Ski Jumping World Cup to be held this weekend in Lake Placid | News, Sports, Jobs

Last year’s event saw the village host a World Cup ski jumping competition for the first time since 1990, with a total audience of 15,000 over the weekend, 8,000 on Saturday and 7,000 on Sunday. Darcy Norfolk, communications manager for the state Olympic Regional Development Authority, said there won’t be as many spectators at this year’s event, but there will still be spectators. “We have a very large audience.”

As of Tuesday, Norfolk said it expected Friday’s attendance to be about 2,500 people and Saturday and Sunday crowds to be between 5,000 and 6,000. Norfolk noted that number could increase by the end of this week.

The Polish-American community was particularly well-represented last year, with large groups traveling from the New York metro, Chicago, Cleveland, Montreal, Toronto, Las Vegas, and other parts of the world. Mr. Norfolk said that ORDA is continuing its marketing efforts in the Polish region of the United States, and expects a large number of Polish-Americans to be dispatched this year as well, but that the concentration of Poles will not be as high as last year. He said he did not know.

“Poles have not done very well on the ski jumping (World Cup) circuit this year.” she said. “So no matter how well they’re doing, it’s up to the fan base how they rate them.”

Currently, Poland’s top ski jumper is Aleksander Zníszczor, who is ranked 23rd in the World Cup ski jumping standings with 131 points. Dawid Kubacki and Piotr Zyla, who won last year’s Super Team competition in Lake Placid, are currently in 25th and 26th place, respectively.

Lake Placid is one of the stopovers on the World Cup Tour, which begins in Finland on November 11 and concludes in March with the traditional FIS Ski Flying Final in Planica, Slovenia.

Austria’s Stefan Kraft leads the World Cup standings with 1,129 points. Germany’s Andreas Wellinger took second place with 951 points, and Japan’s Ryosuke Kobayashi took third place with 896 points.

Lake Placid native Tate Franz, who leads the United States in the World Cup standings with 14 points and ranks 45th overall, will not compete this weekend. Instead, Franz, who made his Ski Jumping World Cup debut in Lake Placid last year, will compete at the FIS Nordic Junior World Ski Championships in Slovenia.

Andrew Erlaub, Casey Larson, Decker Dean and Kevin Bickner will represent the United States in Lake Placid. All four athletes competed in Willingen, Germany last weekend.

The competition, which will be held on HS 128 jumps, will begin with qualifying rounds Friday at 5 p.m. On Saturday, the first individual competition will take place at 8:15 a.m., followed by the super team competition at 5 p.m. The event concludes with his second individual competition at 8 a.m. Sunday.

New this year is the Stifel Snow Bird Days Festival, featuring live music by Fritz Polka Band and DJ Trizz during competition breaks and before and after the event.

Last year’s World Cup in Lake Placid was the first time the Ski Jumping World Cup was held in the United States since 2004. The village hosted the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup for eight consecutive years from 1983 to his 1990. This includes upgrading the jumping surface and reshaping the landing hill to meet the latest international standards required to host FIS World Cup level events.

“This has become one of our most popular events and we’re excited to have everyone flocking to our venue for a regional and international audience.” Norfolk said. “We are excited to bring this opportunity to North America and Lake Placid in general.”

Those interested can purchase tickets at http://tinyurl.com/te2y3kjx.