Sports
Two Park City nordic combined athletes win Virtual Nationals
PARK CITY, Utah — Including the nordic ski jumping hills in Park City, USA Nordic boasts 32 locations around the country where athletes get their start. Many have local elementary/jr. high/high school teams which is a different way of doing it than the Park City Ski and Snowboard team. Either way, each spring, the Virtual National competition brings all the coast-to-coast clubs together for a unique annual competition.
Videos are taken, by parents or coaches, of development ski jumpers and nordic combined athletes and submitted online. Those videos can be taken of any competition all winter long,
Veteran Olympic announcers perform voice-overs and celebrity judges, from the comfort of their own location around the nation, watch the videos and judge the jumps. The whole process is then edited together and shown on social media channels, complete with lively live-chats for all to enjoy.
One family that really enjoyed this year’s experience, which ended on Sunday, is Park City’s Toly family. Donovan won the Boys Under 10 division. Toly told me, “I was so excited, I was jumping up and down in my house when I won and so was the dog and my mom and dad were high-fiving and laughing, it was great.” Jane Toly, Donovan’s mom told me, “The following morning, as he was leaving to ride his one-wheel to his elementary school, he turned to me and said, Mom, I’m so happy.”
Sadie McCrank is the other Park City athlete who won her Girls Under 10 competition. Both McCrank and Toly are nordic combined athletes.
Awards arrive via mail in the following week.
2022 Winners
- U10 Girls: Elisa Whiting – Blackhawk Ski Club in MN
- U10 Boys: Donovan Toly – Park City Ski and Snowboard
- U12 Girls: Sadie McCrank – Park City Ski and Snowboard
- U12 Boys: Owen Trimble – Norge Ski Club in IL
- U14 Girls: Emma Russell – Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club in CO
- U14 Boys: Sawyer Graves – Steamboat Winter Sports Club
Judges, all Beijing 2022 Winter Olympians
- Jared Shumate
- Anna Hoffman
- Casey Larson
- Jasper Good
- Steven Schumann