Le tremplin des Bossons

These photo's have been in my camera for over a week now, I'd almost forgotten about them.  At the end of our road is a ski-jump (Tremplin), not just any old ski jump mind you!  It is the 'jump', although has been modernized, from the 1st winter olympics which were held in Chamonix, 1924.  And in the forest behind our house, there are still traces of the olympic bob sledge track, luckily, for the time being my kids haven't found it!!

This competiton was won by a local, Vincent Descombes (who Richard used to train in his early days), with a jump of 105m, which is about the furthest you can go on a ski jump of this size without breaking your legs!
But I have a more personal story to share:
Years ago, Pépé Gaby - Richard's grandfather - competed on this ski jump and finished 2nd place to James Couttet, who was also from our village.  For taking the 1st place James won a pair of skis, which would have been little more than a pair of wooden slats with leather straps for bindings.  Gaby, for his 2nd place, received only a pen!  Disgusted by what she believed to be a disparity as regards the value of the prizes, Mémé Noir - Gaby's mother (The black grandmother, apparently so named as she always wore black, but from what i've heard about her it might have been more a reflection on her personality!) then threw the pen into the judges faces and announced that they would never again see Gaby competing, thus ending what might have been a promising sporting career.
Just to show that there are no hard feelings between the descendants of the two familys', here is a picture of Rémi (Pépé Gaby's great-grandson) sledging with Alice (James Coutett's great-grandaughter).  Alice's big brother, Nicolas, was also in the recent competition, and jumped 97m, not bad for a 12yr old.

Later that same Sunday Rémi and his hockey pals played an opening match for the Chamonix V Caen match.  After their game the 'little ones' stayed on the ice to high five the 'big ones' before the main event started!

Update: Richi informs me that Alice is not James' granddaughter, but that Lucy, who also lives in the village is.  I'll have to check his information, and while I'm willing to admit that I'm not always right, I'm never wrong!!

Chamonix won the match,yay! They lost the previous one and Rémi came home from the game in tears!! How can anyone get so upset over sport? now dropping a stich whilst knitting, that's upsetting but a hockey game!!