Robbins Nest: Jessica Jerome on the IR

By Published On: December 13th, 2006Comments Off on Robbins Nest: Jessica Jerome on the IR

Ski jumper Jessica Jerome is on the rebound after surgery Tuesday in Salt Lake to repair torn ligaments in her right knee after a training crash at Steamboat Springs. Jerome, ranked third worldwide last season and the top U.S. woman in the first half of this Continental Cup season, is cooked for the season, but the good news is she should be ready to go next summer just as Utah Olympic Park is reopening for the jumpers. Jerome also has answered the sometime question of “How do you balance training, travel, competition and your studies at Westminster College” in SLC? She’ll be able to focus on her studies through the spring term.

•    •    •

They didn’t have an anniversary cake last weekend, but Diane and Tim Mueller marked the 25th year of their purchase of Vermont’s Okemo Mountain Resort, a move which converted things from a chronically under-capitalized area with many shareholders into a concentrated ownership which has seen it become a true, four-season resort.
SKI JUMPER JESSICA JEROME
is on the rebound after surgery Tuesday in Salt Lake to repair torn ligaments in her right knee after a training crash at Steamboat Springs. Jerome, ranked third worldwide last season and the top U.S. woman in the first half of this Continental Cup season, is cooked for the season, but the good news is she should be ready to go next summer just as Utah Olympic Park is reopening for the jumpers. Jerome also has answered the sometime question of “How do you balance training, travel, competition and your studies at Westminster College” in SLC? She’ll be able to focus on her studies through the spring term.

•    •    •

They didn’t have an anniversary cake last weekend, but Diane and Tim Mueller marked the 25th year of their purchase of Vermont’s Okemo Mountain Resort, a move which converted things from a chronically under-capitalized area with many shareholders into a concentrated ownership which has seen it become a true, four-season resort. Tim is one of the leading apostles of cooperation, not confrontation (“I could spend our money on lawyers or I could spend our money on finding a solution and getting the job done,” he once told me), and their careful management — not manglement — of the resort continues to be a textbook example of how compromise is not a curse word but such an effective ownership and management tool.
    In some ways, they’re the Odd Couple: he’s soft-spoken, she — longtime head of the state board of education in addition to her hands-on role at Okemo — is more dynamic, but however they pull it off, they keep things moving forward. They were aced out of a chance to buy Steamboat ski area, where they would have been a perfect fit, but Team Mueller now also owns Crested Butte in Colorado and manages New Hampshire state-owned Mount Sunapee Resort.

•    •    •

Looking for some cheap-at-twice-the-price, nifty 11th-hour Christmas gifts? Plug into the U.S. Ski Team shop Web site and go to the CD/Books/DVD section under Fan Gear and check out downhiller/troubadour Bryon Friedman’s CD plus the 2007 calendar from the U.S. women’s alpine tech team, with lifestyle photos by gate-runner Lauren Ross and racing shots from SR’s Jonathan Selkowitz. Some fun photos, some relaxing music (see if you feel like someone in those lulling beachfront TV commercials with the ocean out in front and a longneck at the end of your reach). Does it sound like Bobby Short, perhaps, with an acoustic guitar? For a preview of “Freedog” tunes, go to www.bryonfriedman.com, click on Music. And unwind.

•    •    •

While so much of the East continues to look at earth tones (but there’s good snow at Quebec’s Mont Ste. Anne, where college X-C teams such as Dartmouth have found outstanding training conditions), Western ski areas — alpine and cross-country — keep savoring snowfalls. That’s a joy for event organizers; this week, the nordic combined tribe is encamping at the second of its three World Cup-B early season sites — two 2002 Olympic venues, Utah’s Bear Hollow (for jumping at Utah Olympic Park) and Soldier Hollow (for the cross-country back end of each event). In addition, cross-country’s SuperTour descends on Soldier Hollow for the weekend.
    Things got rolling last weekend for the combiners in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and they’ll finish next week (Dec. 20-21) at Lake Placid with the traditional Lamb Lumber Classic events. Longtime FIS official (and 1972 Olympian) Joe Lamb got home in time from being TD at the self-styled Nordic Opening in Kuusamo, Finland, to start ensuring things unroll smoothly on the 1980 Olympic jumps and Mount Van Hoevenberg’s cross-country trails.

•    •    •

Olympians Johnny Spillane and Bill Demong got an early Christmas present this week: more frequent flyer miles, heading back to Europe for this weekend’s World Cup nordic combined in Ramsau, Austria. They came home for 10 days from Norway when the snow situation in central Europe was so iffy earlier this month, got in some solid training … repacked their clean laundry (thanks, Mom) … and headed back over the big pond.

•    •    •

Somewhat along the same lines, coach Scott Rawles was all set to take a dozen athletes to Europe for the season-opening moguls event this week in Tignes, France. Oops. No snow in Tignes and the Grand Mott glacier above the town, which had held so many other season-opening bumps contests, couldn’t be prepared for moguls, so the event was added to the scrap heap of events canceled or postponed this season because of poor snow. The second event, a duals duel set for Dec. 20 in La Plagne, France, was also scrapped.

•    •    •

In the moo-o-o-o-ood for some bovine news? Lindsey Kildow won not only a nice paycheck last December when she won a World Cup downhill in Val d’Isere, France, but she also was presented with a cow. It was worth a good laugh, and some cute photos, and then Kildow was expected to return the cow and get another $1,200 in exchange. But she decided to keep the four-legger, whose name is Olympe — sometimes called Olam. Women’s coach Patrick Riml made arrangements for the cow to be transferred last spring to the team’s base in Kirchberg, Austria, where it would be tended by a friend, who runs the local ski slope.
    Well, maybe the cow is part alley cat. Who knows? All we know now is Olympe gave birth to a calf last month. Kildow’s kow’s kalf has been named Sunny. Mother and daughter doing well, and Kildow’s still enjoying the scenario. After winning the second DH in Lake Louise Dec. 2, she told reporters in the finish that she planned to see them in the near future (there may be time after this weekend’s races not far off at Reiteralm, near Schladming). But, she cautioned with a good-natured laugh, “I’ve got to learn how to milk her first, though.”

•    •    •

Thought for
the Nanosecond: Don’t be a hero — wear a hat outdoors in winter (Honest, officer, that’s a lovely buzz-cut you have, but if you put on a hat, studies have shown you wouldn’t be as c-c-c-cold because you can stop the loss of up to 60 percent of your body heat).

Share This Article

About the Author: Pete Rugh