Adrian Watt – December 29th, 2020

Adrian Watt accepting a big trophy from Guy Olson at the Chester Bowl complex in Duluth, MN in 1969.
ADRIAN WATT
Duluth Ski Club, Duluth, MN

Curator’s Note-
Setting the scene here a bit.  Adrian (who turns 73 today- happy birthday, Adrian!) was on the 1968 Olympic ski jumping team.  He sent over a bunch of wonderful photos (all shot with his Kodak Instamatic), most from a trip taken to Planica, Yugoslavia in March of 1969.  Planica had just finished their ski flying hill and this was the first competition to be held on the jump.  Adrian had skied well in Norway the previous two weekends finishing 7th in Vikersund (also ski flying) and having the longest jump of the day in final training on Holmenkollen.  The rest of the US Team went home after Oslo but somehow Adrian scored travel, room, and board to Planica and, traveling with the Norwegian team, made his way to Yugoslavia.  He was the only American skier (and without a coach!) on the newest, biggest hill in the world.  And to top it off, he was the first US ski jumper to compete in Yugoslavia (which was then considered to be behind the Iron Curtain) since 1959.  The photos share the rest of the story.
Members of the 1968 Olympic Ski Jumping Team gathered in the fall of ’68 with the always energetic Lloyd “Snowball” Severud kneeling.   (L-R) Jay Martin, Bill Bakke, Gene Kotlarek, Adrian Watt, and Dave Norby.
March 1969- the odyssey begins.  Traveling with the Norwegians and changing planes in Prague between Oslo and Zagreb.  With (L-R) Bjorn Wirkola (world record holder in 1966… and before the week was out he would set the new world record in Planica at 160m), Bent Tomtum, Lars Grini (world record holder in 1967 at 150m), and Adrian from the US of A.
View from the top of Planica’s brand new ski flying hill.  March of 1969.
Adrian got this up-close-and-personal photograph of Yugoslavia’s President Tito as he made his way up the hill to his viewing box in the judges’ stand.  Following him were 4 armed bodyguards.  Tito, through an assistant, later presented Adrian with a watch as thanks for making the trip to Planica- the first American ski jumper to do so in over ten years.  Adrian still has the watch… somewhere.
The US Ski Jumping Team in late 1968 at an early-season training camp in Alta, UT.  Bill Bakke commented that it dumped snowed every day and turned into a hill sliding, shoveling, packing camp.  It appears they took the one clear day to grab this photo.

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