In 1956, barrel jumping was a beloved ice sport. It's a discipline of speed skating that involves skaters jumping over a row of barrels. The goal is for the skater to jump over the most barrels and land on the ice. As the announcer in the video states "the harder they jump, the harder they fall", a barrel jumper perfectly illustrates the remark. Almost every skater crashes down on their butt. It looks painful AF to participate in, but is highly entertaining to watch.
"Barrel jumping is a sadly lost ice sport with the simplest of rules: intrepid skaters would circle a rink at increasing speeds before launching themselves into the air over as many lined up barrels as possible. In essence it looked a lot like the long jump in athletics, only with the flashing blades of the skates, high speeds, and the prospect of a terrible crash onto hard ice at the end of it, and that was only if you cleared all the barrels."
