another 120 athletes had to jump. TV told us, do your job. We make some pictures and at the end of the day, we make it if we make a delayed summary. So it was not attractive enough to take its key jumping live. And this was the very beginning to start to cooperate with TV, because in the old days as a coach, we were always somehow hiding the athletes from the public. We didn't want to show where are the changing rooms. We didn't want to show the athletes when they are close to the starting gate. We didn't want to show them when they were exposed to their own environment. So we hide it somehow, their surroundings around ski jumping and TV, they just took the jumps, more or less wanted the same repetition. We saw three, four or five cameras. They just choose the right position, which was the easiest for them. And so ski jumping was mostly at that time just delayed or a long lasting competition. So then we started to.

Walter Hofer: [00:08:47] And then suddenly, as soon as we have found this kind of format that we use a qualification, that we use our first competition round with a certain number. And the second round was only a final round. TV started to be interested on us. And then they asked us, can we go to the athletes area? Can we go to the Warm-Up room at the start? Can we go with cameras somewhere closer to the performance of the athletes? And in the very beginning, we were very reluctant but be together as the coaches and the athletes, we were willing to move towards the TV coverage. And suddenly, when you look at ski jumping competition today for a tournament, we use more than 30 cameras to evaluate the ski jumping event. And this springs ski jumping from any angle of performance. And this is one of the successful starts. And it was one of the successful starts to have good TV coverage. And that brought us spectators onside. And that brought us some spectators on TV. And this this was one of the first steps. We still had one problem. It was the transition from the classical style to the V style. So it was a very, ve...