WASHINGTON, DC (April 22) – The fact that, without snow, his sport would be impossible could be a big reason that Olympic gold medalist Billy Demong (Vermontville, NY) was chosen to be a speaker at The Climate Rally, an event in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of Earth Day in Washington, DC. Demong will speak in front of thousands on Sunday, April 25 at The National Mall as part of an initiative for all involved...
USSA has released nominations for the 2011 US Nordic Combined Team. Led by Olympic medalists Billy Demong, Johnny Spillane, and Todd Lodwick, the team would consist of nine members. Athletes must accept the responsibilities of a USST athlete. The final team will be named later this spring. Demong became the first US skier to win a gold medal in any of the nordic sports this year in Vancouver. Spillane won three silver medals, and Lodwick...
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, CO – With a total of seven Olympic medals in tow, the U.S. Ski Team’s nordic combined superstars Billy Demong (Vermontville, NY), Johnny Spillane (Steamboat Springs, CO), Todd Lodwick (Steamboat Springs, CO) and Brett Camerota (Park City, UT) have shipped off to the middle east to visit the troops as part of the 2010 Heavy Medal Tour. The Olympic heroes received a sendoff of gold-medal proportion on Friday as the town of Steamboat...
Oslo, Norway – The Norwegian team gave the home crowd a show as the nation won the nordic combined team event at the Holmenkollen Ski Festival Saturday, the biggest sporting event in Norway. The U.S. Ski Team went with its three individual Olympic medalists, adding 18 year old Nick Hendrickson (Park City, UT) as the fourth for the rare World Cup team event. “Being in the fight at the beginning and in the end, fighting...
Olympic Heavy Medal Tour to visit U.S. military bases in Southwest Asia Washington, D.C. – The 2010 U.S. Olympic Nordic Combined Team takes the helm of the Armed Forces Entertainment (
As Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane strode triumphantly to the podium for the flower ceremony after today’s nordic combined competition, a parade of sullen-looking Europeans was walking through the mixed zone, in the other direction. It was easy to miss them—after all, they weren’t the ones who won medals. But they had an interesting story to tell, too: how Thursday’s weather conditions in the jumping round had ruined their chances for Olympic glory. Big names...
Whistler, British Columbia – The US Nordic Combined team will paying overweight on their flight back to Park City. A historic day doubled their Vancouver medal haul, giving them nearly nine pounds of hardware. Billy Demong skied away from teammate Johnny Spillane and Austrian Bernard Gruber on the final climb to claim Olympic gold. With a move of his own, Spillane left Gruber in the dust, too—laying claim to his 3rd silver medal of the...
Whistler, British Columbia – The two skiers swept around the large curve down into the stadium, Billy Demong of the USA in the lead, Austrian Mario Stecher right on his heels, the gold medal waiting, just 200 meters away. Stecher stepped out, tucking past Demong. There would be no sprint for the line. The gap was enough, and Austria champions. The American team, in claiming the silver, made US Nordic Combined history for the second...
After being selected as the fourth member of the U.S. nordic combined team’s relay squad, the pressure was all on Brett Camerota’s shoulders this morning as he took to the top of the jump. He didn’t disappoint, coming through with his best-ever leap on the big hill here in Whistler and setting up the Americans for another podium finish this afternoon, after Johnny Spillane’s silver last week. The team will start the 4×5 k relay...
After Johnny Spillane won a silver medal Sunday afternoon—the first of any color in U.S. nordic combined history—his former coach, Tom Steitz, voiced the rhetorical question on every reporter’s mind here. “How do you boil up 86 years of emotion and frustration?” he asked. The answer? Todd Lodwick’s face. Struggling to explain himself and holding back tears after just missing out on the bronze, Lodwick quivered with feeling: fierce pride for his teammate and friend,...
PARK CITY, UT (Jan. 21) – Three World Champions were among five athletes announced Thursday by the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) to compete on the 2010 Olympic Nordic Combined Ski Team. Billy Demong (Vermontville, NY), Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane (both Steamboat Springs, CO) will headline the strongest U.S. team ever in the sport. USSA President and CEO Bill Marolt, together with the U.S. Olympic Committee and Team partner Visa, announced the roster...
Used to being on the podium in previous years, Billy Demong started this season fairly slowly by his standards, placing between 8th and 14th in his World Cup finishes. But this Sunday’s World Cup in Val di Fiemme
Today the U.S. Nordic Combined World Cup Team – Billy Demong, Todd Lodwick, and Johnny Spillane – gave a teleconference from Ramsau, Austria, where they are preparing for this weekend’s World Cup events. They gave insights about the upcoming Olympic trials in Steamboat Springs, their World Cup schedule this season, how they’ve come back from summer injuries, what they are doing to prepare for the Olympic Games, and their excitement for the team’s strength as...
There is an eternal conflict shared by car, bike and ski companies. At what point do you unleash a new design unto the public? How much testing, how many races, does a ski or a bike or a car need to undertake before it is ready for the market? The Italian car manufacturer Alfa Romeo had a race director named Enzo Ferrari who left Alfa and started his own company over this very issue. Atomic...
Universal Sports recently published an interview with US World Champion Nordic Combined skier Billy Demong. Peter Graves talks to Billy about his past, the future, and upcoming Olympics. Billy Demong has a real shot at an Olympic medal in Nordic combined. Demong was born in Vermontville, New York, not far from the Olympic village of Lake Placid. His birth was a month before the games ended in 1980, but with new venues available, he was...
The penultimate day of the ski championships in Liberec, Czech Republic was one of ebullient hope for the future of American skiing with the races and results from the young women’s performances in the 30 kilometer mass start skate. This day also demonstrated the heights nordic sports the U.S. is reaching with Billy Demong’s win in big hill, single jump 10 kilometer (a.k.a. the Gundersen HS134/10.0), capping off three individual nordic combined gold medals in...
LIBEREC, Czech Republic – Billy Demong (Vermontville, NY) upgraded his bronze medal performance with a gold Saturday, winning the final nordic combined event of the 2009 FIS Nordic Ski World Championships. Demong’s gold marks the fourth for the USA at this year’s Championships. Demong started the cross country race in seventh, but quickly pulled into third and then second around the 3.5K mark. At 6K, he took over first, but was neck and neck with...
LIBEREC, Czech Republic – The USA suffered a blow in the nordic combined team event at the FIS Nordic Ski World Championships when Billy Demong (Vermontville, NY) was disqualified for not having a starting bib. In a surprise, Japan won the event in a photo finish over Germany, as Norway faded in the final 500 meters. Demong was disqualified by officials at the top of the jump as he prepared for his single competition jump....
LIBEREC, Czech Republic – In an historic day for the USA, Todd Lodwick (Steamboat Springs, CO) took his second World Championship gold and teammate Billy Demong (Vermontville, NY) took the bronze during the 2009 FIS Nordic Ski World Championships in Liberec. The USA is leading the medals count with three gold and a silver after eight of 20 events. Lodwick and Demong’s performance marks the first time two U.S. nordic combined athletes have made the...
