By Peter Minde
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LAKE PLACID — Annika Belshaw of USA Ski Jumping (USASJ) won the women’s HS128 national ski jumping championship on Saturday afternoon, flying 112.5 meters at the Olympic Jumping Complex here in Lake Placid. Caroline Chor, a junior representing Ford Sayre, took second with a distance of 111 meters. With a jump of 106 meters, Paige Jones of USASJ was third.
On the men’s side, USASJ’s Jason Colby stunned the crowd to take the gold, flying 121 meters. Following him in second place was hometown hero Tate Frantz, repping NYSEF and USASJ with a distance of 113.5 meters. Andrew Urlaub, of USASJ and the Flying Eagles Ski Club (FESC) in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was third, jumping 104 meters.
from left, Tate Frantz, Jason Colby, and Andrew Urlaub (all photos: Peter Minde)
2025 U.S. Ski Jumping National Championships
The northeast’s continuing drought provided perfect jumping weather. As the athletes started their trial rounds, the temperature was 50 degrees (10 Celsius), with nary a cloud to be seen. At ground level, there was negligible wind. As we shall see, up on the jump, the wind played a big role today.
Unfortunately, the drought also put paid to bright autumn colors. Instead of being called the Flaming Leaves Festival, the official name for the weekend’s festivities, Just Past Peak might have been more apt.
It is at this point that readers should be informed that your correspondent, while knowledgeable in nordic skiing, is an utter newb when it comes to the nuances of ski jumping. All he knows is that one speeds down that inrun, and that the launch is a movement of explosive strength. And that one’s skis are then, hopefully, arrayed in a V position to maintain flight.
Thankfully, the MC dropped knowledge bombs during the trial round — during which one athlete threw down a staggering 127-meter jump — bringing spectators up to speed on what they were seeing.
The MC characterized Lake Placid’s jump as technically difficult, and similar to what athletes will see in Predazzo during the 2026 Winter Olympics. It’s a low-flying hill. Jumpers aren’t that far off the ground as they fly, which is actually safer for them. He discussed the intricacies of ski suit design. Fortunately, there was no replay of Norway’s suit-rigging scandal at the Trondheim World Championships. Style is important too. Simply sticking the landing is insufficient; judges want to see a solid telemark landing.
This article is a good beginning explainer on how ski jumping is scored. One may also notice that there are multiple Did Not Starts (DNS) in the results from Saturday’s second round. While the pure jumpers jump two rounds, in nordic combined athletes complete just one jump, then move onto the cross-country portion of the event. The points earned in the jump are converted into a time penalty for the cross-country race via the Gundersen method. The athlete with the best points from the ski jump starts first in the cross-country race first; the rest of the field follows in what looks like a pursuit start, with the time back reflecting performance in the jump. First athlete across the line wins.
from left, Caroline Chor, Annika Belshaw, and Paige Jones
Throughout the day there was usually a headwind, which gives jumpers more loft. When the wind changed direction, the jury would adjust the starting bar position, both for safety and to ensure a fair competition. For example, in the women’s first round, Chor flew 115.5 meters. But Belshaw, with a three meters shorter jump, gained first place overall, because she earned better style points.
In the second round, all the women launched from gate 39. The women’s launch speeds were generally faster than the men’s, with an average speed of 91.8 kilometers per hour, or 57mph. In the second jumping round, 23 men started, all further up the ramp at either gate 27 or gate 31. Only four exceeded 90 kph at launch.
Midway through the first round, Isaac Larsen of Ishpeming (MI) Ski Club had a bad midair fall, losing both skis. The wind seemed to change from blowing uphill to going across the hill at the time. Larsen collected himself and his equipment, walking out of the landing area without any overt injury. Competition was delayed as the judges discussed Larsen’s fall and what adjustments should be made.
Because of jury discussions between jumps, it’s a challenge to keep to the published schedule. Originally scheduled for 2 p.m., a writer had to skip the small hill competitions on HS10 and HS20 to cover the rollerski races at nearby Mt van Hoevenberg. Pro tip: It’s extremely cool to see little kids flying through the air.
The wind died down a bit during the men’s final round, after seven skiers had jumped. Eli Larkin’s (NYSEF) skis bobbled mid-air. He recovered, with a 105-meter jump. Later, Arthur Tirone of Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club (SSWSC) drifted to his left in midair, compensated, and came in with a smooth landing.
After a temporary disqualification in the first round, USA Ski Jumping’s Paige Jones turned in a good jump for third place. “I’m dealing with a little bit of a knee injury right now, so I’m going maybe not from comp gate,” Jones said. “My coach decided to pull me off the bar so that we can move the gate. But there was a miscommunication there, so the light turned green, and because I didn’t go, then it was considered disqualification. But they put in a formal protest, and I got overturned. So I still got to jump.”
Does something like that affect one’s mental preparation?
“I had to wait at the top for an hour, which isn’t super ideal. But this competition is really low stress, low pressure. So at the end of the day, it’s okay,” Jones said.
Tara Geraghty-Moats on course
“My jumping went all right,” said Tara Geraghty-Moats. “I haven’t had that many jumps on this HS120. Even though it’s considered my home big hill, I think I’ve had about 10 jumps on it. So I was still figuring out the hill, which was a fun challenge. I don’t think I really successfully figured it out all the way, but I had a lot of fun competing today in front of a home crowd with an amazing group of athletes.”
“It was fun to compete at home,” said Frantz of NYSEF afterward. “Back in the U.S. and back at home for me, so super chill, low stress, but fun to be out here.”
Does one have a plan in ski jumping?
“You have kind of a plan in your head, in a way you like to do things, especially on a competition day. So [I] just try and keep it as simple as possible,” Frantz said. “But, you know, work on the things you’ve been working on.”
Regarding the day’s changing wind patterns, Frantz said, “I wouldn’t say as much between the first and second [round] but from person to person, it varied quite a bit. And so it’s just kind of a little bit of a, you win some, you lose some, situation.”
Seth Rothschild of Park City Ski and Snowboard (PCSS) on his jumps: “It was a good trial round. I had lots of wind on my first round. So it felt really good to get out a little bit further over the hill. The wind was a little iffy, and conditions were messing with my head, but I came out pretty decent for my first nationals.”
With the HS128 ski jumping championship in the book, the nordic combined athletes repaired to Mount van Hoevenberg.
from left, Stephen Schumann, Ben Loomis, and Carter Brubaker
Where the rubber meets the road: 2025 U.S. Nordic Combined National Championships
The HS128 rounds ended so late that instead of grabbing a restorative espresso, a writer drove straight to Mount van Hoevenberg, arriving minutes before the rollerski race portion of the women’s nordic combined championship. Unlike last month’s sprints held at the same venue, the nordic combined races used Mount van Ho’s whole 1,500-meter rollerski loop.
The women went out first in a “five-kilometer” race (really more like 4.5km), followed by the men skiing 7.5km. They raced a pursuit format: the jumping winners went out first. Pursuers followed at intervals calculated by their percent-back in jumping results. Although Chor was slated to start first, she didn’t compete in the rollerski portion of the day; Alexa Brabec went out first.
Tara Geraghty-Moats, the first ever women’s nordic combined World Cup overall winner, quickly made up a 17-second deficit after starting in third place out of four women. By the top of the big climb she had approximately a 15-second gap over the other three racers, which she held to the finish. Brabec (NCUSA) came in second, with Annika Malacinski (NCUSA) finishing third.
Ben Loomis (NCUSA) won the men’s nordic combined national championship in a hard-fought 7.5 kilometer race. Stephen Schumann (NCUSA) was second, followed by Carter Brubaker (NCUSA).
“For today’s [rollerski] race, I didn’t really know how fast the other girls were compared to me at all,” Geraghty-Moats said. “My goal was to catch up to them and have a good race with them, and hopefully cross the finish line first. So that worked out really well, but it was so fun to be competing again in Lake Placid.”
This year marks Geraghty-Moats’s return to nordic combined after spending the last few years focused on biathlon, and she’s finding a balance between the two. She skis biathlon for the National Guard Biathlon Team and is “technically repping NYSEF” in nordic combined.
Asked about her plans for this winter, Geraghty-Moats said, “I’m definitely going to do biathlon. I have to talk to the national team coaches of nordic combined and then my military coaches in biathlon, and make a good plan, but that’ll happen in the next couple of weeks, and we’ll kind of decide a good plan for me that everyone thinks will produce some fun and exciting competitions.”
This writer first met Geraghty-Moats in July 2019 at the Whiteface Sky Race. In a trail running event she’d not previously raced — 15.2 miles, with two trips up Whiteface Mountain and 8,000 feet of vertical — she came in fourth. Last winter, Geraghty-Moats organized a GoFundMe so that the women competing in the Lake Placid ski jumping World Cup would have prize money equal to the men. Full disclosure, this writer thinks Geraghty-Moats is a total badass.
Arthur Tirone, front, leads Erik Lynch on course
For the men, Niklas Malacinski of Nordic Combined USA (NCUSA) started first. Starting second, Ben Loomis (NCUSA) made up a six-second deficit by the top of the omega portion of the course, and the two maintained a slight gap ahead of Tirone (SSWSC) and Stephen Schumann (NCUSA). On the second lap, Loomis led Malacinski over top of the big climb. Schumann and Carter Brubaker (NCUSA) were a couple seconds back.
On lap three, Malacinski was back in front of Loomis at the highest point of the omega. As the two climbed the big hill, Schumann bridged up to them. Brubaker was just a second back.
When they charged up the big climb on lap four, it was Loomis leading Schumann and Brubaker as Malacinski had fallen back.
Afterwards, Loomis said, “[Malacinski and I] talked a little bit before the race, and we were just going to try and help each other out and go from there. So we just tried to switch off the first few laps, and I was feeling good, so I kind of just put a little gap on from there.”
Reflecting on his jump, Carter Brubaker said, “It was windy today. There were a lot of wind holes. And, you know, the wind was swirling quite a bit. So it was a little bit of a lottery at times for the wind. But I think the venue did a great job to try to make the competition as fair as possible.”
On his rollerski race, Brubaker recounted, “I started right behind Stephen [Schumann], and the plan at the beginning was to go out right with him, try to make up those five seconds right away. But he was just too strong today, and so I was just trying to ski my own race and slowly chip away those seconds every lap. And yeah, really happy with how it turned out.”
The link below goes to the race results for the HS128 results and nordic combined championship start list. Final results for the nordic combined rollerski race haven’t been published, to the author’s knowledge.
Nordic Combined and Jumping: Returning From the Wilderness?
Longtime readers may recall that USSS cut most funding for nordic combined following the 2014 Winter Olympics. If one goes to the nordic combined page on the USSS “teams” website, one is redirected to nordiccombinedusa.org. It’s the same with ski jumping: one is redirected to USAskijumping. Every other discipline on this page is hosted (and financially supported) by USSS.
“We’re built around one common goal,” writes USSS on this webpage. “To provide the best resources for athletes who are inspired to be the Best in the World.”
start ’em young
Stephanie Wilson, a SSWSC parent and NCUSA board member, was in the spectator area. She took a break from helping little kids onto a kind of reverse rollerboard so they could launch themselves into the air.
“U.S. Ski & Snowboard is the national governing body for both ski jumping and nordic combined,” Wilson explained. “But both of those sports also have their own separate leadership organization that manage all the funding, because they don’t receive direct funding from the U.S. Ski Team. So USASJ is the organization that funds the ski jumping program. And NCUSA is the organization that funds nordic combined.”
On the relationship between the two bodies: “It has become a much more collaborative relationship in the last number of years,” Wilson said.
“Previous to cutting nordic combined, they had cut ski jumping; I don’t remember the year. They had cut funding for ski jumping, and they cut Nordic combined right after some pretty significant success.”
(At the 2010 Winter Olympics, Bill Demong and Johnny Spillane took gold and silver respectively in the individual large hill/10 km event. Spillane took silver in the normal hill/10 km. In the large hill/team relay, the USA took silver. These were the USA’s first Olympic medals in a nordic discipline since Bill Koch in 1976.)
“That was the most medals ever won in the sport by U.S. skiers, but that group of skiers retired, and unfortunately, it’s just a matter of funding,” Wilson remarked matter-of-factly.
“In an ideal world, you’d invest a ton in development. When you look at your resources and you’re trying to allocate them as efficiently as possible, they’re focused on medal potential, and at that point they didn’t feel like there was medal potential, so they cut funding for the sport, [and] that hurts the development pipeline eventually.”
Wilson reiterated that USSS had been pulled in multiple directions by the number of disciplines versus funding available to support them. “Like I said, in an ideal world, [USSS] would want to fund development. But when there’s only so much money to go around, they have to focus on where they see the most opportunity to get medals.
“Nordic Combined USA is trying to invest in the development pipeline while also supporting the U.S. national team athletes. It’s a tall order to raise enough funds to do all that well, but our community has been outstanding. Our donors have really bought into what we’re doing as far as supporting the national team. You need to let them have the most success they can have, and you need to provide really, as we look at it, heroes for these little kids to look up to, while also, at the same time, investing in the pipeline and working with the younger National Development Group and trying to help nurture the next generation of national team athletes.”
Liam Demong on course
At Mount van Ho, Bill Demong, he of the 2010 gold medal, excused himself to give his son, Liam, some warmup advice before speaking with a reporter. The generation of nordic combined athletes that cleaned up in Vancouver had a winding road to that Olympic success.
“It was really interesting to be part of a generation of athletes that were brought onto the team at a young age in 1996, and we all moved to Steamboat Springs,” Demong said. “We competed in multiple Olympic Games. But the journey wasn’t succinct or straightforward. It definitely took us four Olympics to get there. And, you know, certainly leaving Vancouver, I had a lot of desire to continue the legacy. And unfortunately, I think in modern amateur sports, it’s all very results-based. And so when we came up short in Sochi in 2014, USSS decided to basically cut the funding for nordic combined.”
Like Wilson, Demong described a “resource-constrained environment.”
“It’s easy to forget that nothing is fully funded well in this country, in amateur sports. And I’m sure it was a tough decision to make, and it was a tough decision to sit with.” After USSS cut loose nordic combined, Demong was among those who founded USA Nordic, a precursor to Nordic Combined USA.
“We have a lot more athletes training at a young age,” Demong continued. “I think the quality is coming back up, especially on the ski jumping side. But nordic combined is reinventing their system, and we’ve got some really, really strong, talented athletes in the pipeline.”
Asked about funding, Demong said that it is privately raised by those organizations. “There’s recently been a new partnership between USSS and these organizations to share in some of the sponsors’ money,” he said. “And having been in the trenches, especially the last decade, it’s a good reminder to take the long view. You have to keep the pressure on and do the work. I think it’s going to be an interesting time.”
Ella Wilson on course
As his son skied by, Demong continued, “You know, [Liam is] super geared up and excited about this sport, and he’s got a lot of athletes in his age group. Probably the biggest group of Nordic combined athletes that have come through the United States in generations. And so it’ll be really interesting to see how this all comes together.”
On the number of juniors competing in nordic combined, Demong said, “I don’t know the statistics of the last couple years, because I don’t think anybody’s tracking. But during my tenure at USA Nordic, we did track, not only the U.S., but other countries. And 2010 was the low. Through 2022 the number of participants increased by over 300% and it was still not a huge number, but it was about 1,200 athletes in the United States that were participating in a paid program. Actually showing up and training, not just trying it out once or twice.
“So we tracked that number. Even though that’s not a big number compared to other ski disciplines like cross country or alpine, we were the third largest country in the world. So Russia and Norway have significantly more, like 2,000 or more athletes. The U.S. was third at 1,200, and quite a bit bigger than some of the countries that you think of as the big competitors. Germany had about 800 at that point, Austria had only 500 or 600. Japan has a very — it’s almost not a pyramid, it’s just a skyscraper — they have less than 300 athletes perennially training.”
Will we see American nordic combined athletes on an Olympic podium in 2030 or 2034? One never knows, but it won’t be for a lack of effort.
Some videos from the weekend:
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