Will this be Lake Placid’s Olympics?

We’ve tallied roughly a dozen North Country athletes heading to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Nancie Battaglia, the celebrated photographer will be our eyes and ears on the ground out there — and this week we’ll be setting the mood with a series of profiles and previews.

Here’s my fantasy:

On this 30th anniversary of the last Lake Placid Winter Games, it would be cool if our tiny part of the United States accounted for a big chunk of America’s medal tally.

Is it unlikely that a half-dozen of our kids and neighbors will make it to the podium in Vancouver? Maybe.

But miracles happen up here all the time.

When I was interviewing Leo Demong about his son Bill’s astonishing run as a Nordic combined skier, he reflected on the fact that Bill, Lowell Bailey and Tim Burke all came out of the same NYSEF class.

All three are now in the Olympics. As Leo put it, that’s like three kids from the same little league team going to the Majors.

So maybe we’re too small to have our own full-blown Olympics back in Lake Placid. But I’m hoping we own a big piece of the 2010 games before they’re over.

Tune in tomorrow morning for Melissa Block’s story from Lake Placid, which first aired last week on All Things Considered.

Tags: olympics