Pragelato, Italy – It was bad enough when Todd Lodwick was hit with stomach flu Thursday and couldn’t keep anything down but Pepto-Bismol and a little bit of oatmeal.
Then came the head cold. Attempting to ski off a cliff at 55 mph and fly 100 meters down a mountain with planks on your feet is not recommended when your head is throbbing and you feel, as Lodwick said, “like I had a bowling ball on my head.”
As Lodwick finished eighth in the 15-kilometer individual nordic combined event Saturday, it was with deep disappointment and a sense it wasn’t supposed to be like this for the lifelong Steamboat Springs resident who is competing in his fourth and final Olympics.
He was considered a strong medal contender, but so was Hannu Manninen of Finland. Everyone expected Manninen to win the gold medal, filling in a glaring deficiency in an otherwise glittering record, but the baby-faced Finn finished one spot behind Lodwick. Both skiers will get another chance Feb. 21 in the sprint event.
Germany’s Georg Hettich, who finished fourth twice at the 2003 world championships, won the gold medal and Austria’s Felix Gottwald took the silver. Magnus Moan of Norway edged teammate Petter Tande in a photo finish for the bronze.
Bill Demong of Vermontville, N.Y., was 15th and Steamboat’s Johnny Spillane was 30th. Spillane is competing despite a separated shoulder that knocked him out of competition most of the season.
“I’m obviously not psyched, but I’m not that disappointed,” Spillane said. “I’ve had six competitive jumps in a full year, and I’ve had four races in a full year. I’m doing everything I can, and I feel like I’m really close.”
When Lodwick finished 13th in the jumping competition, Team USA knew it was “pretty much over” for him, as Lodwick’s mother, Jeannie, put it.
“I don’t remember much of the first jump, I just remember being up there and all of a sudden it was over with,” Lodwick said. “You can say it’s just a head cold, but we talk about the feeling you have during certain periods of jumping. It’s really hard to have those feelings and then throw a head cold on top of it. That was the determining factor for me this morning. Every time I went downstairs, it was a constant throb.”
Former U.S. coach Tom Steitz, who serves as a personal trainer and adviser for Lodwick, urged him to skip the 15K race in the afternoon and save himself.
“We weren’t sure until five minutes ago whether he was going to go,” Steitz said shortly after the start of the race.
With his parents in the stands and his wife, Sunny, holding his slumbering 6-week-old daughter, Lodwick fought through the cross country race with the sixth-best time.
“I tried to talk him out of going because I know he’s not 100 percent,” Steitz said. “Now the question is, how much we gave up to get this result. We’ll just have to see how he rebounds in the next day or two.”
Lodwick conceded it was an “emotional decision” to race, but he believes he can be ready to go in the team competition Wednesday.
“It’s just a matter of getting some rest, getting a lot of fluids and getting my appetite back, hanging out with family and friends, realizing this is just sport,” Lodwick said. “There’s more than sport, there’s life.”
Lodwick also expressed sympathy for Manninen, a two-time World Cup overall winner who has not won an individual medal at the Olympics or world championships. Lodwick, Manninen and Gottwald went 1-2-3 at the 1996 world juniors championships and have been rivals ever since.
“I really feel bad for him,” Lodwick said. “He’s proven over and over again that he is the top guy in the world. But these are the Olympic Games. Anything can happen.”
Steitz thought Saturday’s event was Lodwick’s best chance for a medal, but Lodwick told his wife before he got sick he thought the sprint was a better chance for him.
“It’s not over, absolutely not over,” said Lodwick’s father, Dennis. “We’ve still got one more big race to go.”
Staff writer John Meyer can be reached at 303-820-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com.
