Lake Placid ski jumps upgraded ahead of Olympic trials
One of the most iconic Olympic venues in Lake Placid just got a big upgrade. The ski jumps built for the 1980 Winter Games can now be used...
Nov 27, 2021 — One of the most iconic Olympic venues in Lake Placid just got a big upgrade. The ski jumps built for the 1980 Winter Games can now be used year-round and will soon host the Olympic trials for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.
Until now, the ski jumps in Lake Placid were dependent on cold weather. A video posted by a skier three years ago shows the view from the top of the jumps on a rainy winter day.
The skier inches out onto the inrun, which is the ramp skiers go down, and you can hear the rain hitting his helmet as he flies down the inrun.
The ski jumper lands safely, but he explained in the video description that was the only jump he got in that day "due to bad inrun tracks and rain," which amounted to "sketchy conditions."
“The inruns were always the trouble with the temperatures in the winter going up and down,” says Billy Demong, CEO of USA Nordic.
Demong grew up in the Adirondacks and started his own ski jumping and nordic career in Lake Placid, going on to win a gold and silver medal in Nordic combined at the 2010 Vancouver games.
“One 50 degree night of rain, you could lose the entire track," says Demong. "You have to re-snow the whole inrun. Now? You just cover it with a tarp, kick the refrigeration on and it’s not going anywhere.”
The upgrades to the Lake Placid ski jumps cost $26 million, according to the Olympic Regional Development Authority, a state agency that has poured hundreds of millions into Lake Placid in the last decade to boost tourism and bring more sporting events to the area.
Demong says the ski jumps were built specifically so that athletes can train here year-round.
“So in the summer, water can run down the track to facilitate summer jumping and then as soon as the temperatures dip below 60 degrees Fahrenheit you can kick on a refrigeration system and with just five-gallon buckets of slush," says Demong, "you can create a bullet-ice track, which allows the athletes to really push the envelope of what’s possible in ski jumping.”
In early November, some of the best ski jumpers in the country came to Lake Placid for their last training camp before their season kicks off.
Paige Jones, a member of the U.S. ski jumping team, has trained in Lake Placid before and says she’s always like these jumps, but says now they’re even better.
“They fixed the things that were wrong with it," says Jones. "It’s a lot smoother, the profile of the hill matches a lot better and the starts are bigger.”
The landing hill has been flattened out and the starting area, where skiers line up to jump, has been built up so more skiers can line up at the same time. All of that just makes training here safer, more efficient and more fun, says Jones. Her teammate Nina Lussi agrees.
“To jump here and know that it’s a really world-class venue that I would gladly jump on any day of the week," says Lussi, "that is huge for the kids, for the next generation.”
Lussi grew up in Lake Placid and now trains full-time in Europe. She says she hopes these upgrades inspires more local kids to get into the sport.
“It’s just sad looking around, I didn't realize I was one of the last on the national team left from here," says Lussi. "I hope in four, eight years that really changes.”
Lussi and the other ski jumpers have their sights set on the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing this coming February. The winter games are one of the only times most Americans are exposed to ski jumping.
Who is on that team headed to Beijing will be decided, in part, at the jumps in Lake Placid. Olympic trials for ski jumping and nordic combined, which is jumping and nordic skiing, will be held here Dec. 24-25 and broadcast on NBC.
As head of USA Nordic, Billy Demong says he hopes these new jumps can host more national and international events in the future.
“We haven’t had a World Cup for ski jumping or nordic combined in the United States since basically Salt Lake, there was one the year after. I think this is the right organization and the right area to bring that back to North America.”
The Olympic trials kick off a few years of national and international competitions in Lake Placid. The village is set to host the 2022 U.S. Biathlon National Championships, the 2023 World University Games, and the bobsled and skeleton world championships in 2025.
