Paige Jones flies through the air during the Lake Placid Continental Cup on March 26 at the Olympic Jumping Complex. (News photo — Parker O’Brien)

LAKE PLACID — The United States and Norway will not only be ski jumping together, but looking to grow the sport as a whole in Lake Placid.

USA Nordic Sport and Norges Hopplandslaget, the ski jumping governing bodies from the United States and Norway, respectively, announced on Aug. 24 that a partnership had been formed to advance the sport worldwide. The partnership, which was approved by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, is designed to elevate training, coaching and athlete performance in ski jumping.

“Under the agreement, the teams will train together and will have several camps in the U.S. throughout the year in both summer and winter, which will include the Norwegian and women’s teams,” USA Nordic Sport Board of Directors Chairman Tom Bickner said.

The U.S. and Norwegian national teams will share sport science and work together to establish and secure global sponsors to back the unified teams as they train to compete for FIS Championships and the Winter Olympic games medals. The agreement spans up to four years and will be governed by a formal charter and an oversight committee.

With the renovations to the Olympic Jumping Complex in Lake Placid — which have made the ski jumps usable in both winter and summer — more ski jumpers are expected to train here.

“We see the improvements we’ve made to Lake Placid, and it makes it the finest training facility in the country, so we want to utilize that,” Bickner said. “We have a very supportive staff at Lake Placid that wants us there, that is bending over backward to make it easy for us to train there and support us and our athletes. We see this as an opportunity to train there even more with the collaboration agreement.”

While USA Nordic Sport is based in Park City, Utah, Bickner said they want to have more of an organizational presence in Lake Placid. He added that the organization is actively searching for someone to help develop a coaching staff in Lake Placid.

“We want to designate Lake Placid as our official training center. Those discussions are in the works right now,” Bickner said.

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Norway’s impact

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Ski jumping was first introduced in Norway in the 19th century and made its Olympic debut at the 1924 Winter Olympic Games. Since the sport was included in the Olympic program, Norway has won a combined 36 Olympic medals, while the U.S. has just one.

“(Norway) is sort of the one that created the sport of ski jumping and they are a great group to work with,” Bickner said. “They are so dedicated to the sport and the future of the sport. They want to be viewed as the most important country in the ski jumping community.

“Putting aside medals and putting aside their success and podiums, they’re focused on having more — particularly large nations — relevance in the standings,” he added. “Right now, the podiums in World Cups and competitions are weighted towards six of the top nations or the strongest nations and have been for several years, right now. To ensure the future of the sport.”

The goal for the U.S. with the collaboration is to make the sport more relevant and exciting for a younger audience.

Bickner said the International Olympic Committee likes to see more participation from more nations in each sport. The IOC has emphasized this point, particularly in June when the organization said the long-term Olympic future of Nordic Combined — a sport that combines ski jumping with cross-country skiing — wasn’t guaranteed to be in the 2030 Winter Olympics unless the organization sees a larger global audience and more countries sending athletes to compete in the sport.

While the collaboration agreement is just with the ski jumping team, according to Bickner, the agreement allows Nordic combined athletes to attend all of the training camps for ski jumping that are in the U.S.

“The Norwegians view (the collaboration) as helping the U.S.,” Bickner said. “Upping someone with such a huge population and a big market, helping them to start challenging on the podium helps the sport overall.”

Bickner said it was natural for Norway to pick the U.S.

“We’ve always had a match in our cultures in our philosophies and have worked well together in the past but never anything officially,” Bickner said. “This collaboration makes it more of an official arrangement.”

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Events in Lake Placid

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While the collaboration is expected to help grow ski jumping in the U.S., major ski jumping events could also draw in a larger audience.

Lake Placid, which hosted the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for both ski jumping and Nordic combined in December 2021 and a Continental Cup in March, is expected to bring in more events.

“I’ll actually be up in Lake Placid next week,” Bickner said. “For meetings regarding a World Cup, we are trying to schedule for February next year. We’ll further those discussions.”

Bickner said there hasn’t been a World Cup in the U.S. for Ski Jumping in around three decades.

He said while they are only investigating a World Cup at the moment, the meeting will involve USA Nordic Sport, FIS and the state Olympic Regional Development Authority.

Bickner said they will discuss the logistics, the costs, the budgets, the rights and all of that stuff to see if they can pull it off because World Cups are extremely expensive to put on.

“I’d say, I’m very optimistic that we can make it happen,” Bickner said. “We’ve been through the process before. Lake Placid is a great organization to put on a World Cup. They’ve got a lot of great people there that know what to do. So we’re comfortable where we can pull it off it’s just making sure the numbers shake out right.”

While the World Cup isn’t guaranteed to happen, Bickner said if they are able to bring one to Lake Placid, there will be a lot of positives that can come out of it.

“This is a huge opportunity for us to gain an audience to expose the rest of the U.S. to the sport and to train and build a fan base and a sponsorship base,” Bickner said.