Jared Schumate has reset his goals a few times this season. While COVID-19 takes a wrecking ball to sporting events, they’ve gone from lofty — competing at the World Cup level in Nordic Combined — to realistic. At this point, the Park City athlete just wants to compete.
“I have realized,” he posted in a blog on his web page, jaredshumate.net, “that my goal is to show up ready to win at whichever event I get to compete in.”
Schumate may just get his chance this weekend.
The Nordic Combined Continental Cup, a tier below elite World Cup competition, is scheduled to land in Park City this Friday through Sunday. Jumping will take place at the Utah Olympic Park, while cross-country skiing races will be held at Soldier Hollow.
Athletes from Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia and Slovenia, as well as the United States, have registered to compete. The competition was still on as of Tuesday, but testing will continue throughout the week and an outbreak could derail that plan.
Just last week, the Long Track Speedskating National Championships had to be postponed one day before competition was set to begin because a strand of the coronavirus bloomed among athletes. The second Nordic Combined World Cup event, set for late November in Lillehammer, Norway, also was canceled. Then the first domestic Nordic Combined event, to be held in Steamboat Springs, Colo., last week followed suit.
Schumate, 21, who is listed among U.S. competitors alongside fellow Park City locals Stephen Schumann and Zack Selzman, is taking a pragmatic approach.
“I show up to training every day motivated to make myself ready for the first event that I compete in this season, whether it happens in December, February, or the Olympics in 2022,” he wrote in his blog. “Adapting to a changing competition schedule may change my results-based goals, but it doesn’t change my motivation to be competing at my best, whenever that may be.”
No spectators will be allowed at this weekend’s event. It will be streamed live starting at 9:45 a.m. each day on USANordic.org and Facebook Live.
