The Youth Olympic Games are an Olympic-style competition (both summer and winter) staged for athletes between the ages of 15-18. In the winter of 2024, Gangwon Korea hosted over 1,800 young athletes in this celebration of sport, sportsmanship, and fellowship. Start young athletes early on all three, and the world is likely to be a better place. The Youth Olympics is also a chance for young stars of the future to step on to the...
A silver medalist at 2016 Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, 18-year-old Ben Loomis was named this year to the U.S. National Team for nordic combined.
Second at the final exchange and 2.2 seconds out of first, the U.S. biathletes in the single mixed relay at the Youth Olympic Games -- Chloe Levins and Vasek Cervenka -- went on to place sixth. “Today’s race was a great learning experience for Vasek and myself,” Levins wrote. “We may not have made the podium, but I think we had the most fun today!”
Chloe Levins was sick before IBU Youth/Junior World Championships and performed below her own expectations. But she has found redemption at the Youth Olympic Games, turning in the best individual performance ever by a U.S. biathlete and cleaning her first four-stage race in the process.
When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) held their first-ever winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria in January, they invited many of the best teenage athletes in the world to compete in 13 sports. But it wasn’t only the best young athletes who converged on the historic venue, which also hosted the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics. The IOC invited some of the biggest stars in winter sports – many retired, but some still competing...
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria— Despite significant recent snowfall, the Youth Olympic Games staff managed to polish the HS 75 meter jump in Seefeld Arena in time for Saturday’s Team Jumping event—the final Nordic event of the Games. The Canadian Team— consisting of female special jumper Taylor Henrich, male special jumper Dusty Korek and Nordic Combined skier Nathaniel Mah— managed to take advantage of the inconsistent conditions to secure a historic Bronze medal. The team...
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria— Today’s evening sprints in Seefeld were big for the Scandinavians. Having walked away from the sole distance event of Games with nothing but a pair of clunky 4th place “wooden medals”, the Nordic powerhouse nations came out this evening with their guns blazin’. But the Americans, specifically members of the Caldwell family, have a history of turning heads in Seefeld. This time around it was young Paddy who made quite a...
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria– Every Nordic race director is well versed in Murphy’s Law. Today, Seefeld Stadium was more or less the Titanic—the unsinkable race venue. Temps were cold, the loops were covered with a meter and a half of perfectly groomed snow, thousands of cowbell clanging Tyroleans lined the course, and the IBU’s finest were on hand to supervise. The Women’s 7.5km Pursuit event at the Youth Olympic Games was to go off without...
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria In his address to the competitors and spectators who packed the bleachers of the Bergisel stadium during the Opening Ceremonies of the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, IOC President Jacques Rogge emphasized the importance of the Games with respect to the core Olympic values. “You have a chance to be true champions, not only by winning medals, but by conducting yourself like Olympians,” Rogge told the 1,078 Youth Olympians...
–SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria It was a busy day for the double hitters today in Seefeld during the second day of competition at the Youth Olympic Games. Bluebird skies, calm winds, and perfect tracks delivered the type of conditions that race directors dream of. Nordic Combined Men’s Individual Competition Action kicked off Sunday morning with the Nordic Combined Men’s Individual competition. Competitors took part in one competitive round of jumping held on the HS...
INNSBRUCK, Ausria – Welcome to Innsbruck, Austria! After a 36 year hiatus, Olympic competition has now returned to the bustling university city of Innsbruck for a third time in the form of the Inaugural Youth Winter Olympic Games. The capital city of the alpine province of Tyrol in Austria’s western panhandle, Innsbruck twice hosted the world during the 1964 and 1976 Olympic Winter Games and now proudly bears the distinction of being the only city...
How fast is Maya MacIsaac-Jones? At a recent NorAm sprint in Rossland, British Columbia, the Albertan had the fastest qualifying time of any junior, covering the course more than eight seconds faster than any of her competitors. She went on to win the junior race, despite the fact that she’s only sixteen – three years younger than the other podium finishers. And if that isn’t impressive enough, MacIsaac-Jones’ time in the qualifier would have put...
With only one boy and one girl representing each country in cross-country skiing at the upcoming Youth Olympic Games, it can be tough to decide which single individual deserves that opportunity. Nobody’s consistently dominant all the time, right? In Canada, however, the decision of which boy to send was easy: Matt Saurette had been the age-group national champion for two years running. The 16-year-old, who grew up in Edmonton, Alberta and lists Alex Harvey as...
Driving his uncooperative truck about 30 miles per hour on a highway shoulder, Bob Balk kept his spirits up. Sure, he had just spent about $900 to fix the vehicle, only to have the mechanics return it scratching their heads. Maybe it was bad gas; they couldn’t tell. But the seven-time Paralympian was used to challenges, so driving three hours roundtrip from his hometown in Moravia, N.Y., to Rochester didn’t phase him. Balk could empty...
Canada’s hopes for a biathlon medal at the Youth Olympic Games are probably riding on no single athlete more than Calgary’s Stuart Harden. Harden is one of those athletes who seems to be a junior forever, simply because they find success at such a young age. Last season, he competed in his first World Junior Championships – mostly because before then, he had been too young to qualify. As it was, the then-16-year-old was still...
Heather Mooney has been turning heads for years, but in the last few she’s brought a whole new meaning to the word “fast”. In 2010, the Stratton Mountain School made the A-Final of the SuperTour Finals sprint as a J2. Last season, in her first year as a J1, she racked up top-20 finishes in each of the three senior races at U.S. Nationals, including eighth place in the classic sprint. Then she flew to...
Canmore’s Aidan Millar might be the only Canadian biathlete headed to the Youth Olympic Games who doesn’t have international racing experience, but that doesn’t mean that he’s unprepared for the world stage. For one thing, training in Canmore has meant that he can keep an eye on the competition: Canadian teammates Danielle Vrielink and Stuart Harden are also members of different clubs based out of the 1988 Olympic venue. The plethora of talented youngsters makes...
(Note: This is the fourth in a series of interviews with athletes who will be competing at the first-ever winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria this winter. The second with Anna Kubek, the third with Aleksandra Zakrzewska, all U.S. biathletes. The last was with John competed in the 1952 Games, and his father Tim competed in four more. When Caldwell was selected as America’s sole male nordic skier for the Youth Olympic Games in...
(Note: This is the fourth in a series of interviews with athletes who will be competing at the first-ever winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria this winter. The second with Anna Kubek, the third with Aleksandra Zakrzewska, all U.S. biathletes.) 2011 was a big year for Canadian biathlete Danielle Vrielink. Perhaps the most obvious accomplishment for the Calgary native was a trip to the World Youth Championships in the Czech Republic, her first international...
(Note: This is the fourth in a series of interviews with athletes who will be competing at the first-ever winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria this winter. The first interview was with Sean Doherty, the Nick Proell.) When the Youth Olympic Games kick off in Innsbruck, Austria this January, one American biathlete will have a lot of experience on her side. It’s not her own experience: neither of the two girls named to the...