Nordic combined is a heavy medal favorite

In June, Billy Demong was headed to Australia for vacation. Going through security at the Los Angeles International Airport, Demong - who won gold and bronze medals in Nordic combined at the 2009 World Championships - presented his passport to the TSA guard. The agent looked at the passport, then looked back at Demong and asked, "Are you that famous cross-country skier Billy Demong?"

Demong was floored. In a niche sport like Nordic combined, he's not used to being recognized by anyone other than his friends and family.

"I am," Demong remembered stammering, "... probably the only Billy Demong!"

After the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Demong will most likely have to get used to being more widely recognized. And so will his teammates.

Not only is Demong, 29, going to the Olympics as a defending world champion (in the large hill competition), but so is his teammate Todd Lodwick, 32, who won two golds at 2009 Worlds (in the normal hill and mass start events).

"We've always known where we wanted to be, where we thought we could be," said Dave Jarrett, U.S. Nordic combined head coach and member of the U.S. Ski Team from 1992-1998. "Now it's coming to fruition."

First created as an event in 19^th century Norwegian winter carnivals, Nordic combined is one of the original Winter Olympic sports. It crowns the men (and it's still only men) who have the guts and control to fly off big ski jumps combined with the endurance to push hard in cross-country ski races. Norwegians swept the Nordic combined podiums at the first four Winter Olympiads.

The sport's format has changed over the years. In the early Winter Olympiads, the 18km cross-country race was considered part of Nordic combined (as well as being a medal event unto itself). Times from the race were converted to points. The jump was held a day or two later, and the winner was determined by tallying points from the race and jump.

Now the jump comes first, and the scores from this event determine the start order for the cross-country ski race, which is held the same day. The jump leader starts the cross-country race first and the interval start of each pursuer is calculated by the Gundersen points-to-time conversion, where every point equals four seconds.

For example, if Competitor B is 2.5 points behind the jump leader, Competitor B will start the cross-country ski race 10 seconds behind the leader. The winner is then easily determined - he's the first skier across the line.

At the 2010 Olympics, the Nordic combined events will consist of three competitions. In the individual normal hill event, competitors will do one jump off the smaller ski jump, then compete in a 10km Gundersen start cross-country ski race.

In the individual large hill event, competitors will take one jump off on the larger hill, followed by a 10km cross-country ski race. This event replaces the sprint that was introduced at the 2002 Olympics.

The team event, which was introduced at the Calgary 1988 Olympic Winter Games, consists of four men who do one jump each on the large hill, then compete in a 4 x 5km cross-country race.

The mass start is not an Olympic event.

To date, the closest that American Nordic combined skiers have come to an Olympic medal is fourth in the team event at the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Lodwick was fifth in the sprint event at the 2002 Games.

So why are the Americans so strong in Nordic combined now?

"It's hard to put your finger on one thing," said Jarrett. "It's been a long build. If you look at the lineage of the team, every generation of skier starting with my generation has built upon the previous one."

Demong credits Lodwick with starting the team's upward trajectory in the mid-1990s. In December 1995, shortly after his 19^th birthday, Lodwick won his first World Cup. Six weeks later, he won a gold medal at the 1996 Junior World Championships.

"He broke through and said 'I don't care, I'm going to win Nordic combined World Cups and stop playing that game of [thinking] the U.S. isn't good enough,'" said Demong. "He just went out and did it."

"That showed the way and definitely developed the team at the time into World Cup podium contenders," he added.

From 1995 until 2003, Lodwick, Demong, and Johnny Spillane racked up 17 World Cup medals. Spillane and Demong also took gold and silver medals in the team event at the 1999 and 2000 Junior World Championships.

Then at the 2003 World Championships, Spillane did what no other American Nordic combined skier had been able to do in the previous decades. In the sprint, he finished fourth on the large hill jump and started the 7.5km race within seconds of the big guns - 2002 Olympic silver medalists Ronny Ackermann and Georg Hettich from Germany, and 2002 Olympic bronze medalist Felix Gottwald, also from Germany. (Gottwald and Hettich would both win gold medals at the 2006 Olympics.)

In the final 100 meters, Spillane sprinted past Ackermann and Gottwald for the win. Hettich finished fourth.

"I don't think we expected [Johnny] to be that fast in the final sprint," Gottwald told Ski Racing Magazine's Paul Robbins after the race.

Not only was Spillane the first American to win a world championship medal in Nordic combined, but he convinced himself that he could race with the top contenders, said then head coach Bård Jorgen Elden. More importantly, he convinced his teammates that they could win as well. 

"The door really opened wide when Johnny won the World Championships in 2003," said Jarrett. "Until then, Todd and Bill had won World Cups but never had any success in a world championship or Olympics."

Demong credited Spillane, who is now 28, with "taking the monkey off our back" and giving the U.S. team the confidence to take another five world championship medals since 2003. At the 2007 World Championships, Demong scored a silver medal. Then Demong and Lodwick swept the individual competitions at 2009 Worlds.

Demong, Lodwick, and Spillane have also been regulars on World Cup podiums, finishing in the top three 34 times since February 2003.

"Instead of trying to make something like a miracle happen for one day, we've made a habit of being on the podium," Demong said. "It's a lot of fun and a much different perspective than the U.S. has ever had before."

Their confidence carries over to team practices as well. The team often trains together on the jumps and trails in Park City, Steamboat, and Lake Placid, and at summer camps in Europe, and the younger guys on the team - at least one of whom will round out the U.S. Olympic team - all know that they are training with some of the best guys in the world, if not the best in the world, said Jarrett.

"Everybody is in a competition with a world champion every day," he said.

Jarrett also credits the team's success to its maturity. Demong, Lodwick and Spillane together have competed in 411 World Cup competitions. The 2010 Olympics will be Lodwick's fifth trip to the Games, and the fourth for Demong and Spillane.

"We've matured to the point where we know what makes us fast for those two weeks a year - faster and jumping farther," added Demong. "We know how to get ready for the big show."

Lodwick, who competed at the 1994 Winter Olympics as a 17-year-old, has been around for so long that he actually retired  in 2006. In spring 2008, after two years selling real estate in his hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and being with his family (he and his wife, Sunny, have a 4-year old daughter and 1-year-old son), he decided to return to Nordic combined.

"I came back solely to win medals, that's it," Lodwick said.

"Mission one accomplished," he added, referring to his world championship gold medals.

Not only did he win the mass start event at Worlds, he dominated. He won both the jump and cross-country ski race. Norwegian Thorleif Haug won both the cross-country race and Nordic combined jumping competition at the 1924 Olympics. But a quick scan of recent results indicates that winning both the jump and the cross-country ski race is rare. 

In an even more impressive performance for the U.S., Lodwick won the individual normal hill competition and Demong crossed the line in third for the bronze medal. Despite winning his own world championship gold in the large hill competition a few days later, Demong said standing on the podium and sitting in the press conference with his teammate was "the most fun I had."

"Both of us sat there with big grins," he said.

Spillane also competed at the 2009 World Championships, but his best finish was 16^th in the normal hill event. Unfortunately, Spillane has been "snake-bitten by injuries" in the past four or five years, said Jarrett. Most recently, he tore the meniscus in his knee in July and had surgery in early October. But Jarrett is confident that Spillane will be training on snow soon.

Demong and Lodwick have also suffered injuries in the past couple of months. In July, while on a training bike ride in France, Lodwick crashed into a car after watching a stage of the Tour de France. But he recovered quickly and won his 20^th national Nordic combined title on October 10, 2009, in Lake Placid, N.Y., jumping on plastic mats and skiing on roller skis.

In early October, Demong crashed when his roller ski broke from under him. He bruised his chest and shoulder and was unable to compete at the national championships. But he was back training on roller skis by mid-October.

Both Demong and Lodwick said they have battled through their injuries and motivation is high.

"Now we're on to the ultimate mission," said Lodwick, referring to his quest for an Olympic medal.

But it's no longer an impossible mission. At the Whistler Olympic Park in February, the U.S. Nordic combined skiers will know what they're up against.

"We know that we can medal," said Demong. "That gives us confidence to focus on the task at hand and not worry about trying to make something special happen."

"If we do what we do every day, we'll fight for medals."

Peggy Shinn is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.