Yumper

When a grinning, 19-year-old Norwegian named Torger Tokle landed in Manhattan two years ago, he was met by his older brother, Kyrre, who drove him to his farm in Noroton, Conn. Next day, Brother Kyrre was to compete in a ski-jumping meet at nearby Bear Mountain Park. "I yump too," said Torger. Yump he did--and broke the hill record.

In his native Lokken Verk, where every other 12-year-old can jump 150 ft., Torger

Tokle was just another ski rider. But in the U. S. he was a sensation. Here was a greenhorn who could jump 157 ft. on sea legs. He lacked the elegant style of Olympic Champion Birger Ruud and Norwegian Champion Reidar Andersen, two of his countrymen who had broken the trail ahead of him. But Torger Tokle had something. Experts say it is the oomph in his satz, that split-second transition from running to jumping at the takeoff. From knees like coiled springs he gets a tremendous lift--soaring out, out, out, like a baseball hit smack on the nose.

To New England jumpers, Torger Tokle was a deep discouragement. Jumping is judged on form as well as distance, but Tokle's tremendous, unpolished power won practically every meet he entered. In four successive Bear Mountain meets, he broke his own hill record, stretching it from 157 ft. to 163 ft. In his first year in the U. S., towheaded Torger Tokle won 15 out of 16 tournaments, broke nine hill records.

By last week, Torger Tokle had become America's favorite snow bird. Ten days ago, in a meet at Leavenworth, Wash., he soared 273 ft., longest jump ever recorded in North American competition. Then he flew back to New York to compete three days later in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Cup meet at Bear Mountain, his first and favorite hill. Most Norwegians frown on skyscraping ski jumps built for headlines rather than for sport--like that at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps, where jumpers have leaped 300 ft. The Bear Mountain ski jump is just a sporting little hill, constructed for jumps no longer than 160 ft.

Still, the 12,000 New Yorkers who turned out to greet Torger Tokle last week had a hunch that he would make quite a yump. Lined up around the course like a gigantic keyhole, they watched his familiar blue-clad figure flick down the "inrun" at 50 m.p.h., float past the judges' tower, and glide, arms whirling, into their midst in a perfect landing. His first jump measured 167 ft. In the gathering dusk he took off for his second. This lime he landed on one ski, nearly fell. When the span was measured, a mighty roar went up. Tokle had soared 180 ft., broken a record for the 13th time.

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