Taking the Kids: How to chase your own Olympic gold

In Steamboat Springs, Colorado, you might meet a former Olympian on the gondola or the grocery store. The town of under 13,000 people has produced 99 Olympians and a paralympian since 1932 with 12 athletes competing this year, as well as several who have trained at Steamboat and compete for other countries. That’s more than any other venue in North America. During the Olympics, Steamboat will have a variety of activities with Olympians, including on-mountain ski and snowboard sessions, fireside chats, trivia and more. Look for the “Steamboat Olympian” jackets and say hello, hear their stories and become a part of Steamboat’s Olympian history. Steamboat, incidentally, is now easily reached with nonstop flights from 14 major cities to The Yampa Valley Regional Airport, just 22 miles away.

You might also meet someone training for the Olympics or Paralympics at the interactive U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs, which tells the athletes’ stories. The interactive sports demonstrations include alpine skiing and skeleton. How many turns could you manage in an Alpine race? Ten thousand athletes train in Colorado Springs each year and nearly 350 Team USA alumni live here full time.

Palisades Tahoe, the largest ski resort in the Lake Tahoe region, boasts 6,000 skiable acres across two mountains. Formerly known as Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows, the resort hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics. It is the home mountain to dozens of Olympics and World Cup athletes and will host special events and activities during the Beijing competition.

Do you know which U.S. city is the only one to have hosted two Winter Olympics? That would be Lake Placid, N.Y., in the Adirondack Mountains. Lake Placid hosted the third Winter Games in 1932. Many of us still remember the 1980 Lake Placid games when the U.S. hockey team stunned the sports world by winning gold. The epic defeat of the Soviet Union team became known as “The Miracle on Ice” and became a popular movie. The famous ice rink is one of the Lake Placid Olympic venues currently undergoing renovation, but you can skate on the newly renovated 1932 rink and the USA Rink. Check out the Lake Placid Legacy Sites calendar for the latest operating schedule and offerings at the venues.

Adrenaline junkies won’t want to miss The Lake Placid Bobsled Experience at Mt. Van Hoevenberg where you can also race on the cross-country and biathlon trails that opened there for the 1980 Olympic Games.

In case you are wondering, six sports have appeared in every Winter Olympics: cross-country skiing, figure skating, hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating. Just 258 athletes competed in the first Winter games in Chamonix, France in 1924. In Beijing, an estimated 13,000 athletes will compete in 109 events, including seven that will make their debut. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, very few spectators will be on hand to cheer them on, but there’s nothing to stop you from finding your inner Olympian!

What’s going to be your event?

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(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow TakingTheKids on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments. The Kid’s Guide to Philadelphia, the 13th in the kid’s guide series, was published in 2020, with The Kid’s Guide to Camping coming in 2021.)