U.S. Women’s Ski Jumping Team veteran Jessica Jerome and legendary women’s coach Larry Stone will be inducted into the American Ski Jumping Hall of Fame (ASJHF) on Dec. 5, 2010.
This is the second year in a row that ASJHF will include women athletes. Last year, reigning World Champion Lindsey Van and pioneering jumpers Dorothy “Dottie” Graves, Theresa Altobelli and Karla Keck were inducted. The hall of fame inducts still-active competitors who’ve won U.S. national championships and/or those who are Olympians.
Jerome said she’s elated to be part of the American Ski Jumping HOF and adds that she’s been greatly influenced in her career by those in the HOF.
“This is quite an honor which I was not expecting, and I am thrilled,” Jerome said. “It is wonderful that jumpers in the U.S. are such a tight-knit group of people of all ages who are all equally passionate about the sport.”
Jerome is a seven-time U.S. national champion with 17 Continental Cup podium finishes and a sixth-place result in the inaugural World Championship event in 2009 in Liberec, Czech Republic. She is currently ranked seventh in the 2010-11 Continental Cup standings. Jerome has a career-best 138-meter leap on one of her favorite hills, the Lillehammer K120, on her résumé. She is studying economics at Westminster College in Salt Lake City.
Long-time coach Larry Stone was instrumental in getting the women’s ski jumping program off the ground — especially in Lake Placid, New York. Stone coached Van early on in her career.