An approximate two-hour drive north of Yekaterinburg,
with 1.3 million inhabitants Russia's fourth largest
city, a huge sports complex was and still is built
in Nizhniy Tagil.
It's absolutely impressive what was done in this
town of 360.000 over the past four years with a
budget of about 49 million Euro. The heart of the
facility, the four hills (HS 45, HS 66, HS 106 and
HS 135) are almost completed, work is still in progress
on the surroundings.
Besides the ski jumping hills, also numerous cross
country tracks, training facilities as well as residential
and administrative buildings are part of the complex.
The facility was opened in December 2012, a men's
Continental Cup was held at the HS 106 hill already
in March 2013.
But the real premiere will take place this weekend:
FIS Grand Prix for men and ladies. The ladies with
their two competitions (Friday at 4:00 pm and Saturday
at 8:00 am) and the men with also two competitions
(Saturday at 4:00 pm and Sunday at 2:00 pm) will
draw the attention of the sports world to the new
complex.
"This facility is another milestone for ski
jumping in Russia. Here and in Tchaikovski, where
a ski jumping center was built as well, the Russian
ski jumpers now have the possibility to train at
home all year long again, what was impossible for
a very long time because there were no appropriate
training facilities in the whole country. Both locations,
Nizhniy Tagil and Tchaikovski, have a long tradition
in ski jumping and now it was finally possible to
revive this tradition", FIS race director Walter
Hofer said about the new venue in the competition
calendar.
But not only new facilities are necessary for further
developing ski jumping in Russia. "On Thursday
an FIS judges seminar, headed by chairman Ueli Forrer,
will be held in Yekaterinburg for the Russian judges,
so there is also constantly worked on the training
of the officials", the Austrian added.
