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The first Paul Bietila Memorial Tournament was held at
Suicide Hill on Washington's Brithday in 1953. Lloyd Severud
took first place honors in that meet in the senior (now
veteranan) class. In Class AC competition, appropriately
enough, Paul's brother Ralph won first place honors with
Rudy Maki, Ishpeming, topping the Class AC jumpers.
That first meet came one week short of 14 years after Paul
died. In that span, the feats and possibilities of the bright
young athlete grew into legend, and that legend still grows.
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The legend is little more than truth, combined
with what could have been for Paul, just under 21 years of age,
was without doubt the best young ski jumper in America at the
time of his death. World War II lay just over the horizon; that
would have been all that stood in the way of ski sport immorality
for the fourth member of the Flying Bietila.
He was just 10 years old when he first jumped
off Suicide Hill in 1928. At 15 he jumped 196 feet on the big
slide for a boy's world record. In the next years, he set and
reset 14 distance records on midwestern hills.
Paul was to be a member of the 1940 Olympic
jumping squad, but those games were canceled when Russia and Finland
went to war.
Paul wouldn't have made the games anyway.
Competing in the Nationals on February 5, 1939, at St. Paul, Minn.,
he hit ice on a practice jump and skidded into a restraining post.
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That first meet came one week short of 14 years after Paul
died. In that span, the feats and possibilities of the bright
young athlete grew into legend, and that legend still grows.
A valiant fight for life ended February 26, 1939.
In another practice jump on that fateful day, the 20-year
old champion, a physical education student at the University
of Wisconsin, had taken the longest jump of the day.
And so the meet in his honor continues. Through the years,
honors in the Paul Bietil Memorial Tournament have gone
to such names as John Balfanz, Jack Bietila, John Carello,
Willie Erickson, Dave Hicks, Coy Hill, Don Hurst, Antti
Hyvarienen, Kalevi Karkkinen, Yukio Kasaya, Gene Kotlarek,
Jerry Martin, Esko Mommo, Billy Olson, Tom Peterson, Frydjof
Prydz, Will Rasmussen, Nobukazo Saito, Jon St. Andre, Manfred
Steiner, Greg Swor, Steve Sydow, and others. This year top
ski jumpers will again gather at Suicide Bowl to match the
jumping spirit of the man the tourament honors
Paul Bietila.
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