Sport: Eventually, Holmenkollen

A happy-go-lucky Vermonter and a cocksure Lake Placid Irishman planned a postwar project last week.

First, Merrill ("Mezzie") Barber and Army Lieut. Arthur Devlin proved themselves head & shoulders above the field—five fellow Americans, ten Canadians—in the annual invitation ski jump from Lake Placid's 70-meter Olympic Hill. Off the takeoff, 145-lb. Mezzie Barber, reached for altitude with revolving arms, then leaned forward from the ankles in wind-cutting power dives that carried him 218 and 223 feet. Artie Devlin, leaning more from his hips than ankles, jumped 220 feet on his first ride; but he let the wind get on top of his borrowed skis, made only 197 feet on the second. Final score: Barber 151.7 points, Devlin 147.2.

In the past two years, the best U.S. jumpers have accented form over distance. So do Barber and Devlin, who have their postwar sights trained on Holmenkollen (just outside Oslo, Norway), where judges see ski jumping first as an art, then as a distance-devouring flight.