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Fridays edition is 9PM


A load of b listers



[The Jump was supposed to be huge.
It was supposed to be an all-star extravaganza,
triumphantly fusing reality TV
with competitive alpine sports
in a glorious celebration of the upcoming
Winter Olympics. Each night for a week
and a half we'd see stars as diverse
as Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Sinitta
and Flash Gordon actor Sam Jones
hurl themselves off a ski jump at
60mph for the entertainment
of the masses. The Jump was supposed
to be Splash! on ice, if Dancing On Ice wasn't
already Splash! on ice. It was supposed
to be spectacular.
But things haven't exactly worked out that way.
In fact, the build-up to the show has
been so catastrophic that I'm starting to think
the whole thing might be cursed.
This is at least the third time I've rewritten
this article because, every time I hand it in,
something awful happens to one
of the contestants. By the time it finishes,
there's every chance that The Jump
will just be an hour-long static
shot of broken, quivering,
vaguely recognisable limbs,
soundtracked by Melinda Messenger's
distant muffled sobs. Maybe that's how
the show will start. Maybe that's how
it already is. If that's the case,
I'm not writing this again. I can't.
The first sign of trouble came just
before Christmas, when I visited
The Jump's Austrian training
centre near Innsbruck, set between
the magnificently named suburbs
of Natters and Mutters.
When I met him, Sam Jones
already had his arm in a sling.
It was his second day there.
He'd hurt his shoulder in
an inappropriate whooping accident.
"The instructors told me to ski a
certain way. I did a little victory salute
and I went down," he said, ruefully. T
hree weeks later, the injury would
become so bad that he'd be forced
out of The Jump entirely. ]


http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-ra...jump-channel-4