Park City, Utah – Dave Jarrett, US Ski Team Nordic Combined Head Coach, is content with Demong’s result and glad to see him returning from his early-season jumping funk. Despite a less than stellar jump this morning, Demong has delivered some promising jumps since returning from Europe last weekend. And he is generally reliable on the cross-country.
“We definitely had difficult racing conditions today. Bill was leading going into the stadium, but it was so soft he didn’t have a chance to sprint,” Jarrett said.
Demong, who was 18th after the jumping, had quite a job to do on the cross-country course. After a less than stellar day on the hill, Demong started 1:40 behind Sebastian Reuschel (GER), who had the best jump and proceeded to win the competition.
“Bill came back from pretty far behind and caught the leaders on the first lap. He tried to make a move on the top of the last hill, but he just couldn’t drop anyone. They all came in together, but when they lined up to sprint it was just too soft,” Jarrett said.
“I was definitely in it to win today,” Bill Demong said. But he is not disappointed with fifth place. “I got what I wanted out of this, and it was a good hard race,” he said, noting that the conditions on the hill in the morning were difficult. At first, there was not much wind at all, while those jumping later had more wind.