It’s easy to feel lucky or unlucky in life and as such to place blame on extraneous factors.  After winning a bronze medal in the team event at the World Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy, I felt the momentum building and wanted to carry it into our final events.  The morning of the final individual event I felt great – mentally aware and acute, physically strong, and as pain-free as a child.  It was going to be a great day…

I was the 29th skier to ski jump in the round and I executed my best jump of my year.  I turned to look and I was in third place!  With only 25 skiers left to go, I felt that I was going to put myself into contention in the cross-country race for my first individual podium of the season.   I think the smile showed as I walked past media, friends and family and they asked questions thinking the same good thoughts as I.  Then five skiers later, the wind changed.  Massively….

http://www.teamusa.org/Team-USA-Winter-Bloggers/Billy-Demong/Outdoor-Sport.aspx

I planned on recapping after the championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy, were over but after an amazing day for our team on Sunday I need to share.

In my last post I spoke about predominantly two things: the ability to peak at the right time and the importance of performing at the biggest events.  This past Sunday both of these things came to the test and my teammates showed their mettle.  We have had a solid year as a team with our youngest members, Bryan and Taylor Fletcher, earning….  (read the rest at TeamUSA.org)

http://www.teamusa.org/Team-USA-Winter-Bloggers/Billy-Demong/The-Magic-Of-Stache-Tats.aspx

Inline

Here we are less than a calendar year to go until the Opening Ceremony in Sochi for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games.  The anniversary was celebrated on the Today show and across media the world over and yet our one-year out party has just started in Val di Fiemme, Italy.  The year out show is more about the feeling – the awareness and challenge that comes with the biggest events of the season. 

Annually, we compete in over 20 World Cup competitions and the rigors of so many events spreads the urgency over month, and form comes and goes, but, like the Olympic Games, the World Championships focuses the athletes attention….

Read the rest at TeamUSA

http://www.teamusa.org/Team-USA-Winter-Bloggers/Billy-Demong/One-Year-To-Go.aspx

Season 2013 has started a bit lackluster for me but on a whole we have, as a team, produced some good results by some new guys.  The Fletcher Brothers have proven to be a force and Bryan leads our team in ski jumping while younger brother Taylor is the fastest Nordic Combined skier on the circuit!  Together they are our two top ranked skiers and continue to impress.

After suffering from whooping cough (yes whooping cough! Like cough til you gag, whooping cough.) for over a month I’ve started finding form on the cross country tracks again and the jumping portion continues to be my achilles.  Recently I’ve taken some pretty good jumps but the day to day reality is that I need to bring up my level.  I’m home now to try and do that.

After ringing in the New Year on a plane from SLC to Paris our team headed to Schonach, Germany for the historic Schwarzwald Pokal.  While Schonach has historically been a good place for me I failed to qualify in the individual event ski jumping provisional round.  On Sunday we had a Team relay and I was back on the start list.  Jumping for the team is a different feeling, instead of trying to qualify for my own I felt the pressure of making it happen for my boys.  That day I produced my best jump of the season and helped land the team with Bryan, Taylor and Todd in 6th place a mere 30 seconds behind the podium. 

Heading into the race we knew we had a chance and as the cross country track was reduced to boot deep slush we started licking our chops as those tough conditions have always favored us.  We sent Bryan out first followed by Taylor, a tactic designed to allow Taylor to try and bridge as much of the gap as possible.  Taylor delivered tagging Todd in 5th together with 4th place France.  Todd skied a smart race and left France’s maxime Laheurte behind giving us a crucial gap over France and behind Austria in 3rd by only a few seconds.  As I was tagged any plan to start a bit easy went out the window and I put my head down catching Bernard Gruber quickly as we left the stadium and pouring on the gas to make Jason Lamy Chappuis pay as he tried to close from behind.  After several kms of hard skiing I felt Jason fade behind and Gruber breathing hard and I knew it was time to attack.  If left it to a sprint both of them could best me and my insurance was to go hard enough, early enough to make it clear.  I started with over a km to go and went into a pain so deep I thought I might fall over but the sound of Gruber falling behind was motivation to keep going.  Finally crossing the finish line I fell over harder than I ever have before and was greeted by my team exhuberant over the first Team USA Relay podium in a World Cup and the first since the games in Vancouver!  It was a huge day because although we did well we also knew we could have done even better.  A confidence boost for the whole squad as we start preperations for the World Champonships in Italy. 

Last weekend in Chaux Neuve, France Taylor again showed his strength by skiing the fastest time and moving through the field from 35th to 10th in the cross country portion.  On sunday we a Team Sprint event and the Fletchers Teamed up against myself and Johnny Spillane.  We skied most of the race together and in the end Taylor skied an amazing final km to land Team Fletcher in 7th out of 20 teams.  Not the best results we’ve ever had but solid stuff and something to build on.  My feeling is that we are closer than we even know.

A picture from the Team Sprint in Chaux Neuve courtesy of Jessica Walker

Tomorrow is the final day of the National Nordic Foundations “Drive for 25!”  We have raised almost $50,000 to directly benefit the athletes of today and tomorrow and by tomorrow night could really use your donation!  Please donate $25 or more and enlist some friends to do the same.  This is an awareness campaign as much as anything and we will utilize the emails we get to keep you informed of our results and experiences.  I have personally donated over $500 this year and will match another $500 on a 10-1 basis so lets do this! My goal for tomorrow is to raise $10,000 to make sure that our top skiers can go as far as their hard work and dedication can take them. 

NC at it again dominating the hardest HC climbs of the Alpe’s while jumping in the morning and watching the big boys mix it up in the afternoon.  In this years edition of the Nordic Combined TDF we managed to knock down:

Col du Madeleine, Col du Glandon, l’Alpe d’Huez, Montee de Courchevel (some on rollerskis), Cormet de Roselend, Col du Petit St Bernard, Col de la Croix de Fer, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier

for a grand total of 14,500 meters of climb over nearly 600km. 

This year we also had fellow Nordic Combined Olympians Jed Hinkley and Carl Van Loan, the proprieters of “Olympian Tours” bring several guests who rode with us and made some helpful donations to the National Nordic Foundation. Also supporting this effory was Fast Big Dog racing who through in some sicky kits and water bottles as well as Park City Cole Sport and Honey Stinger. 

Now the B team is training in Oberstdorf, Germany for several days and the A team is headed to Sochi to try out the new jumps and compete in some comps this coming weekend!

Here is a little video that mr @skifletch made to commerate our epic week.

Highlight reel from the pre-world Championship event in Val di Fiemme, Italy from February.  My first podium since Vancouver and some sweet racing with Mikko Kokslien and Akito Watabe.

Looking for the US Noco boys to fire it up in Lahti, Finland tomorrow at 9am est in the 2 man team relay.  Team 1 is Bryan and Taylor Fletcher, USA 2 is Brett Denney and Nick Hendrickson.

Go boys, go USA!

Just finished up an action packed weekend here in Chicago for the 2012 US National Nordic Combined Championships.  Yep, Chicago.  Betcha ya did not know there was a jump here but there is and it is one of the oldest ski clubs in the country!  The Norge Ski Club of Fox River Grove, Il was founded in 1904 and has been hosting some very popular ski jumping events ever since.  But only once before has Norge hosted the national championships so it was pretty exciting to see it come back. 

Ever since we switched our nationals to fall it has become a more serious competition as it is the first test heading into winter for all the new found form instead of an april after-thought.  It has also opened the door for us to put the event in some places that could not typically host a spring tourney.  Norge proved to be a great host club and saturday was a really successful event.  We kicked off with the small hill jumping championships and with over 75 competitors it took some time to get through 3 rounds.  During which hundreds of people came to partake in the festival atmosphere around the base of the ski jump.  Though not the crowds of 5k+ they command in the winter it was pretty good for football season!  

Bryan Fletcher really showed his strength on the jumphill outdistancing Johnny Spillane and I by enough to get a 30 sec head start for the XC race.  And though I was sure we could catch him in the challenging 10km, which wound relentlessly up and over the back of the jumping hill, he managed to increase his lead by 10 sec over the first 5km.  So with half the race over and nearly a 40sec advantage I thought Bryan would take the title easily but Johnny and I were able to pick it up enough as Bryan faded to make contact with just a km remaining.  From there we all backed off a bit to try and recover for a move and in the end it was a 3 way dash for the last 200m.  I managed to edge out Johnny at the line!  Its a good motivation for the beggining of the last prep phase to know you are close to where you want to be.  What was really great about the weekend was seeing the strength of our up and coming junior squad.  Alec Gantic of Steamboat jumped to 2nd place in Nordic Combined and 17 year old Eric Lynch had a great jump and a fast race managing to outsprint Taylor Fletcher to take 5th place right behind Todd.  

In any case a former Nordic Combined Development athlete Dan Englund has put together a really neat video of the weekend.  His companyAerial Vantage Productions gets some really unique shots using a remote control helicopter to to follow jumpers through the air and skiers on the course.  Enjoy!

As per Twitter I’ve logged last week as 43228.  The code can be broken down as follows: 4 races in 3 countries on 2 continents in 2 disciplines over 8 days.

 It started saturday August 27th in Oberwiesenthal, Germany with my first Summer Grand Prix Nordic Combined event in a couple years.  A normal gundersen competition with one jump on the k-90 followed by a 10km pursuit.  I finished a lackluster 30th after blowing up mid-race trying to keep up with Taylor Fletcher but the day was highlighted by older brother Bryan’s 8th place and near podium.  Also we had a youngster Eric Lynch a second generation Nordic Combined talent ski in his first A level competition in which he really held his own with a solid performance.  

Day 2 was Sunday another competition in the same venue but instead of a pursuit race we did the first ever Nordic Combined “Penalty” race.  in this format the winner of the jumping got a 10 sec head start on the field and the other 70 of us mass started for 6 laps around the 1.75km cobble stoned hilly nightmare around downtown.  The kicker is that depending on how you jumped you had to do a certain number of Penalty laps during the race as such: jump 101 or farther: 0 penalties  

jump 96-101: 1 penalty

jump 91-96: 2 penalty

and so on up to 6 laps!  Oh, and if you fail to have a telemark landing add one penalty or worse crash, add 3!

The penalty was a lap around the inside of an outdoor hocket rink off to the side of the course just past the cobbled section and you could choose when to do your laps 1 at a time or all at once on any lap.  

I wanted to hate this race when I heard about it but honestly it was pretty interesting and the tactic of when to take the penalties added alot to the race.  I had 1 penalty and I chose the 3rd lap to do it, I went from leading to 5th about 25 sec back.  After a couple more guys took their penalties I was in 3rd and there I stayed danging 25-30 sec behind the leading duo and pulling away from the field slowly.  Ultimately I finished on the podium my first since 2010.  

It was off to Czech Republic from there to play 18 holes of golf (walking with my clubs on my back) in a little NC get together on monday followed by another competition in Liberec on Wednesday where I skied a strong race but finished in 24th.  All in all it was some solid contact with the other teams and decent results in a very strong field.  After the race I beat for the Prague Airport to try and make it home in time for race #4.

Thursdays travel was long but I made it home by mid-afternoon after catching the Paris-Salt Lake direct.  And Friday I was back on my bike for the 2nd time since Leadville to preride the opening 10 miles of Park City’s infamous Point 2 Point race.  Brutal! Those opening 10 were mostly hard single track and I hoped that later in the race it might ease up….

Saturday morning I walked outside at 5:45am after a mostly sleepless night (indigestion, baby up, etc…) to find that my windshield was iced over and it was pitch dark.  I rallied with my buddy Bryson Perry to get everything ready and out the door to get to the start line.  We were lucky that we could park at the US Ski Team training center by the start because most of the field had to ride out in the dark from town!  And seeing as it was 36 degrees at 6:30am it was not that nice to be sitting around in spandex.  We lined up at 6:55 and race director Jay Burke informed us that the race would commence after 100m of neutral around a gate.  With that said it was on and though I tried to move up the strong group of frontrunners quickly had the race going full gas onto the single mile of 2-track. After hitting the single track of rusty shovel in about 30th I knew my chances of winning were about done which I quickly became pretty happy about.

PCP2P, if you haven’t heard of it, is about as pure a mountain bike race as you’d (n)ever want to do.  Among it’s 78 or so miles is about 76 miles of singletrack and 14,000 ft of climbing (and gnar-kill descending).  It will beat you up, make you cry, and when it turns uphill once more 3 miles from the finish line will make you murderously unhappy at the volunteers pointing you up and away from the finish line.  

It requires the utmost fitness and focus and ton of food and drink.  Without getting overly detailed into my own personal religious experience I’ll tell you this:  I consumed a camelback of water, 4 bottle of sports drink, 4 bottles of water, 2 cokes, 3 probars, a sandwich, a HoneyStinger Waffle, multiple handfuls of Stinger chews, 20+salt pills and a 7-11 Hotdog with ketchup.  All of which and especially the hot dog I aquired from my good friend Jeremy Teela, who I anxiously await feeding in next years PCP2P.  I rode for 8 hours and 17 minutes rarely stopping except to eat/drink and stave off cramps.  And I felt GOOD most of the time!  Good being a relative term, but since I did not chase down the likes of Alex Grant and Tinker Juarez I settled into my own pace thereby eliminating a lot of pain.  In short I thought people were crazy when they called the Leadville 100 a “road race,” but now I’m definetly gonna say “Leadville is a (really hard) total road race!”

Needless to say I took 3 days completely off and just now am considering getting off the couch to try and start putting the pieces back together for next winter! 

Jeremy’s rendition of our last BC trip before heading to Europe.  I’m going to Lillehammer on Thursday and he is headed to Ostersund.  Gonna miss this:

Don’t worry we’ve being doing our intervals on rollerski’s.