Randall was on a fact-finding mission, met with ICG committee members in an official capacity and took part in the closing ceremony when Jerusalem handed the ICG flag to the next host cities: Lake Placid for the 2019 winter games and Ufa, Russia for the 2019 summer games.

The 2019 Winter International Children’s Games will be held from Jan. 6 to 11 at venues in Lake Placid and Wilmington. They expect about 800 athletes to travel here from around the world to compete in alpine skiing (giant slalom, parallel slalom), freestyle skiing (giant slalom, parallel slalom), snowboarding (slopestyle, snowboard cross), cross-country skiing (classic, sprint, relay), biathlon (sprint, relay), ice hockey (boys and girls), figure skating (short program, free skating program) and speedskating (long track and short track).

Randall spoke with the News on Aug. 7 about his trip to Jerusalem and the upcoming games in Lake Placid.

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Lake Placid News: Tell us about your trip to Israel.

Craig Randall: The purpose of the trip was to observe the organization of the games as it was assembled by the city of Jerusalem’s people and to help broaden our understanding of how these events are conducted. The International Children’s Games is an international organization and it awards summer games every year to various cities around the world. Many of them are in Asia and Europe, the Middle East. …

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LPN: You were part of the closing ceremony. Tell us about that experience.

CR: There’s a custom with these events that the International Children’s Games flag and the torch, when they are extinguished, just like an Olympic event, they are passed on to the next community or city where the next event would be.

There was a little bit of confusion with this particular event in Jerusalem because the flag and the torch mistakenly got passed on to Ufa, Russia, who will be hosting the next summer games for the children in 2019. … The winter games are traditionally held every second or third year, and I think for that reason maybe the Jerusalem organizers were a little bit confused at what was coming next.

But Lake Placid was on the stage, and regardless of the confusion over the flag and the extinguishing of the torch and its delivery to Lake Placid, I was able to give a short address to the audience that evening which was all of the children that were competing plus many of the VIP members. I was talking a little bit about Lake Placid and what we expected to be able to welcome them with this coming January.

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LPN: What kind of lessons did you learn from your trip?

CR: I often get asked, “How does a village of 2,500 residents manage to conduct itself with world-class events all the time?” And I say, “It’s very, very easy.” We have qualified people in all the right places. We have ORDA, who manages the venues and operates them. Everybody that we talk to in Europe, when we’re talking about bringing an event here, is often surprised to find out that we have management in place at each of our venues each and every day of the year. … That is something that many cities don’t have, so they have to build that organization.

When we were in Almaty in Kazakhstan (for the Winter Universiade 2017), I noticed the same thing. The city that is putting on and conducting the event, as we will be here in January, they have to build organizations to do a lot of the stuff.

Lake Placid is very, very fortunate in that we have strong venue management. We have strong tourism facilities with ROOST. They are very capable and experienced at bringing large groups of people into the village and making them comfortable. And I think, most important, Lake Placid has a good, strong volunteer spirit and base that makes putting on these events work easily for us. It is not that easy in other areas of the world. They actually have to build organizations to do what we have done very successfully over many, many years.

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LPN: Whether we host another Olympics or not, there are these other international competitions that we can do. Talk to us about that a little bit.

CR: The idea that Lake Placid could ever host a Winter Olympic Games again, as we understand it today, it’s grown to be a very large event that has well outgrown the capacity of Lake Placid or even the near region. However, I would never say never. I think it’s quite possible that there will be a time when someone will suggest that we can partner with others.

I can envision something where maybe – and I think the governor has actually used this term – there might be a New York state Winter Olympics. We could be partnered up with other cities in New York state that have facilities that would spread it out so that the impact on us would probably be … we’d be more focused on the sliding events and the skiing events than we would the ice events.

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LPN: Like a cluster is what they call it, right?

CR: Exactly. And the reason that becomes possible now is that the IOC in recent years has recognized the problem that cities have. It becomes very controversial when taxpayers have to support the development of Olympic venues for an Olympic event. The idea of partnering was something that the IOC has recognized – there’s a need for, if they’re going to continue to host Olympic Games, whether it be summer or winter, they have to allow that to spread out. So the IOC platform starting 2020 allows for cross-border Olympic games. For example, we could be partnered with a Montreal or a Quebec City. Or, in deference to our own country and our own state, we could be partnered up with New York City or Albany/Saratoga or Rochester. Some of these are cities that have indicated to me as a mayor that if a time comes, and there’s an appropriate time to bid, that there would be interest in something like that. …

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LPN: Realistically, what can we do as far as international games?

CR: The children’s games is a size and has a budget that is very comfortable for Lake Placid to address. Even the Winter University Games, which will follow, it’s a much larger budget and a much bigger event, is still of a size that we can accommodate in the region. … Let’s face it, we’re a small village, so from a budget standpoint we’re not capable of committing to these things without developing partnerships with other people. If you’re speaking to the people who are organizing these events, you will learn that the partnership that Lake Placid has is with ORDA in particular, which means it’s a partnership with the state of New York. And without those resources, we would not be in a position to do much of what we’re doing.

On the other hand, the good part is we have all the venues, and ORDA manages them and operates them and that’s a big part of organizing an event like this. So it’s very appealing to folks overseas that are trying to find places for their events to be hosted. Lake Placid is in a position to offer them everything that they would be looking for.

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LPN: What’s next for Lake Placid?

CR: My objective now will be to continue to promote the children’s games until they arrive in January. I’d like our community to be as thoroughly familiar with what these games represent. The value is in what it leaves for our young people.

Again, I’m going to speak a little bit about the 16 or so young people we took to Innsbruck a couple of years ago in 2016 and how they co-mingle with children from other cities around the world, different cultures, different understandings of each other.

Somehow, when all of these children come together and they’re competing together and they’re engaged in some educational opportunities that come along with the games, they find out they’re not different. They find out that overall our teenagers will be teenagers regardless where they come from around the world. They appreciate good music. They appreciate the opportunity to have an event where they could compete.

And we have to remember, too, this is one of the early events that allows our young people that may ultimately aspire to be Olympians, it allows them to begin to get on to the international stage in terms of competing with other people from other parts of the world. In my mind, it is a very rewarding experience. I have thank-you notes from all of the 16 students that we took in 2016 to Innsbruck, and they all were inspired and were very interested in having us bring this event here to the U.S.