December 29, 2013 (Park City, Utah) – Under a beautiful Western sunny sky, Nick Fairall (Andover, NH) took the victory in the winner-take-all format  of the U.S. Olympic Trials in ski jumping at Utah Olympic Park, at the venue of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Fairall has long felt comfortable here having won the U.S. Large Hill Nationals in August on plastic here.

Nick Fairall... bound for Sochi © Peter Graves

With the largest crowd of spectators on hand to watch the sport since the 2002 Games, and featured live on NBC Sports, Fairall had a pair of jumps of 96 meters to score 253.5 points to make his first-ever U.S. Olympic team, while his family watched the event from the stands. “I’ve been dreaming about this for a long time,” Fairall noted with excitement in an interview with the USASJ News Bureau following the awards ceremony, “I like this format, and the crowd created such excitement, it was unbelievable. I tried to stay mentally strong today and not put too much pressure on myself and it paid off. I’m really happy.”

Park City local and two-time U.S. Olympian Anders Johnson placed second today only a scant 4.5 points behind the winner, while Peter Frenette (Saranac Lake, NY) placed a solid third with 245.5 total points. Johnson was satisfied with his efforts today and said…”you know, I had two pretty darn good jumps, I had a small problem on my telemark (landing) on my first ride and that cost me something. But today was great and the enthusiasm of the crowd made it wonderful.”

Jessica Jerome (Park City, UT) a member of the U.S. Women’s national team took the women’s win and in doing so punched her ticket to Sochi on the first-ever U.S. Women’s Olympic ski jumping team. She was followed by former World Champion Lindsey Van in second, while Allissa Johnson took third place. All three women hail from Park City.

Jessica Jerome © DanCampbellphotography.com

“It feels like I can breathe. I feel relieved because I earned that spot so now I have a good month to really focus on my training and not really have to worry about earning my spot,” commented Jerome. “Our coach actually came into the locker room this morning and gave us this little motivational speech and he’s like, ‘Girls, all these people are out here for you. You may not realize it, but this is historic. This has never happened before, so just embrace it and enjoy it.’ I thought that was pretty cool.

“I have never competed in front of a crowd like this in Park City. This was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen up at the Olympic Park by far. It’s just awesome. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve wrapped my head around it yet. It sounds cliché, but it is a dream come true and I can’t wait to go and represent my country,” she added.

The remainder of the men’s and women’s Olympic squads are expected to be named about January 20th, based upon accumulated points.

U.S. Men’s Head Ski Jumping coach Clint Jones called it a great day. “Based upon how the guys have been jumping so far this season I was really happy, it was a very fair competition, and I was pretty much expecting the guys that placed in the top three to be there. Nick Fairall has been jumping pretty well and it was good that he was so consistent. Pete Frenette jumped very well and was right in there and Anders, who has probably more jumps on this hill than anyone else, had some difficulty on the landing on the first jump but still was very strong,” he explained.

Frenette and Fairall will depart next Tuesday for the final two stops of the famed Four Hills Tournee in Austria and then travel to Kulm, AUT for FIS World Cup ski flying. Johnson will depart next week with other members of the U.S. COC team for Wisla, Poland.