Out of retirement and ready to prove himself again, national ski jump record-holder and Wauconda native Kevin Bickner is returning for a third time to the Olympic stage this month, sharing what it’s like going from rookie to team veteran, and how he balances the sport with a “normal life” after reigniting his motivation.
Bickner previously competed in the 2018 and 2022 Olympics. In 2017, he set the current American national ski jumping record, flying 244.5 meters, about 802 feet, during a jump in Vikersund, Norway. That’s a distance of nearly two and a quarter football fields, and just 80 feet short of the entire length of the Titanic.
Ski jumping is one of the original Winter Olympic sports, and as Bickner explained, it has a simple premise: “You go down a giant ramp, and when you hit the end, you jump, lay over your skis and try to fly as far down the hill as you possibly can.”
It is good to be back for Bickner, although he’s taking up a different role this time. Not only is he the oldest on the U.S. jumping team, but he’s also the only one who isn’t a rookie to the Games.
“It’s this thing they’ve dreamed about since they were little kids, and I did too when I was younger,” he said. “They’re very excited.”
While it is a good sign that he’s able to stay at this level of competition year after year, he said it is “strange” to recall how he felt when he first came to the Olympics compared with today. Being a veteran has its benefits, but it also means more responsibilities to the team, he said.
“When you’re on the opposite end of the spectrum, you think it’s going to be like that forever. Then slowly, year by year, things change, and before you know it, you’re the guy that people look to. You’re the experienced one, and you have to take on more of a leadership role,” Bickner said.
Norge Ski Club
Bickner has been skiing since he was 9 years of age, when he joined the Norge Ski Club in Fox River Grove. Both his parents were avid skiers, and he developed a love for the sport far above the norm for a kid his age. His parents were supportive of him when he discovered ski jumping, he said.
While there are inherent risks involved in ski jumping and his mother can still worry, she “knows the tendencies I have,” Bickner said. “She was kind of glad that I used that energy that I had in a more controlled way.”
The feeling of ski jumping is “kind of indescribable,” he said. Short of skydiving or flying a plane, there aren’t really any other ways to experience it, Bickner said.
“There’s nothing like it,” he said. “You have the speed, you have the flight; almost like a gliding and feeling of pressure building up underneath you, and it lifts you.”
The Norge Ski Club has become something of an incubator for Olympic athletes in the region, sending three to the Beijing Olympics in 2022, including Bickner.
His third showing at the Olympics will be good for the club’s publicity, Bickner said, and he is happy to help grow the sport. The Norge Ski Club has a lot of unfamiliar faces today, he said, but Bickner took that as a good sign. It means new people are joining the sport.
Although he now lives in Utah, Bickner still gets messages from high school classmates and keeps in touch with those he met in Lake County’s skiing community.
2026 Winter Olympics
Although Bickner is the oldest on the jumping team this year, it doesn’t necessarily mean this is his last year competing at this level. What the future looks like is “entirely up to me,” he said. On the physical side, he’s far from the oldest person in the sport.
“If I wanted to keep doing it, I could for sure keep doing it,” Bickner said.
The question is more about mindset. Bickner has already retired once from the sport, back in 2022 after the Beijing Olympics, when burnout pushed him away. Bickner said he wanted “a normal life.”
But after encouragement from many people in his life, Bickner decided to return, admitting he still wants to prove a few things.
“There was always a little part of me that thought that I never accomplished what I was capable of in the sport,” Bickner said. “That was always in the back of my head: ‘What if?’”
Between a stellar last season and making the Olympics, Bickner said he feels good about coming out of retirement. And he returns with greater maturity and a healthier mental approach, he said.
Part of that is a separation of his work and personal life. Ski jumping is his job, Bickner said, and today he can become friends with someone for months before his ski jumping and Olympic career ever comes up, although he admitted to having some fun seeing their reactions.
“It’s a big part of my life, but it doesn’t need to be every part of my life,” Bickner said.
