Casey Larson competes in the men's normal hill individual qualification at the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 on Feb. 8, 2018 in PyeongChang, South Korea.
Call him Mr. 100,000.
With his Olympic debut Thursday in the men’s normal hill ski jumping qualifier, Team USA’s Casey Larson became the 100,000th man to compete at the Olympics of all time, according to historian Bill Mallon.
According to records kept by Mallon, Larson reached the milestone by merit of being the 16th starter — and 11th new Olympian among that group — in the qualifying round at Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre.
Larson, who finished 46th in the qualifying round, told reporters that he had just learned of the milestone today.
The 19-year-old from Barrington, Illinois, was one of the final athletes to qualify for Team USA, earning his spot based on his results on the world cup and Continental Cup circuits. Earlier this month, he recorded three top-12 performances at the FIS Junior World Ski Championships in Switzerland.
Larson competed at the Winter Youth Olympic Games Lillehammer 2016, where he finished sixth.
Larson is one of three men’s ski jumpers from the Chicago suburbs, joining Michael Glasder and Kevin Bickner. All three train at the Norge Ski Club in Fox River Grove, Illinois.
The men’s normal hill final is set for Saturday and all four U.S. men competing in the event have advanced.
A total of 2,950 athletes are entered to compete in the 2018 Winter Games, according to Mallon, and 1,689 of them are first-timers. Based on those numbers, the PyeongChang Games should also mark the 20,000th Winter Olympian. Coming into PyeongChang, there have been 19,016 Winter Olympians.
Chrös McDougall has covered the Olympic movement for TeamUSA.org since 2009 on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc. He is based in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Karen Price contributed to this report.
