New Hampshire is the only state where ski jumping is an official varsity sport. Few schools have skiers brave enough to fly through the air like Eddie The Eagle, but every once in a while, one rolls into town ready to make the leap.

Sebastian Christie, a junior at Concord High School, is one of those few. On Wednesday, he was at Plymouth High School’s small hill ski jump for one last competition before the state championship at Oak Hill in Hanover on Feb. 13.

The snow was carved after the recent snowstorm to ensure a smooth landing for jumpers, and as people flooded onto the snowy hill with hot chocolate and warmers in hand, all eyes were trained on the first jumper of the night, Christie. He made the trek up the precipitous stairs as a line of jumpers from across the state watched excitedly, waiting for their turns.

To unfurl frozen hands from the bar and fly down the ramp requires a lot of bravery. Jumpers must release the tension in their legs at just the right moment and maintain their form as they soar through the air for as long as possible, only to come back down to the earth for a graceful landing.

Christie said the fear goes away with time; he has been jumping for five years now. Still, he acknowledges that it’s easy to ignore the fear with a few hundred jumps under his belt.

“I think everyone agrees once you do it once, the fear kind of goes away,” he said. “Just send it,” he said.

Christie was introduced to the sport by his father, Gary Christie Jr., who himself was a jumper for Concord back in the day.

“[Sebastian] had no interest or inclination for it. We actually went to a BKL festival, a Bill Koch festival up in Great Glenn, and they had a bump jump. A lot of local community from the ski jump community came out. He spent hours on the bump jump and that was just before COVID, and after that, we ran into some folks from the Andover outing club, and he started from that,” Christie Jr. said.

There are between 40 and 45 high school ski jumpers in the state and only a handful of jumps, which leads to a lot of traveling to practice and jump. It’s also a lot of walking. Only one of the jumps has a rope tow that leads to the top of the jumping area, and so a lot of the workout comes from walking all the way back up. But there are also a lot of components that make a good ski jumper.

“You need to be a little bit of a free spirit, a little adventurous. But it is athletic, it’s timing, and it’s muscle and it’s being able to hold your body in a still position while you go out over that edge,” Christie Jr. said. “It’s a lot of legs obviously because there’s the jumping part. A lot of it is conditioning. We practice during off seasons with something called a roller, where you literally practice rolling down a set of steel I-beams and practice getting into a flight position and landing on a pillow, basically.”

Another parent, Keri Killion, belongs to the same outing club because her son, Ryan, is a senior jumper for Plymouth. He’s been jumping with Christie for four years.

She explained that the opportunity of a local ski jump is great, but as with any outdoor winter sport, the biggest challenge is still mother nature and getting the jump ready. When jumpers do have the chance to meet, Killion said it’s the friendliest sport, where jumpers know each other and work toward the same goal: jumping far in style.

“They work really, really hard. Some kids are jumping six days a week between high school and club and there’s a lot of travel, but it’s honestly the most welcoming group and sport that I have ever been involved with,” she said. “Ski jumping, really other than supporting your other teammates, the only thing you’re competing against is your last jump. You just have to improve your last jump because you can’t control anybody else. So it’s all about just trying to do the best you can to be that much better for your team and support your team.”

Last season, Christie had a significant accident that left him out of the sport for a few weeks, and his father even gave him the option to quit altogether. But Christie kept going knowing that the season is short, and it’s taken him until this year to find his rhythm.

He had a good day on the slope, placing 10th among 25 jumpers, improving the most on his third and final jump to earn his spot, which in total earned him 91 points toward his season total.

“It definitely changed my perspective, ending each practice successfully and walking out is always great. I know [Ryan Killion] can testify to this too, he’s had some injuries in the past,” Christie said. “But it just makes you appreciate the whole sport more and all parts of it, even the slightly dangerous parts of it.”

Ski jumping scores sum the distance jumped and the style points judges assess. For example, Christie earned 50.4 points for the distance on his first but only 28.5 on style, and on his third jump of the night he had a shorter distance but many more style points to gain a total of 80.25 points. The style points work similarly to a few other sports, where the highest and lowest scores given by judges are thrown out and the remaining middle three are added.

Ryan Killion also did well, and he earned lots of points in style to place fourth at the meet and was the highest scorer for Plymouth. He and Christie will be going to junior nationals this year, and they’re both excited for the opportunities ahead.

“We both qualified for junior nationals this year. This will be my second year, Sebastian’s first, and I’d just like to place top 15. That’d be great. After that, there’s no nowhere else to go other than the World Cup. But I don’t really see that in my future,” he said.

For placement, the three scored jumps are combined against everyone else’s, and much like other ski sports, jumpers are awarded points on a 100-1 scale depending on their placement, which throughout the season can earn jumpers spots in the state championship.

Christie wants to take it as far as he can, but he also wants to keep having fun with ski jumping and forging connections and friendships through the tight-knit community of jumpers. He’s hoping to place fifth at this year’s state championship, and like Killion, is excited for junior nationals. As a part of Concord’s Nordic ski team and the only ski jumper, he’s always trying to advertise for both.

“It’s definitely a struggle. I feel like both sports are kind of underappreciated by the larger community, but they’re growing, we’re getting more advertising out there,” he said. “If you’re interested, you’ll be helped. We’ll encourage you, we will get you going into the sport.”

Alexander Rapp can be reached at arapp@cmonitor.com