TORINO: NC: Austria golden, U.S. 7th in team event

TORINO: NC: Austria golden, U.S. 7th in team event{mosimage}The United States gained one position in the standings during the cross-country ski portion of the nordic combined team event, finishing seventh with a time of 51 minutes, 52.5 seconds, 1:59 behind the gold-medal team from Austria.

Germany, the leader after ski jumping, claimed the silver medal, while Finland won the bronze medal.

The U.S. team was comprised of Bill Demong (Vermontville, N.Y.), Todd Lodwick (Steamboat Springs, Colo.), Johnny Spillane (Steamboat Springs, Colo.) and Carl Van Loan (Webster, N.H.).

“Just a rough day,” Van Loan said. “It wasn’t going for us on the jump hill, especially me, I struggled out there. Weather wasn’t favorable and I wasn’t feeling the rythym. But on the skiing, I gave it everything and I can walk away saying I laid it all out there on the cross-country. I was happy with that. It was tough with that headwind and we had to ski alone the whole time, so that was really difficult for all of us.”

Lodwick said, “I was holding myself back a bit on my final leg. We’ve got some days to rest up a bit before the sprint. I want to watch some video on my jumping — definitely a much better jump today.”

“It was really over after the jumping so we wanted to use this as preparation [for the sprint event next Tuesday],” Spillane added. “I raced harder today than I probably would have to get the workout — I really knocked some cobwebs out today. So I’m really tired now, that was really hard.”