Sapporo: Demong rides "ripping" skis to silver

In assessing his chances for a medal in Saturday’s nordic combined individual event at the World Championships in Sapporo, Japan, American Bill Demong said he’d eaten well, trained well and rested well over the three days leading up to the race.
    Then, after uncorking one of his better jumps of the season to position himself in the top 10 entering the 15 kilometer cross-country race, Demong said he knew he had the skis to challenge for a medal.
    “Standing at the start, I turned to [teammate] Johnny [Spillane] and said, ‘My skis are ripping,’ ” Demong said.
    Ripping, indeed. Sitting eighth after the jumping portion of the event, and ahead of who he called the “really fast guys,” Demong passed every racer in front of him except Germany’s Ronny Ackermann to win just the second medal in a combined event by a U.S. skier at the Olympics or World Championships. Spillane has the other, a gold medal in the sprint from the 2003 worlds.
    “I trusted that my body was going to feel good and I could feel the skis on my feet were going to run. Leaving the stadium, it was like I had a plan and I knew it was pretty much going to work,” Demong said.
IN ASSESSING HIS chances for a medal in Saturday’s nordic combined individual event at the World Championships in Sapporo, Japan, American Bill Demong said he’d eaten well, trained well and rested well over the three days leading up to the race.
    Then, after uncorking one of his better jumps of the season to position himself in the top 10 entering the 15 kilometer cross-country race, Demong said he knew he had the skis to challenge for a medal.
    “Standing at the start, I turned to [teammate] Johnny [Spillane] and said, ‘My skis are ripping,’ ” Demong said.
    Ripping, indeed. Sitting eighth after the jumping portion of the event, and ahead of who he called the “really fast guys,” Demong passed every racer in front of him except Germany’s Ronny Ackermann to win just the second medal in a combined event by a U.S. skier at the Olympics or World Championships. Ironically enough, Spillane has the other, a gold medal in the sprint from the 2003 worlds.
    “I trusted that my body was going to feel good and I could feel the skis on my feet were going to run. Leaving the stadium, it was like I had a plan and I knew it was pretty much going to work,” Demong said. “I just went out and tried to ski fast but easy and smooth. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but just get faster through the whole race, and it pretty much went that way.”
    Demong tried to ski smoothly, even during a hectic finish that saw the 26-year-old New York native battle neck-and-neck with Finland’s Anssi Koivuranta down the final stretch. Having been denied two third-place finishes on the World Cup this season in dramatic photo finishes, Demong wasn’t about to allow No. 3 on the sport’s biggest stage.
    “I think I came around the corner and pulled more or less parallel to him on his left side. When we got to the lanes, I had nowhere to go but left,” Demong said, explaining his decision to race in the same lane as Koivuranta despite the fact there were two open lanes to the right of the Finn.  
    “He pinched me over. In my mind it’s almost impossible for me to remember now if I was ahead of him or he was ahead of me, and so we both entered the left-hand lane. He just kept pushing into me knowing I was there. There were no hard feelings after the race or anything, he was ecstatic and friendly.
    “I don’t know if he was just KO'd mentally or what, but we definitely had a pretty scary little race there at the finish line.”
    Demong edged Koivuranta by two-hundredths of a second for the silver.
    “I would say it was a really good day, and this is important for not just Billy but, I think, for nordic skiing,” U.S. coach Lasse Ottesen said. “It shows we’re able to pick up some medals and bring them home to the U.S.”
    And for Demong — who’s competed in three Olympic Games and now four World Championships — Saturday’s win was a team medal in every sense, he stressed.  
    “The biggest contribution to my success over the years is having a group of guys who really believe in each other and feed off each other,” he said. “That includes everyone around that — coaches, sports science. We’re a big team, and we’re aware of that and try to utilize that to the best of our ability.”
    Following his race Saturday, Demong said he was leaving the finish area but remembered to turn around just in time to see Spillane cross in 20th place, a painful shoulder injury limiting his skiing recently. The two veteran leaders of an otherwise young U.S. team have been close friends since 1996, spending winters on the road and summers training together. Demong is helping push Spillane through his injury and get back to top form, just as Spillane was there for his teammate in 2002 after Demong fractured his skull in a diving accident and missed the better part of two World Cup seasons.
    “… I could just tell as soon as he crossed [the line] that he was looking for me before he came close to taking a breath or taking his skis off. He was as excited for me as I remember being when I got the phone call that he had won at Val di Fiemme [in 2003],” Demong said. “I think the sort of teammate bond and friendship we’ve built since ’96 — living together most of the year, being together almost every day — it’s irreplaceable to get the feeling that we’ve both contributed to the success of another.”