South Dakota has no athletes in the 2026 Winter Olympics, but its Olympic ski history near Sioux Falls once helped shape Team USA.
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The Few South Dakotans Who Reached the Winter Games
The 2026 Winter Olympic Games kick off next month. From February 6 through 22, the best winter athletes in the world will gather in northern Italy to compete for the gold. The Milano Cortina 2026 games, as they are also known, will feature skiers, skaters, and curlers from all over. More than a dozen of those athletes hail from our neighboring state, Minnesota. But, once again, it looks like South Dakota will not be represented.
South Dakota does not have much of a relationship to the Winter Games. In fact, no South Dakota-born athlete had ever placed in the top three since the first games in 1924. Only three South Dakotans have ever competed in the Winter Olympics.
- Jana Lindsey from Black Hawk competed twice in Freestyle Skiing. First in Turin, Italy, in 2006, then in Vancouver in 2010.
- Scott Berry from Deadwood finished 47th and 52nd in the large hill and normal hill ski jumping in Japan in 1976.
- William Johnson from Watertown made the Alpine Skiing team in 1948
But our state still has a unique connection to the Winter Olympics. For nearly 30 years in the early 20th century, South Dakota was home to a world-famous ski hill. And nope, it wasn’t in the Black Hills.
Canton’s Rise as a National Ski Destination
About 20 minutes south of Sioux Falls, right on the river border with Iowa, is Canton, South Dakota. A little town that at one time was the home to Augustana University before it came to Sioux Falls. In 1911, a student originally from Norway wanted to put on a skiing show on a river bluff just east of town.
That exhibition sparked a local interest in skiing on the river bluffs there. By 1923, the Sioux Valley Ski Club sponsored the first ski meet on the bluff. In 1924, a 250-foot scaffold was built to improve the skiing when the Central U.S. Tournament was held there. By 1925, thousands of people came to watch the National Tournament.
When the Olympic Trials Came to South Dakota
The tournament continued each winter. Then, in 1932, the U.S. Olympic Ski Jumping trials came to Canton. Four skiers qualified for the 1932 US Winter Olympic Team. One of them, Casper Oimoen, placed fourth later that winter at the Olympics at Lake Placid, NY…