Planica Nordic Centre

Planica Nordic Centre Nordijski center Planica
Location(s)	Rateče-Planica, Municipality of Kranjska Gora, Slovenia
Inaugurated	4 February 1934 (opened) 21 March 1969 (flying hill) 11 December 2015 (modern)
Founder	Joso Gorec
Area	Upper Carniola
Activity	ski jumping, cross-country skiing, ski flying, nordic combined, zip-line, museum, ski tunnel, roller skating, wind tunnel, indoor climbing, handball, soccer, volleyball, basketball
Organised by	ZŠRS Planica
People	Jelko Gros (CEO) Jure Žerjav (secretary) Ivan Rožman (constructor) Stanko Bloudek (constructor) Vlado Gorišek (constructor) Janez Gorišek (constructor) Klemen Kobal (constructor)
Member	K.O.P.

Planica Nordic Centre (Slovene: Nordijski center Planica) is a nordic skiing complex with one ski flying hill, seven ski jumping hills and cross-country skiing track in Planica, Slovenia. This is the only nordic center in the world with record eight hills that are all in one place and the only one of this kind with hills of all sizes at one place: small, medium, normal, large and flying hills.

The origins of ski flying started in 1936 in Planica, when 18-year-old Austrian Josef "Sepp" Bradl became the first man in history to land a ski jump of over 100 metres (330 ft). It is a place where the most of the ski jumping world records were set on two different hills, and also the historic first jumps over 100 meters by Sepp Bradl on Bloudkova velikanka and over 200 meters by Toni Nieminen on Letalnica bratov Gorišek. Complex consists of eight hills in function and three abandoned hills. Sigmund Ruud gave Bloudkova velikanka name "Mammoth Hill". In 2015, the complete reconstruction was finished with total new cross-country skiing track derived through the valley of Planica. Red Bull 400 event is annually held at the ski flying hill, in which the competitors run steep 400 metres distance from the bottom to the top.

Facilities

Flying hill

Letalnica bratov Gorišek
Constructor(s)	Janez Gorišek Vlado Gorišek
Size
K–point	200 m
Hill size	225 m
Longest jump (unofficial / fall)	252.0 m (827 ft)* Tilen Bartol
Official hill record	248.5 m (815 ft) Peter Prevc

Bloudkova velikanka
Constructor(s)	Ivan Rožman (original) Stanko Bloudek (developer) Klemen Kobal (new)
Size
K–point	125 m
Hill size	139 m
Longest jump (unofficial / fall)	149 m (489 ft) Anže Lanišek
Official hill record	142 m (466 ft) Peter Prevc

Normal Hill
Constructor(s)	Klemen Kobal
Size
K–point	95 m
Hill size	104 m
Longest jump (unofficial / fall)	106 m (466 ft) Dejan Judež

Planica school hills
Size
K–point	13, 28, 41, 56, 72 m
Hill size	15, 30, 45, 62, 80 m

Letalnica bratov Gorišek (English: Flying hill by brothers Gorišek) is a 1969 ski flying hill located in Planica, Slovenia. Hill is named after the original constructors and brothers Vlado (alias "Lado") and Janez Gorišek. With total of 28 world records set it is the world leading ski jump hill in this statistics. They installed the world's steepest zip-line with average incline at 38.33% (20.9°) and maximum incline at 58.7% (30.5°) which opened on 19 September 2015.

It's the biggest of totally eight hills at Planica Nordic Centre. Yugoslavian ski jumper Miro Oman was honoured to make a premiere 135 m (443 ft) long jump on 6 March 1969 at hill test. The first ever FIS Ski Flying World Championships was organized on this hill in 1972. After Matti Nykänen set world record 191 meters at SFWC 1985, new rule by FIS was accepted where no points for jumps over this distance was awarded in order to prevent world record hunting. On 17 March 1994 Andreas Goldberger touched the snow with his hand at 202 m and made first ever over two hundred meters jump, but it was invalid. Just a few minutes later Toni Nieminen landed on his feet at 203 m and officially became the first man in history who jumped over two hundred meters. This hill is a historic place where a man for the first time jumped over 200 m.

Large hill

Bloudkova velikanka (also: Rožman/Bloudkova velikanka, Old Bloudkova velikanka, Large Rožman/Bloudek Hill, Mammoth Hill) is a large ski jump hill in Planica, Slovenia opened in 1934 by Joso Gorec's initiative. Hill was originally constructed by Ivan Rožman, that's why he resent that hill was first named after Stanko Bloudek and not him and backed up. Posthumous and many years later they credited and honoured him to rename hill as Rožman/Bloudkova velikanka. A year after opening Stanko Bloudek became in charge as main constructor improving this hill 'till his death and with his vision and skills made Planica world famous and brought ski jumping/ski flying to a whole new dimension. As a constructor he is credited with thirteen world records and first jump in history over 100 metres in 1936 and that's how new discipline was born right on this hill. Hill's axis and name are under national monument protection and can not be changed. After almost a decade of hibernation hill was completely renovated with same characteristics as old one and opened in 2012. Right next to this one they built a brand new normal hill, which replaced the old demolished one. They chose this location mostly because of their bid for the Nordic World Ski Championships.

Abandoned hills

• In 1930, the first K20 hill was built in the middle of way next to the road between Bloudkova velikanka and Rateče hills. Abandoned but profile still seen today.
• In 1935, the first K60 hill was built in Rateče at entrance crossroad to Planica valley, later another hill added. Last time in function as K50 and 70 m in 1996. Abandoned but profile still well preserved today.
• In 1949, the Srednja Bloudkova K90 hill constructed by Stanko Bloudek was opened, in use until 2007 and completely demolished in 2012. Now replaced with complete new HS62 and 80 m hills.
• In 1952, Bloudek constructed three small K8, 30 and 40 m hills for kids to practice called »Planica school hills«, later covered with plastic and demolished in 2012. Replaced with new HS15, 30 and 45 m hills in 2014.

Zip line

Zip-line on the flying hill is the steepest in the world with 40 seconds of adrenalin fall. It was installed by Slovenian ski manufacturer Elan in August 2015. It's the first ever zip line installed on any of ski flying hills around the world. Former Slovenian alpine skier Jure Košir was honoured to be the first person who tested and descended down on 1 September 2015. For daily visitors and tourists was opened on 19 September 2015.

• start – at 1151.6 m (3,776 ft)
• finish – at 949 m (3,114 ft)
• length – 566 m (1,857 ft)
• vertical drop – 202 m (663 ft)
• duration – 40 seconds
• speed – 40 km/h (25 mph) to 90 km/h (50 mph)
• minimum/maximum ground – 3 m (10 ft) to 53 m (174 ft)
• temperature – operates from minus 10 °C (14 °F) to +40 °C (104 °F)
• average/maximum incline – 38.33% or 20.9 degrees / 58.6% or 30.5 degrees (both world's steepest)

Other objects

• Cross-country skiing track – above and underground track
• Dom Planica – The oldest object in Planica. Beds, hyperbaric chamber, current museum, garages, indoor/outside courts, restaurant
• Circle tower – media center, wind tunnel, ski jump simulator, new museum, restaurant
• RTV dom – house of Radio-Television Slovenia
• Equipment storage and technical support objects (named Kavka and Čaplja)
• Underground tunnel is connecting circle tower and Letalnica without crossing the road
• Three ski lifts – chairlift, funicular and cable railway (Hugo)
• Football pitch

Key people

Vlado Gorišek

Janez Gorišek

Joso Gorec

He is known as the "creator" of Planica, key figure and the most significant person in the whole story. All credits go to him, without him there will be nothing. He was a Slovene sport worker, sport enthusiast and member of Ilirija Sport Club. His intention was to build the biggest hill in the world and to make relatively unknown Slovenia famous. He is the initiator and responsible that Ilirija House, now called Planica House, was built in 1931. A year later Gorec asked his club co-worker, engineer Stanko Bloudek, to draw plans for large hill. Bloudek draw plans for K80 hill, as much as International Ski Federation rules allowed at that time and found the fantastic location for it. But in 1933, suddenly out of nowhere Ivan Rožman, a construction company's owner working at time in Planica, draw plans for new, bigger K90 hill, now known as Bloudkova velikanka. Joso Gorec decided to rather build the hill by his plans. Another big achievement if Gorec was his fight for recognition of Planica and ski-flying as new discipline in annual FIS congress held in 1938 in Helsinki. He was defending plans of Stanko Bloudek, who didn't want to go there. Gorec fantastically presented Planica and ski-flying in front of FIS. But he was lucky to get a full support from Arnold Lunn, who had the same problems with FIS years ago at recognition of slalom. Lunn told FIS that they or anyone else couldn't stop ski-flying in Planica. After the end of presentation, Gorec said that FIS adopted rules only for K80 and not yet have any rules for a new discipline called ski-flying. He invited FIS to accept new rules for ski-flying as soon as possible. After this meeting FIS allowed ski-flying but only in study purposes.

Ivan Rožman

Original constructor of K-90 Bloudkova velikanka hill, which was built in two months, from October to December 1933 hill was completed. Opening competition was National Championships in February 1934, where Rožman as a first person in history used snow cement. Gorec gave him and his company permission to build the hill. He contributed all the money for the construction, together with two other business partners: manufacturer Rado Hribar from Ljubljana and with father of Slovene actor Demeter Bitenc who was renting "Bitenc Hotels". At first locals didn't want to sell the land needed for construction and the local priest Lavtižar preached to locals at liturgy and convinced them to sell the land. Soon after hill was opened Rožman and Bloudek got into conflict about original authorship and name of Bloudkova velikanka. While Joso Gorec took side with his friend Bloudek, he step out as constructor. Soon a year later Bloudek continued his work on Bloudkova velikanka. Rožman died in 1937 and conflict about authorship was forgotten for many years. Many years later they recognized him as original constructor. The full official name of the hill is now "Rožman/Bloudkova velikanka".

Stanko Bloudek

Stanko Bloudek

Stanko Bloudek was a constructor and the father of the first ever ski flying hill. In 1932 he was hired by Joso Gorec to draw plans for hill with size K-80. He drew plans and found an excellent location in Planica, but didn't make to realize his plans at first. Ivan Rožman who draw plans for K-90 built the original Bloudkova velikanka on location found by Bloudek. He took the one-year-old hill over in 1935, then upgraded it, enlarged it and improved it several times until his death in 1959. He is responsible for eleven world records on Bloudkova velikanka and for the first jump over 100 meters in 1936. Bloudkova velikanka was unfairly named after him, although original plan wasn't his, but he was closer to Gorec who decided about everything.

Vlado Gorišek

Vlado Gorišek (1925–1997), born in Ljubljana, more known as Lado, was the older brother of Janez Gorišek. He is known as co-constructor of Letalnica bratov Gorišek, a flying hill built in 1969, although he didn't actually draw the plans, but his younger brother Janez did while he was working in Libya in the 1960s.

Janez Gorišek

Janez Gorišek and his older brother Vlado are born in Ljubljana and they together constructed the flying hill in 1969. Janez was the main mastermind who actually draw the plans alone, but he could not be present at the construction site, because at the time he was working in Libya. However, his brother Vlado was present at the construction site from the start to the end as the main supervisior with nonstop contacts to his younger brother Janez through telephone and mail. They are responsible for a hill with the most world records, twenty-eight and for the first jump in history over 200 meters in 1994.

World records

List of all world records from both large and flying hill. Some sources claim that three world records set on 2 March 1941 by Franz Mair (109 m), Hans Lahr (111 m) and Paul Krauß (112 m) on large hill were actually not world records. They claim those jumps were actually set after Rudi Gering's 118 m world record.

Letalnica bratov Gorišek No. Date Meters Feet 1 21 March 1969 Bjørn Wirkola 156.0 512 2 21 March 1969 Jiří Raška 156.0 512 3 22 March 1969 Bjørn Wirkola 160.0 525 4 22 March 1969 Jiří Raška 164.0 538 5 23 March 1969 Manfred Wolf 165.0 541 6 15 March 1974 Walter Steiner 169.0 554 7 16 March 1979 Klaus Ostwald 176.0 577 8 15 March 1985 Mike Holland 186.0 610 9 15 March 1985 Matti Nykänen 187.0 614 10 15 March 1985 Matti Nykänen 191.0 627 14 March 1987 Andreas Felder 191.0 627 11 14 March 1987 Piotr Fijas 194.0 636 24 March 1991 Ralph Gebstedt 194.0 636 12 17 March 1994 Martin Höllwarth 196.0 643 13 17 March 1994 Toni Nieminen 203.0 666 14 18 March 1994 Espen Bredesen 209.0 686 15 22 March 1997 Espen Bredesen 210.0 689 16 22 March 1997 Lasse Ottesen 212.0 696 17 19 March 1999 Martin Schmitt 214.5 704 18 20 March 1999 Tommy Ingebrigtsen 219.5 720 19 16 March 2000 Thomas Hörl 224.5 737 20 18 March 2000 Andreas Goldberger 225.0 738 21 20 March 2003 Adam Małysz 225.0 738 22 20 March 2003 Matti Hautamäki 227.5 746 23 22 March 2003 Matti Hautamäki 228.5 750 24 23 March 2003 Matti Hautamäki 231.0 758 25 20 March 2005 Tommy Ingebrigtsen 231.0 758 26 20 March 2005 Bjørn Einar Romøren 234.5 769 27 20 March 2005 Matti Hautamäki 235.5 773 28 20 March 2005 Bjørn Einar Romøren 239.0 784   disputed world records; claimed by some sources

Bloudkova velikanka No. Date Meters Feet 1 25 March 1934 Birger Ruud 92.0 302 2 14 March 1935 Reidar Andersen 93.0 305 3 15 March 1935 Stanisław Marusarz 95.0 312 4 15 March 1935 Reidar Andersen 98.0 322 5 15 March 1935 Reidar Andersen 99.0 325 6 15 March 1936 Sepp Bradl 101.5 333 7 15 March 1938 Sepp Bradl 107.0 351 8 2 March 1941 Rudi Gering 108.0 354 9 2 March 1941 Franz Mair 109.0 358 10 2 March 1941 Hans Lahr 111.0 364 11 2 March 1941 Paul Krauß 112.0 367 12 2 March 1941 Rudi Gering 118.0 387 13 15 March 1948 Fritz Tschannen 120.0 394

Cross-country skiing events

Men Date Competition Winner Second Third 16 January 2016 WC (sprint F) Federico Pellegrino Baptiste Gros Richard Jouve 17 January 2016 WC-T (sprint F)  Italy I Dietmar Nöckler Federico Pellegrino  France I Renaud Jay Baptiste Gros  France II Valentin Chauvin Richard Jouve

Ladies Date Competition Winner Second Third 16 January 2016 WC (sprint F) Stina Nilsson Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen Heidi Weng 17 January 2016 WC-T (sprint F)  Sweden I Ida Ingemarsdotter Stina Nilsson  Norway I Heidi Weng Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen  Germany I Sandra Ringwald Hanna Kolb

Red Bull 400

Red Bull 400 is an extreme running-up-the-hill sport event sponsored by Red Bull. It is the steepest uphill race that takes place in Europe. It is a tough 400-meter vertical sprint up the face of a ski-jump slope in Planica, Slovenia. Runners have to beat 400 meters distance from bottom to the top of the inrun of the flying hill. Runners coming from all over Europe had to beat steepest part 38° angle on the older hill and at 36° on modernized hill. First two editions on the Letalnica bratov Gorišek were held in 2012 and 2013 and cancelled in 2014 because the hill was under renovation. Competition returned in 2015 on a modernized and even bigger hill than before with totally new concrete inrun.

Men Edition Date Time 1 22 September 2012 Arslan Ahmet 5min 02s 2 12 May 2013 Simon Alič 5min 11s 3 19 September 2015 Ahmet Arslan 5min 08s 4 17 September 2016 Ahmet Arslan 5min 09s

Ladies Edition Date Time 1 22 September 2012 Teresa Stadlobler 6min 46s 2 12 May 2013 Teresa Stadlobler 6min 37s 3 19 September 2015 Confortolla Antonela 6min 25s 4 17 September 2016 Valentina Belloti 6min 19s

World Snow Day

First three editions were held at the bottom of the Letalnica bratov Gorišek and fourth one under the small hills in 2015, since construction works were done under the flying hill at that time. Although the fourth edition was globally held on 18 January 2015, the event in Planica was rescheduled for one week on 25 January 2015 due to bad weather.

External links

• Planica.info (Slovene) (English)
• Planica Nordic Centre (Slovene)
• Planica at Sport Institute of Republic of Slovenia (Slovene)

FIS Cross-Country World Cup seasons
Unofficial	1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 1980–81
Official	1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–2000 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17
Related topic	Champions Tour de Ski
See also FIS FIS Nordic World Ski Championships Cross-country skiing at the Winter Olympics (medalists)

Coordinates: 46°28′35″N 13°43′16″E / 46.47639°N 13.72111°E / 46.47639; 13.72111