Lake Placid lands women’s ski jump world cup | News, Sports, Jobs

Austria’s Hannah Wiegele competes in a women’s FIS Continental Cup Ski Jumping event in Lake Placid on March 26, 2022.
(Enterprise photo — Parker O’Brien)

LAKE PLACID — After hosting back-to-back men’s FIS Ski Jumping World Cups, this village is slated to add a women’s ski jumping World Cup to its pre-existing men’s competition.

The event has been a big priority for USA Nordic and the state Olympic Regional Development Authority, according to Anders Johnson, the ski jumping and Nordic combined sport director for USA Nordic.

The Feb. 7 to 9, 2025 event at the Olympic Jumping Complex will mark the first-ever North American stop on the annual ski jumping tour, which debuted in December 2011. The ski jumping World Cup will still hold men’s competitions in addition to a mixed team event.

“We’ve been wanting women ever since we’ve been hosting it,” ORDA Communications Director Darcy Norfolk said. “We think it’s great for the sport and obviously great for women.”

The ski jumping World Cup will be a part of the ORDA’s 2024-25 event calendar, according to Norfolk.

The calendar also includes the return of the FIS Freestyle Aerials World Cup to the Olympic Jumping Complex on Jan. 18 to 19, 2025, as well as the IBSF Bobsled and Skeleton World Championships from March 6-16, 2025 at the Olympic Sports Complex.

Since hosting two FIS Ski Jumping World Cups in Lake Placid, those events have been seen as a massive success in the eyes of ORDA. The first event had a total spectator attendance for the weekend of 15,000 — predominately Polish-Americans.

In February, that number did hit a slight drop because of the Polish athletes’ results, but was still well above 10,000.

“They knocked it out of the park (the first year),” Johnson said. “Year two was really about establishing a one-off (thing). They proved that they had the capability to host a high-level professional event. They wanted to make sure it was a viable options to include the women’s program into, which it is.”

Lake Placid is one of the many stops on the World Cup tour that will begin in Lillehammer, Norway, with both disciplines on Nov. 22. Johnson said about half of the FIS World Cup events feature both men’s and women’s disciplines.

“I think that’s the strategic trajectory for FIS in the future — to have the men’s and women’s coincide more frequently,” he said.

Despite having never hosted a women’s ski jumping World Cup, the U.S. was on the forefront of growing the women’s side of the event in terms of participation but also hosting events, according to Johnson. Lake Placid even played host to the first-ever Continental Cup.

While the village has continued to host women’s ski jumping Continental Cups, those events are at a much smaller scale than the World Cup, which has only ever been hosted in Europe and Asia.

“The U.S. has a long history of being involved in supporting the development of women’s ski jumping and now that it’s been a number of years, we’ve kind of fallen off in that term,” Johnson said. “To have women included in it this year, is not only big for our team, but also the grass roots of development teams and clubs around the country to see that our top female athletes have something to strive and compete in one day.”

While the World Cup teams are far from official, the current women’s national ski jumping team feautres Annika Belshaw, of Steamboat Springs, Sandra Sproch of Chicago, Illinois, Estella Hassrick of Madison, Wisconsin and Park City, Utah natives Paige Jones, Sam Macuga and Josie Johnson.

The men’s national team includes Lake Placid’s Tate Frantz, Casey Larson of Barrington, Illinois, Andrew Urlaub of Eau Claire, Wisconsin and Steamboat Springs residents Erik Belshaw, Jason Colby and Decker Dean.

Johnson said the athletes are excited to compete on home soil, especially since most ski jumping competitions are held in Europe.

“For our national team athletes that have been doing this for a number of years, competing on the World Circuit, World Champions, Olympics, they don’t have very many opportunities to compete at home in front of their friends and family on a home hill,” he said.

The first major event on ORDA’s calendar includes the UCI Mountain Biking World Series from Sept. 27 to 29 at the Olympic Sports Complex. The next large-scaled event will be the aerials World Cup.

Lake Placid was a regular stop on the World Cup circuit since 1985, but hasn’t held an aerials World Cup since 2019. The village hosted a NorAm Aerials competition at the Olympic Jumping Complex on March 1 and 2. That event included young aerials athletes — not on the World Cup tour — from mostly the U.S. and Canada.

Lake Placid is one of only eight destinations for the 2024/25 FIS Aerials World Cup. The event will feature individual competitions for men and women and a mixed team event.