Caleb Zuckerman
Ford Sayre Ski Club / Men’s U.S. Nordic Combined Development Team
calebzuckerman@gmail.com
Sitting at the top of the jump in Oberstdorf, the German countryside sprawled before me with a breathtaking green valley with sheer cliff faces rising into mountains exposed to the elements. Below me on the start gates, an Austrian Nordic combined skier tapped in the heel clips of his bindings before sliding out onto the steel bar. On top of his helmet, a simple sticker covered the space with bold black lettering reading: “Two passions, One sport”. Those four words sum up my experience with Nordic combined like no others could.
If you count tromping around the yard in miniature plastic skis that strap to snow boots, I have been Nordic skiing since I began to walk. While my parents didn’t grow up cross-country skiing, they adopted it as a pastime when they moved to New England and shared their newfound interest with me. In kindergarten, I joined the Ford Sayre ski club and spent every Tuesday after school learning to Nordic ski.
When I was in first grade, Mike Holland, the coach of the Ford Sayre ski jumping team, came into P.E. class to spread the word about the little-known sport. He showed a nearly two-foot-high crystal globe he won in the World Cup, told us about the time he set a world record, and taught the basics of the jump. He brought a contraption he’d made with a rolling board attached to two rails, aptly named a roller jump. After Mike helped me into position at the top of the ramp, I got to feel my first experience with ski jumping. He released me and I accelerated towards the bottom before jumping at the last minute and landing softly on a mattress. That night when I arrived home, to my mom’s horror, I proclaimed I would be a ski jumper. Thus began my commitment as I worked my way up, progressing through the sport to bigger and bigger jumps.
Throughout elementary school, my afternoons in the winter were filled with skiing. Mondays and Wednesdays were for jumping and Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays were cross-country. Splitting my time, I learned the intricacies of each one separately but fostered a general love for skiing and the sport I would learn to be Nordic Combined.
As I was growing up, competition came more into play. I had an event nearly every weekend during the season. Traveling for cross-country ski races as far away as the Craftsbury Outdoors Center to jumping in Lake Placid, I again fell in love with each discipline. Racing in the Bogburn Classic and Silver Fox Trot, I found out how to dig to new depths of pain to push my limits to achieve more. Jumping in competitions like the SWSA Jumpfest or the Empire State Games, I learned how to conquer my fears and relax into a moment, bringing a sense of focus and attention to my work.
In high school, many athletes pick one sport to specialize in, devoting their time to the one sport to improve. Fortunately, because of the nature of Nordic combined, I didn’t have to pick one of my passions but could continue them both as one sport. To me, even though cross-country skiing and ski jumping are so different, they build on each other. Nordic race weekends feel incomplete without ski jumping and jumping competitions feel unfinished without a race. Like the early competitors in Norway believed, the two events combine to create one beautiful and captivating sport.
