Channel 4’s reality ski show, The Jump, is returning to Kühtai for the next few weeks for its third series, and the line-up of personalities has just been announced. As before, the contestants are drawn from the worlds of entertainment and sport — though not from wintersports, naturally.
Kühtai is the ideal choice for the makers of the programme because of its altitude and therefore guaranteed snow conditions and also because of the close proximity to Innsbruck and its airport – just 35 minutes away.
The Third Series
Series 3, like its predecessors, will be based in and around Innsbruck and Kühtai, the highest ski resort in Austria. The contestants are trained and tested in a variety of disciplines — previously including speed skating, bobsleigh, ski cross, skeleton and giant slalom — and the two with the slowest times face an elimination ski-jump.
The show will be presented by Davina McCall, returning to her previous role, and there’ll be the usual group of mentors. The full mentor line-up hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s known that Graham Bell and ski-jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards will be taking a role.
This year, though, will see one difference. For the first time, the contestants will share a house on air, so not all the excitement will be on the slopes and viewers will be able to get exclusive footage on how the various participants get on away from the slopes and wintersport activities.
Still, the winter sports are what this show is about at heart, and we’ll be waiting to see who’ll master the pistes and how they’ll handle those jumps.
The Contestants
Twelve contestants have been confirmed so far, though it’s not clear whether this will be the complete line-up:
Beth Tweddle — Olympic gymnast
Brian McFadden — former singer with Westlife
Dean Cain — star of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
James “Arg” Argent — star of The Only Way Is Essex
Linford Christie — Olympic gold medal athlete
Louisa Lytton — actress, formerly in Eastenders and The Bill
Mark-Francis Vandelli — star of Made in Chelsea
Rebecca Adlington — Olympic gold medal swimmer
Sarah Harding — former singer with Girls Aloud and actress in Coronation Street
Sid Owen — actor in Eastenders
Tamara Beckwith — socialite
Tina Hobley — actress in Holby City
Coming Soon
Channel 4 has already released the first trailer for the new series, in which the skies over Kühtai start raining celebrities, causing panic and a lot of screaming for a local family. The reality, though, won’t be anything like that scary, and if you’re lucky enough to be holidaying in Kühtai right now then you may find yourself bumping into a celebrity or two, either up on the slopes or during après-ski.
For the rest of us, though, the question will be who’ll manage to jump furthest, will all the celebrities escape injury — and does Superman have an unfair advantage?
