EARLY PIONEERS
After World War I, Thulin Thams and Sigmund Ruud developed a new jumping style known as the Kongsberger Technique. This involved jumping with the upper body bent at the hips, a wide forward lean, and with arms extended at the front with the skis parallel to each other. Using this technique Sepp Bradl of Austria became the first to jump more than 100 metres when he jumped 101 metres in 1936.
FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS
In the mid-1950s, Swiss jumper Andreas Daescher became the first jumper to hold the arms backwards close to the body with a more extreme forward lean. Then in 1985, Swedish jumper Jan Bokloev started spreading the tips of his skis into a “V” shape. Initially ridiculed, this technique proved so successful that by 1992 all Olympic medallists were using this style.