[B]RATTLEBORO — Christina Loescher recalls when she eyed this town’s Harris Hill ski jump — the only Olympic-size slope in New England and one of just six in the nation — with skepticism.
“I thought, ‘Who in their right mind would jump it?’”
That was before the Vermonter stood amid several thousand spectators this Presidents’ Day weekend to see her daughter leap from a launchpad 30 stories high at speeds approaching 60 miles per hour.
“I just want to compete at the highest level I possibly can and enjoy it,” said Elise Loescher, 16, of Burlington, one of four Green Mountain State athletes to join 30 peers from North America and Europe at the annual Harris Hill tournament.
Blaz Pavlic, a 20-year-old Slovenian who set the hill’s long-distance record of 104 meters in 2017, returned to miss repeating the feat by two meters. Yet nonetheless, Pavlic snagged the event’s Winged Ski Trophy for a second time.
“For the hill record, you need a little bit of headwind,” said Pavlic, who jumped this year in calmer conditions.
Even so, competitors and the crowd witnessed a series of dramatic falls, starting when Canden Wilkinson, 16, of Colorado’s Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club tumbled before bouncing back up on the second of his two jumps both Saturday and Sunday.
Hunter Gibson, 17, of Illinois’ Norge Ski Club, toppled immediately after Wilkinson on Saturday and, although he walked off the hill by himself, sat out Sunday’s competition.
Jillian Highfill, 14, of Utah’s Park City Ski & Snowboard Team, was knocked unconscious for a moment after she fell on her first jump Sunday, spurring medics to transport her to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital for a checkup.
“She’s OK and in good spirits,” a coach said after.
The late Fred Harris started the event 97 years ago when he returned to his hometown after founding the Dartmouth Outing Club as a college student. Nearly a century after Harris created the ski jump in 1922, the slope hosted athletes who traveled from Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York and Wisconsin.
Brattleboro’s Spencer Knickerbocker, the sole local jumper, not only competed but also helped coordinate the event.
“It’s perfect,” the 26-year-old Knickerbocker said of the hill’s snow cover, which fluctuating weather had threatened to melt for weeks.
Cameron Forbush and Caleb Zuckerman, both 13, came from Norwich, which has sent local athletes to eight of the last 10 Olympics.
“It’s a big crowd,” said Zuckerman, marveling that a volunteer-managed venue open just one weekend a year can draw such numbers.
“I like that so many people come out to watch us jump,” added Forbush.
Elise Loescher was cheered on by her mother, father and two of four brothers, as well as nearly a dozen female competitors from Colorado’s Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club and Utah’s Park City Ski & Snowboard Team.
“It’s so cool to be back in my home state,” said the Burlington teenager now training with one other young woman in Lake Placid, N.Y. “And coming here and having so many girls to compete with is great.”
