Tournament of Champions

We've been doing so many things at the Museum lately that it was hard to decide what to blog about. I'll go back to last week's Brown Bag History topic: Tournament of Champions. This was the name given by the Revelstoke Ski Club to the international ski-jumping tournaments that they held on Mount Revelstoke from 1950 to 1974. Ski-jumping had been an important winter sport in Revelstoke since 1915, with several Canadian and World Records established on the local jump. In 1948 the hill was rebuilt to meet FIS (International Ski Federation) specifications. The hill was classified as an 80 meter jump which was the largest that the FIS recognized for world competition at the time.

In 1949, plans were underway for the Tournament of Champions, and excitement grew when it was confirmed that several jumpers from the Norwegian Jumping Team would compete at the Revelstoke Tournament. The date was set for January 29th, 1950, just a few days before the team was scheduled to compete at Lake Placid, New York. The local club was hard at work, and had about 40 volunteers lined up for the various jobs involved in hosting the event. One week before the event was scheduled to take place, the local organizers got word that the Norwegian team would not be able to come for January 29th. They suggested an alternate date of February 11th and 12th. The Revelstoke Ski Club moved ahead with the new plan and quickly got everything in place for the big event. The event was a huge success, and the Norwegians were certainly popular in town. On the first evening, a dance was scheduled for 9:30, and the Norwegian team showed up right on time, only to discover that no-one in Revelstoke would ever show up for a dance that early. They amused themselves playing the orchestra's instruments, until the rest of the population showed up. One of the jumpers, Arnfinn Bergmann, married a Revelstoke woman, and came back to Revelstoke in 1951 where he helped to train the younger jumpers. Bergmann was acclaimed as a jumper with flawless style, who could make jumps of up to 266 feet.

In 1951, the Canadian Olympic Trials were held in Revelstoke, along with an International meet called the Diamond Jubilee Ski Jumping Tournament, celebrating 60 years of skiing in Revelstoke. For 1952, the name reverted back to Tournament of Champions. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was still a lot of enthusiasm for ski-jumping, and competitors were coming from Norway, Sweden, Japan, Italy and Germany. In 1959, a young Japanese jumper, Yasuhi Sugiyama was a hit at the concert held as part of the event, when he sang, "Love Me Tender" in perfect English.

By 1974, ski-jumping was waning in popularity, and the local club was finding that they were putting more effort into grooming the hill than into developing new skiiers. The last large tournament held in Revelstoke was the Western Canadian Ski Jumping Tournament held in February of 1974.