INTRODUCTION: Although the landing and its preparation are important in ski jumping with respect to performance and safety, the number of scientific investigations of these phases is fairly small (Schwameder, 2008). Along with the jump length the scores given by the judges for the technical performance of the jump in general and the landing phase in particular are the key factors determining the performance in ski jumping. The purposes of this study were to present a kinematic description of the landing phase and to detect kinematic variables related to performance. METHODS: The data were collected at the K95 Olympic competition in Torino 2006. The flight and the landing phases of both rounds were video-taped with two synchronised video cameras (50Hz). The relevant joint centres, reference points on the skis and calibration points of 20 subjects (group 1: ranked 1-10; group 2: ranked 36^8) were manually digitized. Correlations between the judge scores and the kinematic variables were analysed using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. t-tests were used to analyse the differences between the two groups at 3 points in time (t3, t4, t5) during the landing phase. RESULTS: The significant correlations between the variables and the scores are presented in table 1. Fig. 1 shows the angle between the horizontal and the ski during landing and landing preparation. DISCUSSION: The jump length is one of the most considerable factors related to the judges' scores during competition. Distinct differences between the top and bottom ranked groups can be observed during landing and landing preparation. The most distinctive differences can be found shortly prior to touch-down (t4). The differences regarding the variable horizontal-ski indicate a greater backward torque for the best Jumpers in the preparation phase for landing. These Jumpers are able to stabilise their flight Position longer. This can be explained by the more beneficial aerodynamic forces caused by the body-ski position during the last flight phase (Seo et al.; 2001). CONCLUSION: The judges' scores are related to specific biomechanical Parameters during landing and landing preparation, The differences between top and bottom ranked Jumpers indicate that landing and landing preparation are performance determining factors.
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