In January, thousands of athletes and their coaches and families and fans will flood into Lake Placid for the 2023 World University Games, one of the biggest sporting events to come to the village in decades.
Those games sparked massive investment in Lake Placid in recent years. The state, through the Olympic Regional Development, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into renovating the Olympic venues in the area. The games also sparked the imaginations of people like Rebecca Dayton.
“Obviously as we were renovating everything and we’ve been preparing for the World University Games, the next question is what comes after that?”
Dayton manages the Olympic ski jumps in Lake Placid. She says the dream was to host a World Cup, maybe in a few years.
But then, about a month ago, they got news. The venue in Michigan that was supposed to host the World Cup stopover in the US this winter had to pull out. Dayton says the International Ski Federation turned to folks in Lake Placid to see if they could be ready.
“We were thrilled when they reached out to us and we spent the last month working hard to put it all together so we were really excited when everyone said yes," said Dayton.
The event will start three weeks after the World University Games wrap up. It’s not going to be as big, Dayton expects about 150 athletes, but a World Cup event is a big deal in the sport of ski jumping.
“The World Cup is the weekly competition that takes place every winter that prepares you for World Championships and Olympic events," said Dayton. "It’s the gold standard of competition.”
The World Cup and World University Games are part of a bigger push to put Lake Placid back on the map, to make it one of the go-to places for international sporting events. And that effort is already well underway.
Last winter, the village hosted Olympic trials for ski jumping and Nordic combined. Those were broadcast on NBC. The World University Games will air on ESPN. The World Cup is expected to be broadcast nationally as well, putting Lake Placid on the map for viewers around the country.
This story comes from North Country Public Radio, a news service located in Canton, NY.