This comes following a recent inspection from FIS, which determined the need for repairs on the steel supports for the observation deck at the state Olympic Regional Development Authority site.

The planned work will block access to the athlete pathway required to reach the start of the jump — an essential standard outlined by FIS World Cup regulations, according to the ORDA Communications Director, Darcy Norfolk Rowe. As a result, the 2025 World Cup ski jumping event will be relocated to Klingenthal, Germany, on the same weekend.

“The Olympic Authority remains fully committed to ski jumping in Lake Placid and to maintaining world-class facilities that meet the highest standards of international competition,” Norfolk Rowe said in a statement. “While relocating this year’s World Cup is a difficult but necessary decision, we look forward to completing these improvements and welcoming the world back to future World Cup events after construction.”

USA Ski Jumping CEO Tom Bickner said it’s “disappointing” now, but in the long run, there is a lot of “optimism.”

The Olympic Jumping Complex is seen here in February 2024. (Enterprise photo — Oliver Reil)

“We’re looking at the (upcoming) opportunities,” he said. “We’re going to have to make it better and maybe make additional improvements to the facilities. We understand, and we’re supporting this decision.”

Norfolk Rowe noted that while construction will soon take place on the deck of HS128 — the larger of the two — both jumps are still being used.

“(The repairs have) nothing to do with the in-runs, nothing to do with that area at all,” she said. “People have been going up the elevator all summer, but they’ve been contained into the room and not able to go out much onto the deck.”

Training is still taking place on the jump, and ORDA is still planning to host its annual Flaming Leaves Festival, which includes the US Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined National Championships, this fall. Norfolk Rowe said, unfortunately, the athletes will have to hike up from the bottom of the jump, instead of taking the elevator up to the top.

Bickner said there won’t be any changes to training in Lake Placid.

The HS128 ski jump is seen here in February 2024. (Enterprise photo — Oliver Reil)

“Our intent is still to hold our U.S nationals tournament there,” he said. “We’re not going back out; it’s not up to FIS standards by not having an elevator available.”

With this being an Olympic year, this event would have counted toward the Olympic quota allocation. While Bickner said it’s “unfortunate,” he doesn’t expect anything to change drastically with the U.S. National team.

“With what’s going on with our team right now and the successes that the team has had in the last year, where we’ve taken international podiums, we’ve got a great junior program,” he said. “I think we’re not going to lose out that much on the publicity for this.”

The biggest issue as of now is dealing with the repair project. The location itself presents a challenge because it’s so high in the air. Norfolk Rowe said ORDA is looking into the best approach on how to get to it to do the repairs.

“It’s a skyscraper, essentially, so a full evaluation is being done for a faster approach on how to get the repair work done,” she said. “Whether it’s scaffolding or another means to do it.”

In 2021, ORDA completed multi-million dollar renovations to both of its ski jumps at the Olympic Jumping Complex. This included the installation of refrigerated frost rail systems on both jump, in-runs and regrading of the landing hills. This did not include repairs to the observation deck.

The ski jumping World Cup first returned to Lake Placid in 2023, following a 32-year hiatus. Since then, the village has hosted the event every year, including this past February when women’s ski jumping was added to the slate, marking the first-ever time the women’s discipline has been held on U.S. soil.

Norfolk Rowe called it a “premier event,” but doesn’t expect these repairs to hurt Lake Placid’s chances of hosting the World Cup in the future.

The venue will also host the Aerials World Cup on Jan. 11 and 12, 2026 to go along with three other World Cups — in cross-country skiing, biathlon and luge — at its other venues.