Nordic Worlds: Lodwick gold, Demong bronze

By Published On: February 22nd, 2009Comments Off on Nordic Worlds: Lodwick gold, Demong bronze

Dust off the record book and get out a fresh quill because what American nordic combined skiers Todd Lodwick and Bill Demong are doing in the Czech Republic is well beyond anything known within U.S. borders.

Lodwick, the recently unretired veteran, notched his second gold medal Sunday at the 2009 FIS Nordic Ski World Championships. Demong followed that lead to bring in the bronze medal in the normal hill/10k event. Norwegian Jan Schmid got the silver medal.

Lodwick and Demong’s results mark the first time two American nordic combined athletes have made the World Championship podium together.
 
“I think the most important thing about today, and probably the coolest, is that I am able to share this podium with another teammate,” Lodwick said. “I cannot believe I get to share this World Championship podium with a teammate.”

Dust off the record book and get out a fresh quill because what American nordic combined skiers Todd Lodwick and Bill Demong are doing in the Czech Republic is well beyond anything known within U.S. borders.

Lodwick, the recently unretired veteran, notched his second gold medal Sunday at the 2009 FIS Nordic Ski World Championships. Demong followed that lead to bring in the bronze medal in the normal hill/10k event. Norwegian Jan Schmid got the silver medal.

Lodwick and Demong’s results mark the first time two American nordic combined athletes have made the World Championship podium together.
 
“I think the most important thing about today, and probably the coolest, is that I am able to share this podium with another teammate,” Lodwick said. “I cannot believe I get to share this World Championship podium with a teammate.”

Lodwick took the early lead winning the jumping portion of the event but needed to out run Schmid on the final up hill of the cross country leg to ice his second gold medal in three days. He powered into the stadium alone, raised his arms in triumph and brought it home 13 seconds ahead of Schmid.

“I knew from the start, I didn’t want to say it to myself, but I knew that I could get a medal.,” Lodwick said. “It started with the jumping today. I’ve been jumping really well all week and had a good feeling coming from steamboat. The hill in Steamboat and the hill here in Liberec are similar and I knew if I was jumping well in Steamboat that I could come here and do well.”

Demong had been 12th after the jumping leg but had the second fastest time for the 10k and finished 33.5 seconds behind his teammate for the double medal showing.

“It feels really good. Having watched Todd the other day I was really motivated and it made me feel two ways. One, I’m happy for him, for the Team and I know we can carry this success, and the second thing is, I want to be up there, too,” Demong said.

After competing in four Olympic Games and seven World Championships with no medals to show for it, Lodwick retired in 2006. He made the decision to return to competition at 32 with the goal of becoming a World Champion.

“This is surreal. I knew that if I wanted to come back and ski it was going to be a long hard road. I’ve never trained so hard and had so much fun training,” Lodwick said. “I knew in my heart that I wanted to come back and still compete, it’s just a matter of a different mindset.”

The USA is now leading in the medals race with three gold and a silver through eight of 20 events. The men of the nordic combined team will look to add to the tally in Thursday’s team event.

“We have to take care of business. The team event is four guys jumping far and skiing fast. We’ll take it step by step and compete well,” Lodwick said.


Rank Bib FIS Code Name Year Nation Result
 1  1  27 LODWICK Todd  1976  USA   24:22.3
 2  3  1650 SCHMID Jan  1983  NOR   24:35.3
 3  12  222 DEMONG Bill  1980  USA   24:55.8
 4  2  1156 KOIVURANTA Anssi  1988  FIN   25:17.0
 5  14  205 KOBAYASHI Norihito  1982  JPN   25:25.2
 6  18  768 MINATO Yusuke  1985  JPN   25:33.7
 7  19  200 HASENEY Sebastian  1978  GER   25:37.2
 8  5  111 BIELER Christoph  1977  AUT   25:45.0
 9  7  351 EDELMANN Tino  1985  GER   25:50.0
 10  13  8 STECHER Mario  1977  AUT   25:50.0
 11  4  252 GRUBER Bernhard  1982  AUT   25:52.6
 12  10  606 BRAUD Francois  1986  FRA   26:04.8
 13  6  74 ACKERMANN Ronny  1977  GER   26:14.6
 14  29  203 HEER Ronny  1981  SUI   26:26.3
 15  17  1152 RYYNAENEN Janne  1988  FIN   26:29.7
 16  26  247 SPILLANE Johnny  1980  USA   26:33.2
 17  44  973 MOAN Magnus-H.  1983  NOR   26:44.9
 18  15  198 TALLUS Jaakko  1981  FIN   26:49.5
 19  28  680 TANDE Petter L.  1985  NOR   26:56.8
 20  33  349 HURSCHLER Seppi  1983  SUI   27:00.2
 21  20  216 TAKAHASHI Daito  1980  JPN   27:02.4
 22  11  1228 LEETOJA Aldo  1988  EST   27:12.8
 23  24  610 LAMY CHAPPUIS Jason  1986  FRA   27:14.1
 24  37  1029 PITTIN Alessandro  1990  ITA   27:24.3
 25  43  1149 KOKSLIEN Mikko  1985  NOR   27:26.5
 26  34  1464 RUNGGALDIER Lukas  1987  ITA   27:26.6
 27  25  459 LACROIX Sebastien  1983  FRA   27:26.8
 28  40  643 MICHIELLI Giuseppe  1985  ITA   27:32.3
 29  16  960 MASLENNIKOV Sergej  1982  RUS   27:40.3
 30  9  214 DENIFL Wilhelm  1980  AUT   27:43.3
 31  21  215 CHURAVY Pavel  1977  CZE   27:51.3
 32  32  715 ORANIC Mitja  1986  SLO   28:15.2
 33  53  1136 WATABE Akito  1988  JPN   28:20.3
 34  27  1050 FRENZEL Eric  1988  GER   28:22.8
 35  31  1485 NURMSALU Kaarel  1991  EST   28:33.3
 36  50  722 TRACHUK Volodymyr  1985  UKR   28:41.6
 37  8  694 VODSEDALEK Ales  1985  CZE   28:41.9
 38  23  1418 BERLOT Gasper  1990  SLO   28:43.0
 39  22  1488 TIIRMAA Karl-August  1989  EST   28:48.5
 40  39  1164 FELISAZ Jonathan  1985  FRA   28:50.9
 41  35  623 HUG Tim  1987  SUI   29:05.8
 42  42  249 MYSLICKI Jason  1977  CAN   29:13.1
 43  36  164 SAVILL Wesley  1989  CAN   29:18.9
 44  54  1486 PIHO Kail  1991  EST   29:22.1
 45  41  257 KIRCHEISEN Bjoern  1983  GER   29:27.6
 46  30  357 SOBOLEV Ivan  1983  BLR   29:42.8
 47  38  985 VORONIN Konstantin  1983  RUS   30:04.3
 48  47  1151 KAMENEV Anton  1986  RUS   30:44.2
 49  58  1410 BAUER Armin  1990  ITA   30:52.5
 50  52  1540 PARKHOMCHUK Andriy  1988  UKR   30:59.7
 51  45  1548 HAERTULL Jim  1990  FIN   31:01.2
 52  46  1531 SOKOLENKO Konstantin  1987  KAZ   31:09.1
 53  55  1641 KHOMIN Oleksiy  1990  UKR   31:16.9
 54  51  989 CAMEROTA Brett  1985  USA   31:21.3
 55  57  1434 JELENKO Marjan  1991  SLO   32:06.3
Did not start
   60  416 SLAVIK Tomas  1981  CZE   
   59  1534 POLUSHIN Vladimir  1988  KAZ   
   56  1479 PANIN Ivan  1987  RUS   
   48  1003 DVORAK Miroslav  1987  CZE   
Did not finish
   49  1532 SHARABAYEV Sergej  1986  KAZ   

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About the Author: Pete Rugh