With the goal of celebrating Olympic Day, which was Wednesday, stops were also made at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Center and Olympic Sports Complex at Mount Van Hoevenberg, where VIPs and media met with athletes, coaches and managers in the sports of luge, bobsled, skeleton, biathlon and Nordic skiing.

Showing off the recently renovated USA Luge headquarters on Church Street, Claire DelNegro, the FIL’s vice president sport artificial track, announced that Lake Placid would be hosting a World Cup on Dec. 4-5. It will be the first time in two years that the combined track at Mount Van Hoevenberg has hosted a World Cup; luge and bobsled/skeleton competitions were canceled this past winter due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re happy to see all the improvements happening here,” said DelNegro, who competed in luge for Great Britain at the 1984 Olympic Winter Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. “I would like to invite all of you to come out and actually see luge in person on the track. It’s a very exciting sport, and I think you’ll all become big, big fans.”

It was also announced that luge athletes would be using the Plattsburgh International Airport this winter for the first time. After competing at the World Cup in Whistler, Canada, the entire circuit will be flying into Plattsburgh prior to the Lake Placid World Cup and leaving from the same airport as they head to Europe for the next leg of the tour.

USA Luge Director of Marketing and Sponsorship Gordy Sheer talks to a crowd of VIPs and media during their Olympic Day tour of the USA Luge headquarters in Lake Placid Thursday. (Enterprise photos — Andy Flynn)

Thursday’s tour of the USA Luge headquarters comes more than a year after an open house to unveil the upgrades was canceled due to the pandemic. Although this was not an open house, VIPs and media were given a tour by officials such as USA Luge CEO Jim Leahy, Director of Marketing and Sponsorship Gordy Sheer and Sports Programs Director Mark Grimmette.

The $5 million upgrade from the state reshaped the headquarters. The original 8,400-square-foot building was constructed in 1991, and the 15,000-square-foot renovated building was completed in 2020. It now includes more office space, a fabrication shop to build sleds indoors (instead of under a tent outside the old building), equipment rooms and a state-of-the-art refrigerated start facility.

“There’s nothing like this facility in the world, and we are extremely proud,” Leahy said. “This is not only for our current athletes, but this is for athletes in generations to come. We have a world-class facility here with world-class work rooms, world-class training at the Olympic Training Center. We’ve added a weight room. So we’ve got all of the resources here to make our athletes successful.”

The new start track has two 230-foot ice ramps with four different angles, two down and two up. It is longer than the previous single start ramp, which only allowed athletes to pull off the handles and paddle down the ice; it did not give them room to settle into the sled, which is an important part of the training. The new ramps are long enough for athletes to settle into their sleds. When they finish at the first ramp, they simply walk over to the second for another trip down the ice.

Two-time Olympian Summer Britcher said she didn’t realize what she was missing until the new facility opened.

The new start facility at USA Luge headquarters in Lake Placid has two ramps. (Enterprise photos — Andy Flynn)

“This new facility is phenomenal. We’re super grateful for it,” Britcher said. “The longer ramps that we have allow us to get more out of our paddle training, and the ability to settle in the sled is huge. For me personally, I have a very powerful pull part of the start, but I have been a little bit weaker on the paddle aspect.”

When state funding for the USA Luge upgrades was announced in 2016, Empire State Development officials also said they would include $1 million for marketing, specifically for televising the World Cup events in Lake Placid.

“One of the things that we have to do is provide a television signal to host World Cup races here in the United States,” Sheer said. “And the state of New York was kind enough to help us fund that …getting that signal out there for the rest of the world to see.”

USA Luge athletes began training for their upcoming Olympic season on their new start ramps in early May. The team is expected to train in Whistler and Europe in September, return to Lake Placid for training in October, and spend three weeks training on the Olympic run at the Yanqing Sliding Center outside of Beijing in November before the World Cup season begins there on Nov. 20-21.

The World Cup tour then heads to North America for two stops, Whistler and Lake Placid, before traveling to Altenberg, Germany and Igls, Austria in December. After the Christmas break, the tour continues at four European stops: Konigssee, Germany; Sigulda, Latvia; Oberhof, Germany; and St. Moritz, Switzerland.

USA Luge CEO Jim Leahy, right, talks to former Olympic Sports Complex Manager Tony Carlino Thursday during a tour of the recently upgraded USA Luge headquarters in Lake Placid. (Enterprise photos — Andy Flynn)

The 2022 Olympic Winter Games will be held from Feb. 4 to 20 in Beijing, China.

USA Luge CEO Jim Leahy, far right, welcomes a crowd of VIPs and media to the recently renovated USA Luge headquarters in Lake Placid Thursday.(Enterprise photos — Andy Flynn)