News Photo — Grace McIntyre Lisa Toole records times and temperatures as a part of her work as a technical volunteer for the IBSF Bobsled and Skeleton World Championship on Friday, March 7 at Mount Van Hoevenberg.

LAKE PLACID — Behind every international sporting competition is an army of local volunteers working behind the scenes to make it happen.

Lisa and Tom Toole moved to the area in 2020 and have been volunteering for ORDA events for five years. They spent many previous years traveling regularly to Lake Placid, and Tom has both competed and volunteered for the IronMan competition.

“It takes a village to put on an event like this,” Tom said. “I know from doing the IronMan — without volunteers, it just doesn’t happen.”

They’ve volunteered for events in “just about every sport.” Both Tooles said they are sports fans and love getting to see behind the scenes. They’ve even taken the test to become officials since some of the volunteer roles are quite technical. In sliding sports, Lisa said, a lot of the volunteers are there to make sure the conditions are the same for every athlete.

This can mean anything from sweeping the start of the track after each run to taking temperature readings of the skeleton sled runners. Warmer runners decrease friction on the ice, so the sleds are required to be at a certain temperature to level the playing field — or in this case — the ice.

News Photo — Grace McIntyre Lisa and Tom Toole volunteered at the Start One building at Mount Van Hoevenberg during the IBSF Bobsled and Skeleton World Championship on Friday, March 7.

In addition to helping at the start of the track, Tom and Lisa have helped at the finish.

When skeleton athletes finish their run, they need to be weighed with and without their sled to make sure they meet regulations. Sometimes, a sled even needs to be fully taken apart and inspected.

“Wherever they need you, that’s where you go,” Tom said.

On Friday, Feb. 7, the second day of competition for the IBSF World Championships, Tom and Lisa were needed as technical volunteers at the start, helping take the temperature of the sled runners.

Normally, the sleds are put in an ice box for a set amount of time to make sure the runners are cold enough. However, Friday was so cold that they didn’t need the ice box. Tom and Lisa bustled around the Start One building, transporting plastic bins of warm clothing for the athletes and occasionally recording temperatures and times on a whiteboard.

When asked what they enjoy most about sliding, Lisa is quick to answer.

“The energy,” she said. “The athletes are very supportive of each other. There’s usually somebody out there cheering the person on, saying, ‘You’ve got this, go for it.’ It’s really nice to see that and as a volunteer, you get to be even closer to that than you are as a spectator.”

Bill McInerney, a part-time resident of Keene Valley who spends much of his time in the Adirondacks, is in his second year of volunteering for ORDA sports events. He started with the World University Games and somewhere along the way, learned that ORDA also needed event volunteers. Among other benefits, this has been a way for McInerney to find community post-retirement.

“You immediately make 25 friends from the other volunteers and staff,” he said.

In that time, he’s also helped with the Empire State Games and has become an official for luge, bobsled and skeleton.

He’s helped with a variety of tasks, from the timing sleds in the ice box, sweeping the track and helping athletes in other ways. This weekend, he was at the finish helping weigh athletes and sleds.

Compared to other sports, he appreciates that sliding events allow him to get close to the action. He also expressed gratitude to the ORDA staff.

“They’re half the reason this is so much fun,” McInerney said. “They treat us like gold.”

The Tooles both knew next to nothing about sliding when they started working these events. Now, they’re familiar with the details and rules — like how athletes can’t hold sleds against their bodies because it might warm the runners. Now they watch and help all the details fall into place, and have learned more than they ever thought they could.

“I never thought about the fact that as an athlete runs down the track and jumps in the bobsleigh or onto the skeleton sled that they’ve dug up the ice a little bit,” Lisa said. “So somebody goes through behind them and sweeps it up so the next person has the nice ice again.”

“There are just so many little things that you don’t see on TV,” Tom added. “All you see is people going down the hill. There’s just so much that happens behind the scenes that takes volunteers.”

These little, but important jobs are part of what makes these competitions exciting for McInerney also.

“On TV, they see one sled getting ready to start,” he said. “But just out of camera range, there’s bobs, trucks and other teams and officials and the sweepers and the ice boxes. There’s just no role in those other (sports) that are as busy and as exciting.”