A small group of students from the Ski Jumping team has been absent from campus for the first few weeks of the school year. Jack Kroll PG, Henry Loher ‘26, and Eli Larkin ‘27 are among five US athletes selected to represent the country at four of the fall FIS Cup competitions. So far, the team has trained in Kranj, Slovenia; Villach, Austria; and Oberstdorf, Germany, in addition to competing in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, and Frenštát pod Radhoštěm. Traveling along with them is the New York Ski Education Foundation, NYSEF, and Eastern Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined Head Coach Colin Delaney.
Henry Loher ’26 in flight at the FIS Cups. Photo by Seth Rothchild Photography.
The team attended one day of class before they departed. They flew into Vienna, Austria, and then drove up over the Karawanks mountains into Slovenia to obtain a custom-made, competition-legal ski jumping suit, as well as train on Kranj, which is known as one of the best training hills in the world. From there, the team drove back over the mountains into Austria to train in Villach, Austria, as Larkin noted, “the hill is very similar to the one in Einsiedeln.”
Einsiedeln was where the team would have their first FIS Cup of the trip. The FIS Cup is the first of the three levels of international cup series competitions in ski jumping. In order to progress to the next level, you must score points at the prior level, which is the equivalent of a top 30 finish in the competition. “A big goal of the trip was to get international experience for the team, points are not a guarantee for anyone, Kroll said.” No one from the team scored points, but Loher ’26 got close, only missing points by 5 spots. Loher said he was “disappointed since I know I could have done it.” The second day of competition was canceled due to wind conditions.
Photo of the in-run tower in Eisiedeln. Photo by Seth Rothchild Photography.
Next, the team drove to Oberstdorf, Germany, where they would spend three days training. Oberstdorf has a hill size 137, which is quite large. This allowed Larkin and Loher to set new personal bests for distance, achieving 135 meters and 140 meters, respectively.
Left to right: Eli Larkin, Henry Loher ’26, Jack Kroll ’27, Jack Kroll PG, and Seth Rothchild, NYSEF Winter Term in Oberstdorf, Germany. Photo by Colin Delaney.
The team then got back in their van and drove seven hours to Prague, Czech Republic, where they spent the night and had dinner in the city. Then, in the morning, they drove another 3 hours to Frenštát pod Radhoštěm, where they competed in back-to-back FIS Cup events. The team as a whole had good jumps and gained valuable competition experience from it. “It was humbling,” Kroll said. “The level is so much more competitive than I expected. There were people with World Cup points at our competitions. It was Eli’s and my first international competitions, and now we know what we are competing against.”
Left to right Eli Larkin ’27, Maxium Glyvka USA Ski Jumping, Jack Kroll PG, Seth Rothchild NYSEF Winter Term, and Henry Loher ’26 in Prague. Photo by Colin Delaney.
In total, the team drove approximately 1652 miles through six countries over the course of 14 days in Europe. The team would like to thank their coach, “Colin for driving us around and also USA Ski Jumping for giving us this amazing opportunity and experience,” Kroll added.
