Steamboat Springs – Ski Town USA welcomed back one of its favorite former residents Saturday, and Billy Demong made sure he didn’t let the homefolks down.
Capping a spectacular month in which he won a silver medal in nordic combined at the world championships, claimed his first World Cup victory in five years in Finland and added a third-place World Cup finish in Norway, Demong won the U.S. ski jumping championship on Howelsen Hill in the morning. He added a nordic combined title in the afternoon, running away with the 7.5-kilometer cross country race.
“Giddyup, Billy,” former U.S. nordic combined standout Kerry Lynch shouted as the race began in Romick Rodeo Arena.
Demong, 26, became the second American to win a nordic combined world championships medal in Sapporo, Japan, on March 3. Steamboat native Johnny Spillane, who owns the other worlds medal – a gold in 2003 – gritted his way to second place Saturday despite having broken a bone in his right shoulder just before the world championships.
Demong was the heavy favorite, but in some ways that carried more pressure than competing against the world’s best.
“I haven’t been nervous before a race all year,” Demong said. “I’ve gone into every race confident. I was nervous (Saturday). I’m like, ‘What if something happens? I want this, for these people here.”‘
Demong is from upstate New York, but he spent his formative years as an elite athlete in Steamboat when the nordic combined team was based here under former head coach Tom Steitz, who nurtured a unique bond between the town and the team. In 2002, U.S. Ski Team officials relocated the team to Park City, Utah, a move that still rankles the locals.
“I miss it a lot,” Demong said. “I love coming back here. I smell it somewhere around the Hayden airport, ‘I’m coming home!”‘
Demong claimed his only other World Cup victory in 2002, but that summer he fractured his skull diving from a hotel balcony into a swimming pool in Germany. Doctors advised him not to compete the following season because if he suffered another concussion while ski jumping, the effects could be serious.
He returned to competition in 2003 but didn’t make it back to the World Cup “A” circuit full time until 2005. He had a decent season last season, but this season realized he belonged with the best, reeling off several fourth-place World Cup finishes before the breakthrough at worlds.
“I felt that way all year for the first time ever, like, ‘I’m good enough now to compete for the win, so I have nothing to worry about,”‘ Demong said. “Now it’s like I’ve done my homework for 10 years on this team and it’s finally paying off. I guess I just wasn’t ready to win when I was 20 or 21, but hopefully going forward, I don’t see why I can’t continue fighting for it every time now.”
Spillane showed the kind of fighter he is, racing with a shoulder that will be surgically repaired Monday. Spillane separated that shoulder last season and reinjured it while playing volleyball in Japan just before worlds.
“It’s been rough, but you do what you can,” Spillane said. “I decided to come out here and do nationals for fun. I haven’t trained at all for 2 1/2 weeks. I’ve just been trying to enjoy these last few weeks, been fishing every day and having fun, because I’m going to be laid up for a while. It’s a serious one.”
