November 27, 2009 (Kuusamo, Finland) – U.S. Ski Jumping champion Nick Alexander (Lebanon, NH) earned a World Cup start on Friday as he kicks off the 2010 ski jumping season in Finland. It will be Alexander’s first individual World Cup competition. Qualification for the World Cup took place during a World Cup team jumping event and Alexander, a New York Ski Education Foundation member, was the only U.S. athlete to qualify.

The Team event was won by Austria followed by Germany in second and Finland in third. The U.S. team finished 13th with Alexander, Nick Fairall (Andover, NH), Michael Glasder (Cary, IL) and John Lyons (St. Paul, MN) manning the jumps.

Alexander will compete Saturday in the first World Cup individual ski jumping competition of the season. In unrelated news, the next stop of the tour in Trondheim, Norway has been moved to Lillehammer due to problems with the jumping hill.