VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Norwich

Ski Jumping

Inducted 2020

A four-time United States ski-jumping champion, Jeff Hastings of Norwich narrowly missed a medal in the 1984 Olympics finishing fourth at the Sarajevo games.

At the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, Hastings was the top U.S. competitor finishing fourth in the 120-meter jump, just missing a medal, and was ninth on the smaller 90-meter hill. His fourth-place finish, just 0.2 points away from third, is the best score ever by a U.S. jumper in modern Olympics history. 

Prior to the Olympics at a World Cup event at Lake Placid in December of 1983, he came in first in the 120-meter jump and finished third in the smaller hill. He would finish the 1983-84 World Cup season ranked fourth overall.

A high school skier at Hanover (N.H.) High, he went on to Williams College, competing as a jumper for the Ephs until the event was dropped by the NCAA in 1980. At Williams he competed for the Ephs while also competing for the U.S. National Team. 

He joined the coaching staff in 1986 for the U.S. Nordic Combined Ski Team, leading up to the 1988 Calgary Olympics, a team that featured his younger brother, Chris. Since that year, he has been the lead ski-jumping television analyst for NBC Sports Olympic and World Cup coverage.

In 1999, Hastings ranked 24th on Sports Illustrated's Top 50 Greatest Sports Figures from Vermont for the 20th Century (1900-2000). He was named to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2017 which stated at his induction the following: 

’Jeff impacted Olympic ski jumping as a competitor and coach. His fourth-place Olympic performance in 1984 in Sarajevo holds as a record in modern U.S. ski jumping. He has continued his work teaching, judging, and commentating competitions and advocating for jumping and Nordic combined.’

Hastings is the founder of several athletic-based CHaD Hero fundraisers (road races, walks, bike races, ski races, hikes, etc.) held since 2006 in the Upper Valley to benefit the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital. He also was a member of a group that founded USA Ski Jumping in 2009 (now USA Nordic), a grassroots effort to promote ski jumping and Nordic skiing in the U.S.