Billy Demong long ago realized the season he had to take off from the nordic combined World Cup because of a juvenile lapse of judgment was the best thing that could have happened to his career.
Saturday he got the big payoff.
Demong, a former Steamboat Springs skier who fractured his skull diving off a hotel balcony into a swimming pool in August 2002, won a silver medal at the nordic world championships in Sapporo, Japan. He became the fourth U.S. nordic skier to win a major championships medal, the second in nordic combined. Johnny Spillane of Steamboat Springs won a nordic combined gold at the 2003 world championships.
Demong missed the season after the accident because doctors said it was too dangerous for him to risk a concussion while ski jumping. Nordic combined is comprised of jumping and cross country skiing.
“To be honest, sitting out a year was probably one of the reasons I’m here now,” said Demong, 26. “That was a big growth year. That sort of reset my clock and taught me a lot – to have been out of the game and had to look at it from the perspective of, ‘Maybe I’ll never get to ski again, to compete on the World Cup.’ I attribute a lot of the success I’m having now to the hard work and the drive I gained from that year off.”
Demong spent the winter of 2002-03 competing in cross country races – including the famed American Birkebeiner – and going to school. He was cleared to resume jumping the summer of 2003 but struggled the following winter and was relegated to the World Cup “B” circuit. He didn’t return full time to the World Cup “A” tour until 2005.
“It’s amazing to have worked so hard at something and focused upon results for so long and have everything sort of click,” Demong said. “From the time I got up (Saturday) until the time I finally shut down my computer and went to bed, everything clicked – on the jump hill, on the cross country, the whole day just rolled.”
