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Randall recounts trip to Kazakhstan for board

World University Games ‘debriefing’ today

Lake Placid Mayor Craig Randall (Photo provided)

LAKE PLACID — The contingent of representatives from this village and the surrounding region who travelled to Almaty, Kazakhstan last week are scheduled to meet today to further discuss what they learned about the possibility of bringing the World University Games here in 2023.

And after seeing it firsthand, village Mayor Craig Randall said the scope of the event officials are considering bringing to this village is near-Olympic level.

Randall labeled a meeting scheduled for this afternoon as a “debriefing” between he and other local representatives who took the trip, including Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism CEO Jim McKenna, North Elba town councilman Jay Rand, business owner Art Lussi, Adirondack Foundation CEO Cali Brooks and Clarkson University Vice President of External Relations Kelly Ogden-Chezum.

“The trip was exploratory in nature to learn and determine — garner enough information to come back and make a presentation so the community can make a decision whether to go down this course,” Randall said.

“I will say the World University Games as I saw them last week were conducted on a very, very close to a World Winter Olympic platform,” he continued. “Excellently done, the administration was superb.”

The group was there for the 28th running of the event known across the world as the “Winter Universiade,” which concludes tomorrow. In 1972, Lake Placid was the only American host in the winter history of the event. As many as 2,668 participants and 52 countries have competed in recent years, and the games traditionally have featured national-team-caliber athletes.

Randall mentioned the Adirondack delegation was highly impressed with the quality of new sporting venues in Almaty. The World University Games consists of competition in alpine skiing, nordic skiing, biathlon, snowboarding, curling, ice hockey, figure skating, synchronized skating, short-track speedskating and up to three optional sports selected by the host country.

“These facilities — very much like we were in 1980,” Randall said, “position them to use sport as a major attraction to their city.”

The Lake Placid contingent met with FISU and Almaty games organizers about financing, marketing rights, minimum requirements to host, venue operations and athlete villages. McKenna said before the trip that if Lake Placid is interested, a bid to FISU could be submitted at the end of next summer.

“I think all things considered we carried ourselves off in very good stead, and it was a very comfortable meeting. That mayor had six of his advisers with him, his head of sport, head of tourism (and an) attorney,” Randall said.

Randall said as part of an Olympic “protocol of friendship,” between the two cities representatives exchanged gifts at a Saturday ceremony. The group from Lake Placid gifted a Lake Placid glass cube paper weight, Adirondack pack baskets, maple syrup, a balsam pillow and chocolates from the area. The Lake Placid reps each received necklaces featuring special coins minted eight centuries ago while Randall also was gifted a traditional Kazakh robe featuring a mink collar and hat. He added that the village is looking into where to store this and other “protocol of friendship” gifts collected recently, perhaps at the Olympic museum.

The 2019 winter games are slated for Krasnoyarsk, Russia, and the 2021 games will be in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Flying out of Montreal, the trip to Almaty cost an estimated $1,500 per person. McKenna said ROOST, the state Olympic Regional Development Authority and schools such as Clarkson University paid for their representatives, and some individuals will pay their own way. The town and village paid for their reps.

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