Park City’s Josie Johnson gets silver medal at Youth Olympic Games in ski jumping in Korea

17-year-old Josie Johnson from Park City wins a silver medal in the Youth Olympic Games ski jumping event in Korea. Photo: courtesy of USA Nordic/U.S. Ski & Snowboard

GANGWON, Korea — Josie Johnson, the 17-year-old born and raised in Park City, got the silver medal at the Youth Olympic Games ski jumping competition in Korea on Friday.

The Park City Ski and Snowboard Team (PCSS) athlete got 207.2 total points which was 8.5 behind the winner. Johnson went the distance of 100.0 meters on the first jump getting 99.2 points ranking her in third for that round. On the second round, she jumped 107.0 meters (matching the winning distance)  earning 100.8 points and ranking her first place for that round.

The HS109 venue is the same one used in the 2018 Olympics. The Winter Youth Olympics is held every four years and is only available to competitors between 15 and 18 years of age, not unlike many of Johnson’s classmates at the Winter Sports School who, like her teammates compete with opportunities from the Youth Sports Alliance (YSA).

There was snowy, windy weather, and in the reverse-order-by-rank format, Johnson was third-to-last to go, meaning if she landed in the top three she was guaranteed a medal. She needed to make it into the 100m club. Indeed, she did, and it was just a waiting and watching game for fans to figure out which color. The competitor directly before Johnson, Anezka Indrackova, had to be pulled off the bar by the jury’s safety decision not once, but a nerve-wracking twice. The girls were wrapped in warming blankets as a hold on the course continued. Then a few minutes having passed, Indrackova, who represented the Czechia, and was only 15 in the Beijing 2022 Olympics, jumped, and jump she did, getting the best jump thus far in the second round. However Johnson’s and the two following athletes bested that score. Indrackova ended up in 4th.

Womens Results:

1. Taja Bodlaj (SLO)
2. Josie Johnson (USA)
3. Ingvild Synnoeve Midtskogen (NOR)

The other US Ski team female athlete, Estella Hasrick from the midwest who’s currently on the Steamboat Springs, Colo. team, and often trains alongside Johnson at the Utah Olympic Park placed 16th.

It was still windy when the men started after the women, that they eliminated the trail round and only held two comp rounds. For the American men, Jason Colby placed 17th, and Sawyer Graves 32nd, he’s 15-years-old, one of the youngest competitors at the Youth Olympic Games. They both hail from Steamboat Springs.

Mens Results:

1. LLya Mizernykh (KAZ)
2. Niki Humml (AUT)
3. Lukasz Lukaszczyk (POL)

Johnsons parents were on site to see their daughter jump and receive her medal. Johnson’s mom, Stacey, is a former nurse at Primary Children’s Hospital and currently works at Park City’s Granger Medical Clinic for allergies, and her Dad,Dr. Scott, is a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital (TOSH).

On social media, pioneers of women’s ski jumping, like Olympians from Park City Lindsey Van and Abby Ringquist, who have coached Johnson, congratulated her within minutes having been watching the live stream like so many others in town. Their posts had just one word, “JOSIE!!!!!”