In a sport that can trace its origins to almost 10,000 years ago, 18 years may not seem like much. However, when Gregor Linsig and Corby Fisher started the Springer Tournee 18 years ago, this year’s winners of the Large Hill National Championships, Taylor Henrich and Will Rhoads were each only three years old. Over the years Springer has evolved into the largest Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined event in the country, with nearly 150 competitors ranging from age six to age 30, and is now named in honor of Jindro Mayer. This year the majority of these competitors were on the smaller hills, and our sport is seeing a surge of young talent. Parents who were out there watching or helping to mark distances can attest to how many skiers there were, as the hot afternoon turned into evening and the competitions ran well past the scheduled end time.
Springer Tournee is much more than just a competition. It is really a week long camp that provides the opportunity for young athletes from across the US to train together, try new hills, and have some fun at the same time. This year, as with the past few years, the week began with National Testing Day, where US National Team Athletes from Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined led younger athletes in training on the hills and then culminated the day by testing of each athlete in a number of activities. This is done as a fun but important activity to be able to show progress from year to year. Many thanks to Alan Alborn for organizing this, and to all the coaches and National Team Athletes that helped make the day a success.
After lots of jumping and activities off the hill, the week finished with a welcomed thunderstorm that cooled things off for the roller ski and running races at Soldier Hollow, where Taylor Fletcher earned his first National Championship. Nearly as exciting was the fact that there were over 60 Nordic Combined athletes, of which nearly 15 were young women, in a sport where historically there have been very few.
Overall the week was a resounding success! The largest challenge was the time it took to complete the small hill competitions. Unfortunately, they ran into the Fundraising Gala for Women’s Ski Jumping, which was a shame. However, this was due to the fact that there were so many youth jumping, which is a good problem to have. Now our challenge as a sport is to keep all this great energy going and keep these kids in the sport.
Thank you to the parents, coaches, officials, and Utah Olympic Park Staff, for all the time and effort to pull this event off. Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined have so many great volunteers that make these events possible and we cannot thank you enough.
By: Jed Hinkley, Sport Development Director
A full list of results can be found here: https://usaskijumping.com/results/
