The 2012 Nordic Combined Continental Cup season kicked off in Utah over the last two weeks. Kerry Lynch, a coach with the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club submitted this report. The opening Nordic Combined Continental Cups are in the books for the 2011 – 2012 Season. After much training and anticipation of getting ready for the events, it was game time. Day 1 – The competitions opened on Friday Dec 6th under clear sunny skis...
In case you weren’t glued to your computer screen this weekend, here are links to our coverage of elite racing that’s happened around the world over the past few days, all in one place. Cross Country World Cup | Davos, Switzerland Saturday 15/30 k Freestyle Men: Canadian Report | Results Women: American Report | Race Report | Results Women: North American Report | International and Race Report | Photo Gallery Women: Results | Race Report...
Jason Lamy Chappuis (FRA), the overall World Cup winner last winter, was back on top of the podium on Sunday for the second day of Nordic Combined competition in Ramsau, Austria. “Of course I’m very happy that I can wear the yellow bib again, it’s a familiar feeling,” said Lamy Chappuis to the FIS media after his win. The 25-year-old has been on the World Cup podium 42 different times, and has stood at the top...
Last weekend in Lillehammer, Billy Demong’s 11th place was discounted due to a penalty lap miscounting error in the new Nordic Combined pursuit format. In Saturday’s Gundersen format World Cup in Ramsau, Austria, he remained consistent with 11th place—improved, if you consider that last week he would have finished further back if he’d done a fourth penalty loop. Norway’s Jan Schmid won on Saturday with his first career World Cup victory. Two of Schmid’s teammates...
Their plan had been so simple. Stay loose, ski strong and play the first World Cup penalty race by ear. The two Americans that qualified for Sunday’s competition in Lillehammer, Norway, Billy Demong and Bryan Fletcher found that worked well considering the circumstances. As they completed the first of five laps on the 10 k course, Demong and Fletcher watched dozens of skiers take their penalty loops at once. Depending on how they jumped on...
With 44 competitors in front of him and six behind at the start of Saturday’s nordic combined 10 k, Taylor Fletcher knew he had his work cut out for him. Starting 2 minutes and 14 seconds behind the leader, Germany’s Tino Edelmann, the 21-year-old Fletcher took on the massive task of catching up after his provisional jump from Friday put him in 45th. Fletcher covered the difficult course, with about 4 inches of fresh snow...
Don’t call the Americans ungrateful. They were happy to be on snow in Kuusamo, Finland, competing for the first time, jumping when they could. But they’re happy to be moving on to Lillehammer, Norway, for the second weekend of the nordic-combined World Cup. The first one was challenging enough. After U.S. veteran Johnny Spillane was eliminated from the competition before it started, missing out a qualifying jump on Friday, the team suffered another blow Saturday...
If the U.S. Nordic Combined Team got together for Thanksgiving, there might be less football watching and more talk about the kids. That’s the way life is for almost half of the seven-man squad, with each of the “Big Three” aged 30 or older and with at least one child. “It’s a different dynamic than it has been in the past,” said head coach Dave Jarrett, who has two kids of his own. “But it’s...
Bill Demong and Bryan Fletcher led their Nordic Combined teammates to a “reassuring” start of competition this weekend at the FIS Summer Grand Prix in Saturday’s Complete Results (Gundersen start)
FasterSkier Performances of the Year The FasterSkier Performance of the Year Award is presented in three categories – cross-country, biathlon and nordic combined, with men’s and women’s in the first two. We will start with cross-country. XC Performance of the Year (women): Kikkan Randall (USA/USST) In some ways this is the easiest of the Performance of the Year awards – there is no question that it will go to Kikkan Randall. The challenge is picking...
SARANAC LAKE, NY (May 13) – Olympic and World Champion Billy Demong (Vermontville, NY) will be the first inductee into Saranac Lake’s Walk of Fame during a ceremony held Saturday at the village’s historic Hotel Saranac The Walk of Fame was created by the Board of Trustees as a way to recognize notable community residents and celebrate village history. “Bill Demong is an outstanding citizen of the greater Saranac Lake area. He gives us tremendous...
FasterSkier Nordic Combined Skier of the Year With Canada supporting a small, and young Nordic Combined team, focus remains on the US squad. And it was an interesting year for the team. Coming off an Olympics with three individual medals, including gold, and a silver in the team competition, it would be easy to understand high expectations, especially with the trio of Billy Demong, Todd Lodwick, and Johnny Spillane returning for another year. But Spillane...
As Kerry Lynch’s career was ascending, Walter Malmquist’s career was peaking. Graduating from New Hampshire’s Holderness School, he joined the U.S. nordic combined team in 1974, retiring at the end of the 1980-1981 season. Competing in the 1976 and 1980 Winter Olympics, his best finish was 12th the 15 k nordic combined event in the 1980 Games, in Lake Placid. Today, Malmquist is a volunteer coach at the Holderness School, Proctor Academy, and Andover Outing...
As the ski season for Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club (SSWSC) wound down, juniors coach and former World Cup nordic combined skier Kerry Lynch answered questions via phone and e-mail with FasterSkier correspondent Peter Minde. A three-time nordic combined national champion, Lynch raced from 1979 until 1987, and his international success presaged the later successes of Ryan Heckman and the current crop of U.S. nordic combined skiers. A participant in the 1980 and 1984 Winter...
Aiming to add more action and increase interest for the sport, the recent FIS Nordic Combined meeting in Zürich (SUI) discussed new race formats.
After winning the silver medal in the team competition during 2010 Vancouver Games and proceeding to win the US nationals summer Nationals, Brett Camerota thought he was on his way to take yet another step. But it would be a step back.
The most successful group of nordic athletes the US has ever seen? Unquestionably. With a grand total of nine individual Olympic and World Championship medals the trio of Billy Demong, Johnny Spillane and Todd Lodwick have more hardware than all other US cross-country, nordic combined and biathlon athletes combined. With the World Cup season coming to a close in Lahti, Finland two weeks ago, the questions have begun – is the band breaking up? The...
The US Nordic Combined team travels around the world with the usual gear: skis, boots, poles, race suits, iPod. …And a sewing machine.
The American nordic combined skiers came tantalizingly close to medals in their four events at World Championships in Oslo over the past two weeks. In the two team competitions, they were fourth and sixth, while in two individual races, they put two men in the top 10 both times. In Friday’s World Cup in Lahti, Finland, the Americans were spared the fate of again falling just short of the podium—but for the wrong reasons. On...
A World Championship 50k, let alone one at Holmenkollen, is not usually a race that one just jumps into, but US Nordic Combined star Billy Demong is doing just that. Not literally, of course—though he certainly has the chops to pull off such a feat. With Kris Freeman opting to sit out the freestyle event scheduled for 1:00PM in Oslo, Norway, a spot on the US squad opened up. The 50 k is second only...