BERLIN HOSTS JUMPING AT THE BRANDENBURG GATE
Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 9:25 am
Berlin Hosts Ski Jumping at the Brandenburg Gate
BERLIN (Reuters) - Fourteen years after Germans danced to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, the historic landmark provided the setting for a spectacle of a different kind Wednesday -- ski jumping.
Hundreds crowded the east end of the city's Tiergarten park to watch schoolchildren race down a specially built jump and leap distances of around 20 meters (65 ft ) to mark the beginning of the new ski jumping season.
Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said the event would help boost the popularity of the alpine sport in Germany and showed how Berlin, a largely flat city, was open for everything.
Wowereit declined, however, to make a jump himself.
"I think we should leave that to the experts," he said. "I don't have the guts -- it's not that high, but it's high enough. Your knees would be knocking up there."
BERLIN (Reuters) - Fourteen years after Germans danced to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, the historic landmark provided the setting for a spectacle of a different kind Wednesday -- ski jumping.
Hundreds crowded the east end of the city's Tiergarten park to watch schoolchildren race down a specially built jump and leap distances of around 20 meters (65 ft ) to mark the beginning of the new ski jumping season.
Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said the event would help boost the popularity of the alpine sport in Germany and showed how Berlin, a largely flat city, was open for everything.
Wowereit declined, however, to make a jump himself.
"I think we should leave that to the experts," he said. "I don't have the guts -- it's not that high, but it's high enough. Your knees would be knocking up there."