GUTSY. Nerves of steel. Possibly with a death wish. Skilful with precisioned timing. A beautiful human machine in motion.
See a skijumper in action and these thoughts race through your head faster than they can fly through the air with the greatest of ease.
Stand behind them at the jump-off platform as they prepare for the countdown with a panorama of a bustling city (including a town cemetery!) spread out before them hundreds of metres below, and YOU will be the one with "butterflies in the tummy".
To soar above the ground as thousands of spectators cheer you upward, forward and onward to victory at the end of the run must be the biggest buzz ever on the snow.
To reach at least a small fraction of these dizzying heights of adventure in Innsbruck in summer, head for the Bergisel Skijumping Stadium.
Innsbruck is understandably proud of its sporting prowess and heritage, having hosted he Winter Olympics twice in 1964 and '76.
Wooded Bergisel Hill on which the stadium sits is the end of a glacial moraine and the first skijumping competition was held there in January, 1927.
Bergisel has undergone many changes and renovations over the years since then but the Austrian Ski Association officially opened the new stadium in September, 2002.
The tower is 50m above ground level at its highest point, 250m above Innsbruck and 791m above sea level. The concrete end trestle of the jump-off platform is in the shape of a skier's knee.
The inrun is 98m long and supports a 35-degree slope.
The stadium seating holds 28,000 and is used for major events annually including the 3rd station of he Four Hills Tour.
Bergisel attracts more than 140,000 visitors each year.
In summer, athletes from all over the world come here to train on the dry jump facility.
On the morning we arrived on The Sightseer hop on, hop off bus tour, we were rubbing shoulders in the funicular with a twenty-something athlete we believed to be Russian.
He was making his final dry training run of the session, under the watchful eyes of his coach.
We rushed into the tower lift to the Panorama Restaurant overlooking the city and mountains, then stepped out on to the observation platform to stand right behind the skijump starting point.
We missed some of his jump but recorded video footage the next day of some jumpers - kilometres away while standing on the Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof (main train station)!
And it still left us in awe of their feats.
Lesson of the day: The Innsbruck Card is a must for sightseeing and travel around the city as all entry fees and public transport as well as The Sightseer bus are included for free. We bought the 48-hour cards for 39euro each and got our money's worth on the first day.
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