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| Mark Breen poised and ready on the Salisbury (CT) inrun. |
MARK BREEN
Salisbury Winter Sports Club
Rhinebeck, NY
Back in the early to mid 80’s
Lake Placid hosted annual World Cup ski jumping competitions. As a Lake Placid
club jumper I always looked forward to seeing the world’s best and skiing with
them as I had opportunity to forejump in many of these competitions. Organizers
were always looking for cost saving measures as well as activities to enhance
the local experience for the athletes. With this in mind, host families were
sought to provide meals to national teams at least one night during their stay.
Figuring the language barrier to be just a little less of a challenge, my
mother let me host the Canadian ski jumping team for dinner over the course of
three or four seasons. So for spaghetti and meatballs they came year in and
year out. Regulars at my house were Horst Bulau, a North American winner of 13
world cups, Steve Collins, Native American ski jumping phenom even before he
was a teenager, Ron Richards, one of the funniest and nicest dudes I ever met,
and the Rautio brothers, Veli and Ron, who had the best flowing blond locks in
all of ski jumping. Always a good time when these guys were over but one
peculiarity which came to be tradition at these meetings took place after
dinner. On the first hosting we all sat in the living room with the TV on and
happened across some bugs bunny cartoons. The Rautios insisted on watching and
what happened was that all of us spent an enjoyable evening laughing our asses
off at the cartoons. Thereafter at each dinner, we would search for cartoons in
order to keep the tradition alive.
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| Some of the memorable Canadians who stayed with Mark Breen in Lake Placid in the '80's. |
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| Before there was the V style there was Steve Collins (CAN) and the delta wing (tips together, tails apart) that many thought was the key to Steve's success. On top of this, Steve always skied without goggles and won his first world cup in 1980 when he was just 15 with a record setting jump in Lahti, FIN. To see his winning jump CLICK HERE.. |
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