The Utah Winter Sports Park is Open to the Public.
Admission Fee: $5.00 / Car. Call (801) 649-5447 for info.
What is here:
18 meter Ski Jump
38-meter Ski Jump
65-meter Ski Jump
90-meter Ski Jump (Summer & Winter)
Ski Jump Training Area
Summer/Winter Freestyle Jumps
750 gal. Summer Training Pool
Bobsled & Luge Track
One Mile of Snow-making Equipment
Ski Jump Coaches Office and Day LodgeWhat will be here in the future:
K-120 Ski Jump (Winter 2000-01)
Significant Dates:
Spring 1991 Park Construction Began
January 9, 1993 Ski Jumps Opened
July 31, 1993 Summer Freestyle & Day Lodge Opened
June 16, 1995 IOC decision for 2002 Olympic Site
January 25, 1997 Bobsled & Luge Opening
Spring 1999 Additions for Olympic Winter Games
February 2002 Olympic Winter Games
The future K-120 large hill will be equal to the height of a 50-story
building.
The K-90 normal hill is equal to the height of a 40-story building
and is the highest active jump in the world at 7,234 feet above sea level.
Source: Wolfgang Happle, Chairman, FIS Committee for Jumping Hills.
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It appears to be quite a stretch from the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary to the opening of the luge and bobsled track at the Utah Winter Sports Park near Park City early in 1997.
But the two events are closer than butter on your morning toast.
A flashback: At the Calgary games Britain's "Eddy the Eagle" soared and stumbled into Olympic folklore... the storied Jamaican bobsled team won a lot of hears, if no medals... Alberto Tomba, "Tomba la Bomba," burst on the world scene with two gold medals.. AND American athletes won only six medals, the lowest output in 52 years, while then-Cold War adversaries, the Soviets, won 29, including 11 gold, and the East Germans won 25 overall, including nine gold.
America's dismal showing infuriated George Steinbrenner, a vice president of the United States Olympic Committee, so much that the Steinbrenner Commission was formed to study ways America's image —and Olympic medals production — could be enhanced. He took a "put up or shut up" approach to the issue, challenging winter sports federations, the USOC, and any other groups within earshot to commit to making the U.S. a winter sports power.
Flashback, Part II: In 1989 Utah voters in a statewide referendum approved by a 57 percent margin setting aside a fraction of the state's annual sales tax collections for the purpose of raising $59 million through 2002 to build world-class winter sports training facilities — a.k.a. the Utah Winter Sports Park at Bear Hollow, the 400-meter skating oval at the Oquirrh Park Recreation Center in Kearns and the Ogden/Weber Ice Arena on the Weber State University campus.
These training and competition sites today are the foundation for Utah's goal of becoming a winter sports training center for America's athletes, an undertaking amplified by the area's numerous other amenities such as our premier ski resorts, excellent infrastructure and easy access. (The Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games will reimburse the state the $59 million and provide a $40 million legacy fund on top of that to help maintain the facilities.)
Fast forward to 1996 when the area took quantum leaps toward meeting and surpassing Steinbrenner's challenge.
(1) The legislatively-authorized Utah Sports Authority, which currently owns and manages the sports park, named Craig Lehto its track manager. He brought Utah 10 years of hands-on experience of operating a bobsled and luge track in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, including the 1988 Winter Olympics there.
(2) A western regional headquarters of the U.S. Luge Association, headquartered at Lake Placid N.Y., became operation at Bear Hollow. Former Olympic luge competitor John Owen staffs the operation for the association and is coordinating the U.S. team winter and summer training schedules. "It's so great to have a track in the U.S. where we can control our own training times and not rely on foreign countries which give us whatever time its teams don't want," he says.
(3) The U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, also headquartered at Lake Placid, set down roots at Bear Hollow, naming Randy Will, a three-time Olympian, coordinator of its U.S. team's competition and training programs there. (Skeleton, by the way, is a potential Olympic sport which finds the athlete riding on his stomach and head-first on a mini luge-like sled whereas a luge sled is ridden feet-first, stomach up.)
(4) Earlier this year the USOC named Salt Lake the site of one of three U.S. Community Olympic Development Centers, along with Minneapolis and San Antonio. This nudged the area closer to its mission of becoming a major player in the development of Olympic-caliber athletes in winter sports because the USOC committed to providing leadership and funding to this program.
(5) There's yet another excellent program that is on the throes of making the area even more attractive as a development center for elite athletes: The Park City Winter School for senior high school student-athletes whose classes at the Carl Winters Building (the old high school) run from March through November, allowing them to concentrate on training and competing during the winter months without jeopardizing their educations.
This three year old program is a bonanza for prospective U.S. and Olympic team ski jumpers, alpine and Nordic competitors, freestylers, luge and bobsled athletes — surely a far cry from the mind set of educators of yesteryear who threatened students with expulsion from school if they missed classes to compete in the Knudson Cup giant slalom races at Brighton, then the state's only inter-school ski competition.
No doubt, if New York Yankee co-owner George Steinbrenner thought the 1996 World Series victory was sweet, he'll find Utah's commitment to winter sports excellence a dose of double-dipped chocolate fudge.
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