Planica

These ski jumps all belong to Velikanka, the complex around the ski flying hill. The famous ski jump architect Stanko Bloudek designed the former ski flying hill “Bloudkova Velikanka”, on which Sepp Bradl was the first ski jumper to jump over 100 m on 1936-03-15 and on which World Cups took place until some years ago. Today it is dilapidated and broken and there is a lack of money for reconstruction.

In 1931 Bloudek and some other ski jumping enthusiasts started with planning the Velikanka ski jumping facility at Planica. In February 1934 the new 60 meter hill could be opened. From March 23 to 26 the inauguration of ski flying hill took place and on his 23rd birthday Birger Ruud was able to jump on a new world record of 94 meters. The competition in 1936 went into the annals of ski jumping, when “Bubi” Bradl could stand the first ski jump over 100 meters, while Norwegian ski jumpers were not taking part, because they tried to set up a world record in their home country.

Still during World War II German Rudi Gehring was able to improve the world record at Planica on 118 meters. After the war the ski jumping hill needed a complete renovation and Bloudek managed to recover it, but only in 1948 a new world record could be set up there and after that Velikanka dropped far behind the new ski flying hills at Kulm and in Oberstdorf. In 1954 the first plans for a new giant ski flying hill were created and from 1969 Letalnica was used for ski flying.

Construction on the new Nordic Center in Planica began in 2011, the first jumps on the new hills were made in fall 2012.