2005 Australia

Bergy Jumps to 4th in the World

By Eric Bergoust - Olympic Gold Medalist - US Freestyle Ski Team Aerialist
September 2005

After ten years of visiting Mt. Buller Ski Resort in Australia, I flew over for my final visit a couple days before my birthday. One year I got on the plane the day before my birthday and got off the day after. I should have aged a year but I was in a time warp and it never happened. I was actually 364 days younger when I landed in Melbourne. It was very refreshing. One time on the way back, I arrived before I left and noticed that my hair had gotten shorter.

Thanks to the Australian team, my trip began early and I enjoyed four days of blissful jumping under blue skies and two days off before most other teams took their first jump. About the time other jumpers began to arrive it started raining and didn’t stop for about 24-hrs. In the middle of one stormy night, a piece of a roof from another building flew through Swiss-guy Martin Valti’s window. He was feeling a bit under the weather to begin with and, after the sound of shattering glass woke him to a winged alien robot invasion, he was pretty much cooked for the weekend.

Another night, the rain turned to snow and we awoke to almost 5” of fresh Buller pow :-) I was well rested and the conditions were great. It was time to do my first triples on snow since January 28 when I had the worst crash of my career. I did two or three doubles to warm up. Pack, Ryan and Speedy had already hit the triple a few times when I headed up. I wasn’t exactly exuding confidence and hit my chin on my knee when I landed leaving a patch of skin on my trousers and chipping a corner off a molar. The ski patrol said I’d need stitches and as the jump hill disappeared from the view of our speeding snowmobile I thought “Now I only have one day of training left before the comp.”

I got four stitches on the mountain, made an appointment with a dentist an hour away and got on a bus. After some stabbing, grinding, suctioning, pasting and polishing, I hitchhiked most of the way back to the mountain and scored a free ride on the staff bus. It all went so smoothly that I was in a great mood when I got back to my room before 6pm.

Now it was Friday and my jaw was very sore but none of my injuries, including the broken thumb from a couple weeks ago, would affect my jumping. I did triples with confidence but not enough of them to feel ready for the competition on Saturday and I finished 15^th. Teammates Jeret Peterson and Joe Pack finished 1^st and 3^rd meeting the Olympic selection criteria in the first competition that counted. Now teammate Ryan St. Onge and I knew that, from the three or four Olympic spots up for grabs, there were probably only one or two left.

In training for the second competition on Sunday, triples were starting to feel easy. I landed my first comp jump of F-2F-F with a form break and scored 123.45 out of 132.’ish. I asked my coach, Matt Christiansen, what he thought of uping the DD (degree of difficulty) for my second jump. He suggested I stick to the original plan and do a relatively simple F-F-F. I was confident that I could easily land this jump so I told Matt over the radio “OK Full-Full-Full and I’m gonna pimp this one out for ya.” And I did. Out of 7.0 and 3.0, the seven judges gave me: 6.9, 6.9, 6.9, 7.0, 6.9 // 2.9 & 3.0.

The two-jump-total was good enough to finish 2^nd behind Ryan St. Onge. I’m now ranked fourth in the world and Ryan and I have also met the Olympic team selection criteria. (The Olympic team won't be named until January) I’m 100% healthy and looking forward to representing our country in my fourth Olympics. I’ll be working hard over the next four months and using my experience to peak in February when the 20^th Olympic Winter Games come to Torino, Italy.