Utah Olympic Park’s nordic ski jump hills get a facelift

Nordic Ski Jumps at the UOP, one without plastic, one with. Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke

PARK CITY, Utah — Whether sports fans look up to the Nordic ski jump hills from Kimball Junction or drive up to the Utah Olympic Park (UOP), they now notice that “one of these things is not like the other.”

The hills, which are green in color in the summers, are having the plastic covering replaced with new material for the first time since pre-2002 Olympics.

Alan Alborn represented the U.S. in three Olympics as a Nordic ski jumper, including Salt Lake 2002, where he placed just outside the top ten on the UOP hills, where he now works as a manager.

“I was lucky enough to be one of the first athletes to jump on the original plastic,” Alborn told TownLift. “Once we reinstall the new plastic, it’s designed to last us another 20 years.”

This process was slated to occur well before the July announcement that Utah would once again host the Winter Olympics, this time in 2034. “The lifespan of the plastic has reached its maximum usability,” Alborn, who also coached the U.S. Olympic Ski Jumping Team, said.

The two hills to the left currently have no green plastic on them. The largest one, on the right, has a 2002 logo and the Olympic rings. Alborn and his colleagues at the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation are making final decisions on what, if any, imagery will be embedded into the new plastic. “It might be a simple statement like Utah 2034 or something similar.”

Not only do ski jumpers train and compete on the hills, but the public can also ride inner tubes down them.

This is the optimal time of year for the thousands of individual broom-bristle-esque tiles to come off the hill as November is the only month that the year-round athletes from USA Ski Jumping, Nordic Combined USA, and Park City Ski and Snowboard-Nordic do not utilize the venue.