Estella Hassrick began ski jumping at 8 years old. More than a decade later, she’s waiting to see if she’ll get to compete at next month’s Winter Olympics.
She told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that it’s a dream she has been nurturing since she was 10 years old, after she made her first 25-meter ski jump at a camp in New York.
“I felt my first taste of flying,” the 19-year-old Hassrick recalled. “I was like, wow, this is really cool. Maybe I would want to do more of this. Maybe I can try to make it to the next level.”
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A Madison native, Hassrick was named a member of the U.S. Ski Jumping Team last year. She’s competed for months to earn scores high enough to hopefully qualify for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Ski Jumping Team, which will compete in Italy in February. The qualification period ends Jan. 18.
She told WPR this waiting period is stressful for her and other high-level athletes.
“The main thing you have to do is just focus on yourself and not hope that you’re going to make it, but either believe you’re going to make it or reset your expectations and just focus on the process,” Hassrick said. “That’s where I’m at right now, just focusing on the process (and) making improvements as the winter goes on.”
Hassrick lives and trains for much of the year in Norway, a country with a history of ski jumping. She said she trains in a gym two to three times per week on top of road biking and cross country skiing for endurance training.
“I’ve done a lot of basically any kind of sport you can name,” Hassrick said. “I just love sports in general, and I’ve done a bunch of different skiing disciplines growing up.”
But Hassrick said nothing compares to the sensation of ski jumping.
“You’re in the air, supported by your own skis, your own equipment, and you’re at the whims of the conditions around you. Different wind changes how your skis react and feel. You’re just this little thing in the middle of nowhere,” Hassrick said. “That’s what keeps me coming back for more, because it’s addictive in a way. You’re always searching for a better ski jump.”
Hassrick posted on Instagram that she recently set a new personal record flying 128.5 meters — more than 400 feet — in one jump.
“Ski jumping has a lot of its ups and downs, and that kind of translates into having really short ski jumps or really far ski jumps,” Hassrick said. “I have less experience on the bigger hills, like the 120-meter ski jumps. So it was really exciting for me to figure something out on that jump that I’d struggled with for a while.”
Hassrick’s website describes her as living a nomadic life in pursuit of her dream, mastering, “the art of online school, living out of a suitcase that does not exceed 50 pounds and navigating both immigration and train lines.”
Hassrick said ski jumping — and the accompanying travel and experiences — has shaped who she has become. But she said she carries a bit of the sport’s Wisconsin legacy with her where she trains, halfway across the world.
“Wisconsin is where it all began for me. I’m born and raised in Madison. I learned how to ski here in Wisconsin,” Hassrick said. “(My parents and I) spent years driving around Wisconsin and the rest of the Midwest every weekend for competitions. It’s historic here.”
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