The Olympics, only close to home....

At the end of August, I took a short trip to Lake Placid, N.Y. to visit some Olympic sites from the Winter Olympics of 1932 and 1980. This is the column that appeared in Salmon Press Newspapers in the week following the trip and I thought I'd share it here.

As anyone who has read these pages over the years probably knows, I am a big Olympics guy. I’ve had the honor of covering six Olympic Games over the last 12 years, four Winter Games and two Summer Games. Even before I got those credentials for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, I loved watching them on television.

All those things considered, it’s pretty surprising that I had never been to the Olympic venues that are physically closest to where I live. My recent trip to Los Angeles allowed me to see some of the venues being used in two years (and some that were used in 1984) and I’ve also seen places in Atlanta that hosted the Games in 1996.

But until last Monday, I had never been to Lake Placid, the two-time Winter Olympics host in upstate New York. I had an unusual Monday off from the bakery so Sunday night I pointed the car west and made my way across Vermont, over Lake Champlain and on to Lake Placid. Before I left I made the decision to purchase the Lake Placid Legacy Sites Passport, which got me free admission to different venues, discounts at merchandise and concession stands and discounts on certain attractions.

I started Monday by heading just outside Lake Placid to Whiteface, the host of alpine skiing during the 1980 Olympics. It was dreary and cloudy, so I was pretty sure I was not going to have much of a view from the summit of Whiteface. However, the gondola ride was included on the passport, so I got on the earliest ride to the top at 8:30 a.m. and made my way up into the clouds. I could see the surrounding area for most of the trip up, but the summit was socked in pretty good so it wasn’t a terribly long stay on the summit.

From there, I made my way back into town for a 10 a.m. tour at the US Olympic and Paralympic Training Center. After a quick trip around the facilities where many Olympic athletes train I headed downtown to the Olympic Center in the middle of town. That facility included the outdoor speedskating rink (right in front of the high school), the original 1932 ice rink and the infamous rink where the Miracle on Ice occurred during the 1980 Olympics. It also included the Olympic Museum, which had the admission covered on the passport.

From there, I headed to the other side of town and the Olympic Ski Jumping Center. The passport granted me a ride up the gondola to the base of the jump and then there was an elevator ride up the ski jump to the top. I have been to the top of the ski jumps in Albany and Plymouth and I’ve been to a few different Olympic ski jumps, but this was the first time I had stood at the top of an Olympic jump. It was pretty cool, if I do say myself.

My final stop of the day was at Mount Van Hoevenberg, which hosted the sliding sports along with biathlon and cross-country skiing at the 1980 Olympics. The passport got me a discount on a ride on the Cliffside Coaster, which brought me up the mountain and then back down along part of the former bobsled course, which has since been redone and moved up to modern standards. Luckily the rain held off (for the most part) and I was able to finish out my day without getting soaked.

As I headed home, I started counting and realized that I had seen almost as many Olympic venues in my one day in Lake Placid as I did over the course of two-plus weeks in Italy for the Milan-Cortina Olympics. I also came away impressed that such a small community could host a big event like the Olympics. Yes, I know the Olympics were a bit smaller back then, but I’ve seen what is needed to host the Olympics and being able to do it in a relatively small community is pretty impressive. Would I love to see the Olympics return to Lake Placid? Sure, but I don’t know if it is completely reasonable.


In late August, I headed to Lake Placid to see some historic Olympic sites.

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