Ticket to Fly: Ski Jumping & Nordic Combined Podcast

Steamboat Springs native Taylor Fletcher claimed a spot on his fourth Olympic team with a win in the Christmas Day Olympic Trials in Lake Placid. In his Ticket to Fly interview with Peter Graves, Fletcher speaks to the evolution he's experienced in nordic combined and the bright future he sees for future USA stars in the sport. It's an insightful look into the unique sport of nordic combined and Fletcher's own approach, how it has changed over the years and how he is approaching the Beijing Games.

For the last few decades, few communities have produced more Olympians than Norwich, VT. In 1984, Jeff Hastings came within an eyelash of the first U.S. ski jumping Olympic medal since 1924. Today, Hastings continues to give back to the sport as a behind the scenes leader. His longtime commentary for NBC brought the sport to millions. Ticket to Fly host Peter Graves catches with Hastings on the eve of the 2021/22 Olympic season to look back at Sarajevo 1984 and to look ahead at the future of ski jumping in America.

The ski jumping family vividly recalls that day in 2009 when Swiss Andreas Küttel became a world champion in Liberec. Growing up in the small Swiss village of Einsiedln, Küttel became captivated by ski jumping which took from from rolling hills in the midwestern USA to towering scaffolds in Japan. Host Peter Graves talks with the personable Küttel about his career and the impact ski jumping had on his life.

Since she followed her brother off a ski jump at age six, world champion and Olympian Sarah Hendrickson's life has revolved around her passion for ski jumping. In this insightful interview with Ticket to Fly host Peter Graves, Hendrickson shares the highs and the lows of a career that put her at the pinnacle of the sport as she advocated for women's ski jumping, found success at the highest level and is now continuing to give back.

Over the span of a decade, Johnny Spillane led the U.S. Nordic Combined Ski Team to its greatest heights with a World Championship title and three Olympic medals. Today, he reflects on his career from his boyhood home in Steamboat Springs with Ticket to Fly host Peter Graves.

On National Girls and Women in Sport Day (Feb. 3, 2020), USA Nordic celebrates its own sport pioneers. In this episode of Ticket to Fly, host Peter Graves explores the pioneering efforts of nordic combined champion Tara Geraghty-Moats. Skier Tara Geraghty-Moats is a modern-day pioneer! In the sport of nordic combined, which matches cross country skiing with ski jumping, she's the number one ranked woman in the world, blazing a pathway for her sport and female athletes. She talks to Ticket to Fly about her sport's upcoming World Championship debut and the push for Olympic inclusion in 2026. Growing up in Vermont’s Upper Valley, a hotbed of Olympic talent, she tried her hand at many sports from freestyle skiing to biathlon to cross country skiing. But she saw an opportunity to make a difference in nordic combined, and has been the leader internationally in moving her sport from debut to Continental Cup to World Cup and now World Championships. Geraghty-Moats has been living and training in Lillehammer, Norway this winter. It has been a season of lifetime achievement and day-to-day frustrations as COVID impacts the debut season of the FIS Nordic Combined World Cup for women. In an already small schedule, events in Lillehammer and Otepää, Estonia were canceled. Lillehammer was rescheduled but then canceled again after pandemic border closures in Norway. In December, Geraghty-Moats won her sport’s World Cup debut at a rescheduled event in Ramsau, Austria. She now has her sights set on February 27 in Oberstdorf, Germany for the World Championships debut. And hopeful inclusion in the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan-Corina, Italy is still on the horizon. How did you find your love of sport growing up in Vermont? I just love to do all sorts of sports, especially winter sports. I was a ski jumper from a very young age. I did biathlon starting at 17. I started cross country racing when I was eight. And I also did some freestyle competitions when I was quite young. I first saw some ski jumps at Oak Hill in Hanover, New Hampshire, right by Dartmouth College when I was cross country skiing with the local ski club. And I thought it looked like a pretty neat sport to try. After a tough all of training due to COVID, how did you approach the World Cup? I was really, really proud with how I handled the World Cup. I had very, very low expectations going in and I just tried to focus on small technique aspects and do the level best I could with the training I had had. It was amazing. I don't think I've ever really got nervous for a competition. I think that partially it was the pressure of the fact that this was the first ever World Cup for women's nordic combined. I knew that whoever won that event would go down in history as the first ever winner of a women's nordic combined World Cup. How important has your training base in Lillehammer been for you? You can definitely feel the Olympic legacy that the ‘94 games left and I'm training at all of those venues. The gym that I go to was actually at the opening ceremony venue. And also the legendary Birkebeiner Stadium was actually where I was just this morning doing intervals. How important is your team of USA Nordic athletes to you? It's amazing having other team members who are women. And while they definitely come to me sometimes with questions or looking for some opinions, I like to think of myself more as a teammate to them and they’re teammates to me. They work just as hard as me. And I know that if they're given enough support in the coming years, they'll be medal contenders. Tune in to Ticket to Fly What is Tara’s outlook on the future for women’s nordic combined? What advice does she have for young athletes? And how important it was for her to have home cooked meals from mom during her visits with Tara during her long stay in Europe this winter. Fans can tune in to Ticket to Fly to hear Peter Graves’ full interview with Tara Geraghty-Moats. It’s available on all major...

A decade ago, Austrian ski jumping coach Alex Stöckl took over the Norwegian program. Imagine moving into the very birthplace of the sport? Today, Stöckl is one of the most respected coaches in the sport. And his Norwegian ski jumpers are leading the FIS World Cup tour.

Mike Holland is one of America's most successful ski jumpers. The two-time Olympian is the only U.S. athlete to win an event in the prestigious Four Hills Tournee with his 1989 victory in Bischofshofen, Austria. An engineer by trade, today Holland pursues his passion as a volunteer ski coach - honored in 2020 as U.S. Ski & Snowboard's Development Coach of the Year. Holland talks with Ticket to Fly host Peter Graves his passion for getting kids into sport and relives memories of that magical win in 1989. In an opening segment, Peter Graves and Tom Kelly update the 2020-21 Four Hills Tournee after three of the four events.

Vierschanzen Tournee - the Four Hills Tournament - is ski jumping's biggest week. From towering ski jumps at Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, on to the legendary hills at Innsbruck and Bischofshofen, Austria, ski jumping's annual holiday tournament attracts the eyes of the sports world every year. Veteran media director Ingo Jensen takes us inside the legendary event with host Peter Graves.

A new World Cup leader. Norway dominates. COVID makes an impact. And after a weekend in Niznhy Tigil, Russia, it's off to to the giant jump in Planica for Ski Flying World Championships. It's all on Ticket to Fly NEWS.

Ticket to Fly News brings you the latest updates from the the Viessmann FIS Ski Jumping World Cup in Ruka, Finland. This week hosts Tom Kelly and Peter Graves speak with World Cup winners Markus Eisenbichler of Germany and Norway's Halvor Egner Granerud, as well as an exclusive interview with Eisenbichler on the eve of this weekend's World Cup in Nizhny Tigil, Russia.

Ticket to Fly News brings you the latest updates from the the Viessmann FIS Ski Jumping World Cup, opening Nov. 20 in Wisla, Poland. This week hosts Tom Kelly and Peter Graves speak with Austrians Stefan Kraft and Daniel Huber, Germany's Markus Eisenbichler and Karl Geiger, as well as Poland's Kamil Stoch. Canadian Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes provides an exclusive look inside his top-10 finish and U.S. nordic broadcast commentator Chad Salmela provides a live update from the jumps in Ruka.

In the 1990s, he was one of ski jumping’s greatest superstars. Fans packed stadiums from Bergisel to Bischofshofen to watch him fly. It was a dominant period for Austrian ski jumping, with Andi Goldberger winning three FIS World Cup season titles, two Four Hills crowns, 10 World Championship medals including two gold and a pair of Olympic medals. Today, Goldi remains engaged in the sport as a fan and a television commentator. He recalls fondly those years when he was a fan favorite and the first ski jumper to break the 200 meter barrier sky flying. In his fun-filled interview with Ticket to Fly host Peter Graves, he waxes nostalgic and also looks to the future. He also takes himself back to Bischofshofen, Austria in January, 1989 when he was there as a 16-year-old watching American Mike Holland soar to a victory in the Four Hills Tournament finale.

Ticket to Fly News brings you the latest updates from the the Viessmann FIS Ski Jumping World Cup, opening Nov. 20 in Wisla, Poland. This week hosts Tom Kelly and Peter Grave speak with Austrian ski jumping superstar Andi Goldberger, USA Nordic ski jumper Casey Larson and new FIS Ski Jumping Director Sandro Pertile.

BILLY DEMONG: From Medals to Sport Leader In a career that spanned nearly two decades, Billy Demong won six Olympic and World Championship medals, including a stunning Olympic in 2010. Today, he’s at the helm of a rapidly growing national sports organization, USA Nordic, and a voice nationally for youth sport. How did it all begin for the kid from Vermontville, N.Y.? What inspired him to success? And how does his past manifest itself in his vision for USA Nordic? Peter Graves walked Demong through an insightful interview for Ticket to Fly, the USA Nordic podcast. The episode takes listeners from his early days in Lake Placid with future biathlon stars Lowell Bailey and Tim Burke, through his World Championship and Olympic success and to his role today as a pied piper for ski jumping and nordic combined. Demong shares the blueprint for success that led a group of young boys from small communities around America to become one of the very best nordic combined teams in the world in the late ‘00s - winning World Championship and Olympic medals in a tiny sport traditionally dominated by Europeans. Right from the opening question, this is an inspiring podcast that provides remarkable insight into the joy and exhilaration of sport. Here’s a teaser. But you’ll want to listen to this episode of Ticket to Fly, the USA Nordic podcast, from start to finish as Peter Graves talks with Olympic champion and USA Nordic Executive Director Bill Demong about everything from growing up in nordic combined to the future of youth sport. CHATTING WITH OLYMPIC CHAMPION BILLY DEMONG Bill, how DID a young boy from a small town in New York find nordic combined? It's a great question and one that I like to reflect on a lot. In fact, I just had a conversation about it with some good friends of mine, Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey, who are both on the U.S. Biathlon Team and respectively had some of the best results in American history and their sport. We all grew up together in the Tri Lakes area of Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake in upstate New York. The catalyst to getting us all involved was more or less a parent-built community program in Saranac Lake that was centered around Dewey Mountain. And it really started with five and six and seven year olds under the lights, the few lights that there were a Dewey Mountain, and learning how to love cross country skiing at the earliest age. And it was a it was a club that I think makes most people nostalgic, thinking about parents, a lot of little kids hanging out under the lights, drinking hot cocoa after traveling around Mid-Atlantic in the east and and doing the Bill Koch Youth Ski League. Was there a catalyst to take it from hot cocoa to the next level? I started nordic skiing at five, but by the age of eight, the very famous nordic coach Larry Stone came to our practice and he showed us a video of ski jumping. It had everything from ski flying to little kids jumping. It was set to Van Halen and got us all super fired up. And we got sucked into trying ski jumping. I knew right away that that's what I loved to do. So that was really my sport entry point into nordic combined. As you progressed, was there a secret to the success you all enjoyed? How does all that talent, quote unquote, talent, come out of one little place? The more that we've been around it and the closer that we've gotten to it being the best in the world, the more we realize it's not in the water. There's nothing really that special. But there is something about the power of the group. And to kind of switch gears and talk about nordic combined, we had the same sort of situation where a visionary coach, Tom Steitz, brought the nordic combined team together because he saw that, ‘hey, this is a small sport in a big country,’ and if everybody trains on their own, then they're not going to be is as strong as the power of the group. And so he basically mandated back in ‘94 that everybody that wanted to be on the team had to move to...

COMPETING IN A COVID WORLD On the eve of the 2020-21 season and a pandemic still gripping the world, every day offers new changes and challenges. USA Nordic ski jumpers Nina Lussi of Lake Placid, N.Y. and Andrew Urlaub from the Flying Eagles Ski Club in Eau Claire, Wis. experienced that firsthand this fall, competing in Europe at COVID-shortened FIS Ski Jumping Grand Prix events. Ski jumping commentator Peter Graves caught up with the two ski jumpers with an insightful conversation for Ticket to Fly, the USA Nordic podcast Competing in a COVID World. The episode takes a look at life training and traveling in Europe and experiences learned that could foreshadow the season ahead. CHATTING WITH NINA AND ANDREW Veteran ski jumper Nina Lussi (Lake Placid, N.Y.) and rising young star Andrew Urlaub (Eau Claire, Wis.) took a break from fall training to speak with commentator Peter Graves in Vermont on a fall day with the season looming ahead. Lussi was online from her pre-season training base in Courchevel, France, home of the 1992 Olympic ski jumping complex. Urlaub took a break from the beach on the gulf coast of Florida. The two came from very different backgrounds with Lussi steeped in family Olympic sport tradition and Urlaub discovering a niche sport in a Wisconsin town with a deep culture for ski jumping. Nina, you really had quite a family tradition. Growing up in Lake Placid, I guess originally I kind of took it all for granted it was part of life to just experiment with all of the different sports and coming from a pretty athletic family. I did basically everything growing up, and it wasn't until much later that I was able to appreciate what my family had given me and also the legacy that my great grandfather, Gus, left behind, and that was in figure skating. I'm not very involved in that world at all. But, yeah, it was cool growing up. I ski raced, I learned how to figure skate, played soccer and track - cross country running a little cross-country skiing. Growing up in the Adirondacks is really, really special to have everything so close. You are part of the ‘next generation’ of women ski jumpers. Who were your role models? What's really special about my position is those pioneering women are friends, role models and people that I got to know. I remember when I was in elementary school and I printed out pictures of Lindsey Van, Jessica Jerome, Anette Sagen. They were so cool to me. Then about 10 years later, I was competing with them and friendly with them. And it's really cool to see that they got to see all of their work pay off. And now the Olympics and World Cup is really competitive for women. And it's just great. Andrew, you may not have the same Olympic tradition in Eau Claire as in Lake Placid. How did you get into ski jumping in western Wisconsin. I'm actually the opposite of Nina. My family had zero background in skiing and there were actually a lot of wrestlers in my family. So you could say a similar body type. But I think the rich culture and the background of Eau Claire in ski jumping that just made it all the better to be a ski jumper. You’re still a very young ski jumper but starting to have some success. Was this something you expected? No, and looking back on it, I did not expect this at all. But I think the time that I grew up was a great time in the Flying Eagles history books. We had many people on the US team competing in Europe, and so they were great role models to look up to, such as the Mattoons, the Loomis', the Andersons. When I was growing up, I got to look up to them and see what they were doing and that's what I wanted, wanted to do. Do you feel like you're kind of carrying the torch at the international level for for the club? No, Ben Loomis is still going strong. I have not seen Ben recently. I hope he's doing well. Right now it's myself and Ben Loomis and we're carrying the torch and we're representing the Flying Eagles. You were the lone U.S. man competing in the Grand...

Logan Sankey is just 22, but wise beyond her years. Since competing in the Youth Olympic Games at Lillehammer in 2016, she’s made the jump out of juniors, gotten through heart surgery and is making her way into the World Cup, traveling the world with the U.S. Women’s Ski Jumping Team. She was born in Denver and dad had her on skis at age two. Soon it was up into the mountains every weekend (she skied every run on Steamboat’s Mt. Werner when she was six), eventually moving to Steamboat Springs when she was 12. Sankey shared her life story on the Heartbeat podcast with Peter Graves, talking everything from capital cities of the world to knitting. Here’s a sample from the podcast. Subscribe to Heartbeat to hear more. CHATTING WITH SKI JUMPER LOGAN SANKEY How are you coping with COVID-19? As athletes, we've kind of always been working from home because you're always cooking meals and doing more and stretching and working on stuff outside of the gym since you really do live your job as an athlete. So in some ways, things haven't changed too much, but we definitely have had to get super creative without some workouts, especially at the beginning when we couldn't go to the gym at all and we couldn't go to the gym. So definitely some fun core workouts, some interesting balance activities, the things you just had lying around the house. But really, the shift has been more about the distance between athletes and coaches and also a lot more distance between the next time we actually compete, because, like you said, we're not actually sure when that's going to be. Are you still a local in Steamboat? Sometimes I joke that it makes what could be a super quick trip to the grocery store take 45 minutes because you run into six people that you know, but especially after traveling all over the world and competing, which can definitely sometimes be very isolating. It's so nice to come back to a town and a community and place where you really know that there are people who care about you and that community supports both me and all sorts of other athletes. What first got you into ski jumping? When I was an alpine skier, we would use the ski jump at Howelsen Hill to just practice for downhill training because in alpine skiing, when you go off a jump, you don't want to be in the air very long. You want to press and get down to the ground as fast as you can, because that's a lot faster. And so in alpine, we would practice pressing off the end of the ski jump so we would have more body control in the air. But we had a super awesome coach and he would always let us just send it on our last two of the session whenever we got to practice on the jump. So we would just get to jump as far as we could on our last two of the training. And I thought that was so fun. And that is what kind of inspired me to. After that, I was invited to the first ever Fly Girls camp. And after spending the whole summer jumping In Park City, that's when I decided to make the switch full time to do jumping and kind of put alpine just as a fun recreational thing and commit my competitive aspect towards jumping. And I think I was 16 at the time, which is definitely kind of late by most standards. But I'm really glad that I made that decision to switch. Are you fearful ski jumping? I used to just say, no, no, I'm never scared because I thought, like, that was what all ski jumpers said, that they just had no fear and could just blow themselves off the jump. But as I've gotten older and have done more reflecting, I think that if you really say that you've never been scared while jumping, I think I think you got to be lying because there are some times when the conditions are funky or maybe you've just watched one of your teammates fall, but you still have to compete. When a ‘routine’ hip surgery led you to heart surgery, did you ever think your career was over? I don't think I ever entertained that thought, even for a little bit because of injury. I think all of the...

Longtime athlete, coach and program leader Jed Hinkley has experience at every level of the sport. He grew up in New Hampshire, skiing both alpine and cross country, as well as picking up ski jumping. A journeyman member of the U.S. Nordic Combined Ski Team, he was a 2002 Olympian. Today, he has taken over as sport director for USA Nordic. Hinkley got with legendary nordic commentator Peter Graves for an insightful look into his past and his vision for USA Nordic. How did you get into nordic sport? Much like many people, I believe I actually started downhill skiing or alpine skiing probably around the age of two or three. I had gotten into jumping because my dad had been a four event skier growing up, mainly a downhill skier, but also skied cross country and jumped a little bit. Who was an influential coach for you growing up? Tim Norris was my first ski jumping coach. I believe Tim started coaching ski jumping in 1969 at Proctor and then I think he actually formed the Andover Outing Club. I actually like to use Tim as a great example. Not having a whole lot of base, he coached ski jumping for nearly 50 years. You don’t have to be an amazing ski jumper to be an amazing ski jumping coach. He is one of my favorite coaches and human beings as well. What lessons did you take from your development director job into your new job as sport director? We work in ski jumping because we love the sport, but I also think that it is a great vehicle to instill values that go beyond just the ski jump. I have a bit of a different perspective coming from a small club. In my previous role, it was an understanding of what it takes to run a small ski jumping club and the amount of work you have to put into hill prep, you know, getting athletes to events and just making it fun. Tim made it fun for us. One of the things that it definitely taught me was, you do stuff because you’re passionate about it. You do stuff because it’s the right thing to do. Being outdoors, skiing on snow, is something every kid should have the opportunity to do. Nordic combined gave me a great appreciation for being outside in the winter. Certainly having to jump off the ski jump gives you some courage and some ability to overcome barriers. And then on the cross-country side, just the determination and the willingness – a willingness to sort of put it all out and give it all you got. Coming from a small club, you appreciate the role of volunteers. Depending on how you count them, we have between 28 and 30 ski jumping clubs in the United States. I would say about 24 of them are run on a largely volunteer base. The vast majority of our clubs are completely run by parents, volunteers, former jumpers and by people who just have a passion for the sport. We wouldn’t have our sport in this country without that base. I do believe that we need to move in a more professional direction. And I do like to see more coaches paid so that we can just kind of have it be more of a profession that people can pursue. But I never want to forget those small clubs. And I always want to try to support our existing clubs that are doing so much to keep the sport going and to actually grow the sport. What was your career like as an athlete and what lessons did you take away? I’m certainly proud of those accomplishments, but I would say within my sport, I was maybe a bit more of a journeyman. I spent the majority of my career on the Continental Cup. But I think that one thing I took away is that I think that does help me give me some perspective on what a lot of other athletes are going through. The sort of struggles that a lot of athletes have trying to make it and pursue their dreams and perform and compete at the highest level. You had exposure as an athlete to the early days of success of Todd Lodwick and others. How important is the hero factor in motivating athletes? It’s really important for the younger athletes coming up to see the older athletes and see their heroes compete and...

TRANSCRIPT (NOTE time references are not accurate) Ep 1 - Walter Hofer Peter Graves: [00:00:09] Thank you very much, Tom Kelly, and welcome everybody to USA Nordic Ticket to Fly. We'll be talking to newsmakers in the sport of ski jumping and Nordic combined every month. And we're very, very happy to have all of you listeners with us. A very exciting show today. We are going to have Walter Hofer who for almost 30 years, was the FIS ski jump race director. He has done a wonderful job and at recently retired after a great tenure. First of all, Walter, let me welcome you to the show, and it's a joy to have you with us. Walter Hofer: [00:00:59] Thank you very much for that invitation. Thank you. Peter Graves: [00:01:01] Well, you are so welcome. So let me start at the beginning by asking you, how did you get into ski jumping? I don't believe you were a jumper. But is that right? Walter Hofer: [00:01:17] No, but I was always involved in any kind of sport. Mostly in football (soccer) myself. But then I started to do a second educational system. I started to study physical education. And at the age of 25 when I was searching for a job to do work in between my study. And I was asked by the Austrian Ski Federation. They were looking for a physio. And they were looking for a kind of service men. And they took me. I saw this offer in a newspaper and I made a telephone call. And they took me just right away. And that was the first day of a full time job. For the next thirty eight years. So who was my stepping in as standing on the sideline watching ski jumping? I was always interested in ski jumping on TV. But I have never seen it onsite yet. Peter Graves: [00:02:19] Very interesting. So you grew up in Austria, where did you grow up? Walter Hofer: [00:02:25] In the southern part of Austria as ski jumping fans know it's nearby, Planica in Slovenia and nearby Villach, which is a small town nearby. My village is on the lake, Millstätter See, and the village is known. Seeboden. Peter Graves: [00:02:48] Ok. OK. Well, Austria, of course, such a big hub of ski jumping activity. So you played such a decisive and important role in charting the course for ski jumping. And let me ask you to begin with what your you retired had plenty to. That was the final day for you. So it's near your home. And you must have been reflective of what you had achieved in the different things you did. Tell me a little bit about maybe your thoughts going in your mind that day and in the subsequent months about what you did for the sport of jumping. Walter Hofer: [00:03:42] First of all, it brings me back to my first engagement in ski jumping when I was servicemen and the second coach for the Austrian Ski Federation, then I was asked by the Germans Ski Federation for another four year to be the second coach for the Rudi Tusch who was the head coach at that moment. So all in all, ten years I was standing on the sideline and I was watching ski jumping and whatever it takes, I saw that there is a certain value in this sport. It also very small, tiny side event - it was not very much taken by the popularity, by the spectators. And what I saw there is something in this sport which has to be shown, has to be wrapped up in another way because ski jumping was already. very interesting to see. But at that time, the TV coverage and access for the spectators onsite was very limited. Peter Graves: [00:04:49] And you know, it's interesting to me, having spent time in the World Cup circuit and Olympic Games with with jumping and and I think this is during your tenure, the ratings. And this is particularly in Europe. But the ratings for ski jumping are simply off the charts. They are amongst the highest rated shows ever. And so maybe a two part question. What draws people in to watch it on television? And secondly, you must be very proud to have been part of that, a tremendous resurgence of what is a very old sport. Walter Hofer: [00:05:32] I start to answer the second...

Ticket to Fly from USA Nordic featuring noted nordic commentator Peter Graves will take you inside the international world of ski jumping and nordic combined. In this special Ticket to Ride preview, sport leader Tom Kelly and Olympian Ben Berend join Peter Graves to share stories and talk about the thrilling sports of ski jumping and nordic combined