Sometimes snow is a good thing — like when it brings dozens of Olympic hopefuls to a small Connecticut town in late February — along with their families, friends and trainers.
The Town of Salisbury landed the Junior Olympics this year for the first time in the 30-year history of the event. The awarding of the championships was a coup for a town with nearly a century of ski jumping history that spent the past year raising $700,000 to rebuild its historic ski jump.
“It is a big deal for a little town like Salisbury,” said Willie Hallihan, a director on the board of the Salisbury Winter Sports Association.
The specific Junior Olympic event coming to Salisbury is the Jumping Nordic Combined championships, a competition that sends participants down a 65-meter hill before they cross country ski. The event is expected to draw nearly 100 participants and bring more than 2,000 people to the town from Feb. 22-26.
The Junior Olympics comes on top of Salisbury’s annual Jumpfest, a three-day event highlighting the town’s 85-year history of ski jumping. The annual tradition, which this year runs Feb. 11-13, attracts more than 2,000 people for a variety of winter festivities including ski jumping competitions.
For a town with a population of 3,986, having two events in February bringing in more than 4,000 people is quite the boost to business and the local community, Salisbury First Selectman Curtis Rand said. The town is publicizing the Junior Olympics in New York City, Boston and Albany to attract people to northwest Connecticut.
John Farra, the Nordic director for the United States Ski and Snowboard Association, said the decision to come to Salisbury was an easy one. It was time for the event to rotate to the East Coast; Salisbury has a strong history of ski jumping and a top-notch club, the Salisbury Winter Sports Association, plus a new metal jump.
The 65-meter metal jump had to be built in less than a year and required $700,000. The town approved a $140,000 line of credit on a vote of 141-2. The Salisbury Bank and Trust Co. helped provide the money necessary while the jump was constructed and the funds were raised. In addition to collecting donations, the bank also contributed $5,000 toward the effort.
“It is part of what makes Salisbury unique,” said Richard Cantele, Salisbury Bank president and CEO.
Churchill Brothers, LLC in Sharon began the construction work by tearing down the old wooden jump.
Construction of a metal ski jump normally takes more than two years, and the Salisbury jump had the added complications of a steep hill and a remote location, said Rafe Churchill, co-owner of Churchill Brothers. Still, the 15-employee construction firm was happy to take on the challenge.
“This is going to be a great thing for the community,” Churchill said. “As an economic boost in the dead of winter, we could all use that.”
Ski jumping in Salisbury started in the 1920s when Norwegian immigrant John Satre showed off the sport of his homeland by skiing down the roof of a barn. The residents were so inspired that they helped him build a jump on what became known as Satre Hill, the location of the current ski jump.
The sport remained strong in Salisbury through the 1956 Olympics when town native Roy Sherwood participated in the ski jumping event, placing 36th. At one point or another, all of the ski jumpers from America’s team that participated in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver jumped off the Salisbury jump, including Bill Demong, who won a gold medal in the Nordic combined event at the games.
