In the ESPN Great Outdoor Games timber events, the old hands are kings. Six of the 10 individual timber sports saw repeat gold medals, and two of the four exceptions, Tree Topping and Men's Log Rolling, were won by former bronze medalists.

	Jamie Fischer shows his winning form on Friday.

Only in the Men's Boom Run did a Great Outdoor Games rookie win gold in an individual timber event. An affable, unassuming dervish named Jamie Fischer went from unbeatable to borderline unbelievable, along the way stirring predictions that he may be the next chronic Great Outdoor Games champion.

The spectators at Mirror Lake on Friday could tell the former high school sprinter was something special, cheering his runs and murmuring words like "lightning" as they asked for autographs.

But don't take their word for it. The old hands likewise recognized they were witnessing something special in the 22-year-old world champion. Veteran runner Fred Scheer, for one, described Fischer as being "in another league."

"Nobody's going to beat him," Scheer said, after Fischer ran him into the water in the Men's Boom Run semifinals. "He's going to be dominant for a really long time."

Said boom runner Travis Wells, Fischer's cousin and first-round victim: "I don't see anybody stopping Jamie for a few years."

Added boom runner Cassidy Scheer, Fred's son: "He's incredibly fast. In the past, he's had troubles with balance, he's fallen off a bit. But he was just solid in every single run today, all the way across. Unless he has a huge mistake and falls in, I don't think anybody can beat him."

Maybe waiting for a mistake was once the solution to Fischer. No longer. He simply doesn't fall, at least not in his Great Outdoor Games runs, no small feat on a wobbly chain of eight logs that don't play well together. Because he doesn't slip, doesn't make mistakes, opponents can't afford to run conservatively.

That means trying to match his speed. Again, even without falling, best of luck on that, cuz.

"It's amazing to watch someone just on land run that fast," said boom runner Dustin Beckwith. "Put him on logs that are on water bucking around, he makes it look fairly easy. He was flawless."

Fischer attributes his speed to his sprinting background — he was running varsity track as a high school freshman back in Minnesota — and his balance he attributes to 13 years of playing hockey.

He was introduced to lumberjack sports (he also competed in the Men's Log Rolling event but lost in the first round to eventual champion Darren Hudson) through his grandfather, who lived on the St. Croix River and learned the sports from the lumberjacks working there.

	“	Nobody's going to beat him," Scheer said, after Fischer ran him into the water in the Men's Boom Run semifinals. "He's going to be dominant for a really long time. ”
		— Veteran runner Fred Scheer

He won the boom run world title last year in Hayward, Wis., and will defend it later this month. But last year he hadn't been running long enough to qualify for the Great Outdoor Games.

To train, he runs and lifts weights, and practices daily on the skinny boom he built with Wells in a pond in his backyard. The largest log of that boom, he estimated, is about as big as the smallest log in the Great Outdoor Games boom.

Which made running across the pitching, hawing string of logs no more difficult than racing down a rocking dock, he said.

He was a steady streak all weekend, just a flash of bright yellow T-shirt and red jungle-patterned shorts.

The only indication that he wasn't running on a flat surface were his hands, stuck out to his sides, clad in black work gloves that he wears at the behest of his sponsor company, and which theoretically would help him clamber back on the boom if he ever fell off.

One other thing that stands out about Fischer: The smile. Most boom runners wear grimaces that suggest they're being blasted into outer space. Fischer grins broadly, as if concentration is for squares.

His explanation for that: "I love it, to be able to come out and sprint. My college (Century College) doesn't have any sports teams. My high school sprinting was a big part of me, a big part of who I am.

"I like to do well," Fischer continued. "It's kind of like an honor thing for me."

The only boom runner who came close to Fischer in these games was J.R. Salzman, a 23-year-old with a ring in his right eyebrow, a tattoo between his shoulder blades and two Great Outdoor Games gold medals in the event.

The two met in the men's finals, and ran the cleanest, quickest race of the morning. Fischer was simply two seconds faster. Salzman carried a pensive look to the podium to receive his first silver medal.

The two met again in the afternoon Mixed Doubles relay event, in which a woman runner led off for the men to anchor. Salzman's partner, Abby Hoeschler, handed him a lead. Fischer had tied him by the opposite dock. On the return trip, Fischer won by two seconds.

Salzman said he wished Fischer had been at the Great Outdoor Games last year, even if it would have cost him the 2001 gold.

"I want to compete against people that are at a higher level," Salzman said. "It makes the sport better, it makes for a stronger sport and better competitors.

"He's an excellent boom runner. We both are. We're both really good boom runners. I had some technical errors at the start, I kind of blew my start. And by the time I left, Jamie was already a log ahead of me."

The gravity of unseating the champion wasn't lost on the Fischer.

"JR has always been, I wouldn't say the king, but the one to beat," Fischer said.

To win his second gold medal of the day, Fischer had to pull off a similar stunt in the finals. Doug Goodmundson started with what should have been a comfortable lead of more than two full logs.

The crowd noise crescendoed as Fischer gnawed away at the deficit and, despite a solid run by Goodmundson, won by just more than a second.

"I definitely had a lead on Taylor (Duffy)," said Mandy Erdmann, Goodmundson's partner. "So I thought that Doug would be able to get out far enough ahead, and he did until Jamie just — he's incredible. He just zooms out there. There's no stopping him."

The trouble in handling Fischer is that he's a sprinter at heart who happens to have logs under his feet, and makes it across almost too quickly to notice the difference. He's studying there to become an elementary school teacher.

Between world championships and traveling on the National Timberjack Series, Fischer has plans for the summers, and if the predictions prove correct, he may be booked for some time. If nothing else, he now has a Great Outdoor Games gold to defend.

Cassidy Scheer pondered that possibility after the Mixed Doubles when Fischer, at the request of the crowd, took a victory lap down the boom and back.

"They need to make it harder for him next year," he said. "Tie one of his legs back."