Twenty-eighth in the jump was good enough for Taylor Fletcher, as the 24-year-old U.S. Nordic Combined skier rocketed to an individual podium for the second time in his World Cup career. His older brother Bryan Fletcher placed eighth for his third-straight top 10.
On the second day of the inaugural three-day Nordic Combined Triple, several top skiers, including Jason Lamy-Chappuis, Akito Watabe, Tino Edelmann, and Mikko Kokslien, chat on camera and dish about their favorite U.S. athletes.
When Friday didn’t go according to plan for all of the Americans on the Nordic Combined World Cup, they were happy to have Saturday to shoot for better results. When the team sprint went better on the second day of competition in Val di Fiemme, Italy, with the two U.S. teams cracking the top 10, the four members were even more excited for Sunday. If trial and error told them anything, they figured they’d have...
For the last week, they had been waiting to jump. Really, about 60 nordic-combined athletes from around the world waited all summer for the season to kick off in Kuusamo, Finland. Once there, it seemed the only things holding the athletes back were the weather and the ominous large hill itself. Billy Demong remembered telling someone in an email: “Sometimes survival is success in Kuusamo.” The U.S. nordic combined veteran meant that literally. He was...