Helmut Recknagel never said what it was that made him go back home to Thuringia from a cold, bright day in Bavaria in January, 1956. He’d been jumping off mountains for half his life. He’d grown up in the looming shadow of Germany’s first ever ski-jumping slope. And this was his first big chance to …
Tag Archives: winter olympics
Claudia Pechstein’s Memory
Claudia Pechstein’s hair was platinum blonde when I met her. Cut just above the shoulder. Her jaw was certain, her eyes a piercing sapphire blue. She looked like a policewoman, which she was, and is of course. She looked like any one of the hundreds of them that fill the ludicrous looking Estrel hotel near …
Jacob Sweetman 