March 21, 2007 – Ski jumper Lindsey Van (Park City, UT) caught fire with the start of the new year and tore through the second half of the women’s Continental Cup jumping schedule, finishing third overall. In the last nine events, Van won three and had four other top-3 results.

“I was trying [before her hot streak],” she said with a grin after returning home from Japan where she finished the season winning the final competition in Sapporo and producing two other second-place finishes. It’s the third straight season in which the 22-year-old, a junior excercise sports science major at the University of Utah, has been No. 2 or No. 3 in the final standings.

Her performance helped lift a team that was without its other star, Jessica Jerome (Park City, UT), who was out with a knee injury following a training crash in December. A year ago, Van was second overall and Jerome third in the points. This winter, the U.S. women had five in the top 15 and all seven of its regular jumpers in the top 25.

Van sparkles at season’s end
“The end of the season is usually good for me. I don’t know why but that’s what usually happens. I get really motivated, for some reason, at the end of each season,” Van said. “I don’t know – maybe it was just the hills in Japan [at Zao and Sapporo]. Maybe they suited me better.”

She also made a slight modification in her technique after checking with Coach Larry Stone. “It just seemed really easy. I wasn’t thinking too much about it over there,” she said. “I made one technical change, just holding my contact on the foot – on both feet – and that made a difference in my takeoffs.

“When I jump well, it’s pretty much that simple. Sometimes it just takes a while to get there, finding the right in-run position. Things started to happen for me on our European trip in February, happening at the right time…and it kept happening,” she said.

Stone is well-versed in Van’s skills as she lived with his family for two years while attending the National Sports Academy in Lake Placid, NY.

Coach: relaxation helps boost Van’s results
“Lindsey’s such a talent. Nobody out-works her, and she’s learning to relax a bit, which is making her an even tougher competitor. She’s so focused but she knows she can get too intense, so she’s learning to take that step back and trust herself,” Stone said. “We got the point in Sapporo where she had that jump so dialed-in she skipped the trial round before the comps.

“The other girls looked at her and wondered what Lindsey knew,” he laughed. “What she knew was that she didn’t need to take another jump. That hill was hers” – and Van finished second in the next-to-last event, the won the final meet of the season.

In addition to Van finishing third, other U.S. skiers in the continental Cup standings included Alissa Johnson (also park City) ninth, Jerome 13th despite missing three months, Abby Hughes (also Park City) 15th, Brenna Ellis (also Park City) 22nd, Avery Ardovino (also Park City) 25th, Karla Keck (Oconomowoc, WI) 49th, Karin Friberg (St. Paul, MN) 52nd and Elisabeth Anderson (Eau Claire, WI) 55th.

The final competition this season comes this week with the Nature Valley U.S. Ski Jumping Championships at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, CO. The large hill meet will be Saturday and the normal hill competition Sunday. Van is the defending champion on both hills.