After compiling six World Cup wins and two dozen World Cup podiums, Todd Lodwick retired three years ago as the most accomplished nordic combined skier in U.S. history. The four-time Olympian had a wife and baby girl at home in Steamboat. He was 29 and felt like it was time to move on.
“It seemed like the logical thing to do,” Lodwick said, “and I was satisfied with that.”
You probably can guess where this is going. Lodwick had a change of heart, and last spring he went back into training. Today, he leaves for Oberhof, Austria, where he will compete this weekend in his first World Cup races since March 2006, leaving behind his wife, daughter and a 4-month-old son. Lodwick qualified for the World Cup squad by winning three of four Continental Cup competitions in Utah and British Columbia earlier this month.
Lodwick came back because, for all of his World Cup success, he never won a medal at the Olympics or world championships.
“There was a lot of stuff that was left on the table that I never got a chance to experience,” Lodwick said. “I did everything but (that), and there was a lot of bad luck involved.”
Assuming he returns to form, the U.S. Ski Team figures to have a great chance to win medals in the team competition at the nordic world championships, Feb. 19-28 in the Czech Republic, and at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Steamboat’s Johnny Spillane won a world championships gold medal in 2003 — the first for an American — and Bill Demong won a silver medal at the 2007 worlds. Demong finished first and second in World Cup races this past weekend in Ramsau, Austria.
Lodwick could challenge for individual medals as well. He’s 32, prime age for an endurance athlete. Nordic combined is composed of ski jumping and cross country racing.
“The biggest drive was to come back and do everything possible to be able to fulfill those goals,” Lodwick said. “I pondered it for a year. I asked my wife: What do you think? She said, ‘You’d better do it now, because I really don’t want to hear you complain about it for the rest of your life. I don’t want to hear coulda-shoulda-woulda 10 years from now. If you feel like you can do it, go do it.’ ”
Lodwick isn’t the only Steamboat athlete coming back from a lengthy hiatus. Alpine racer Caroline Lalive missed two seasons because of injuries and was left off the U.S. Ski Team when this season’s roster was announced last spring. After some soul-searching, she decided to give it another shot even if it meant paying her own way.
Lalive had to come up with about $30,000 to travel with the team this season.
“That’s just the travel expenses,” Lalive said. “I have a mortgage, all your daily living expenses, and at this point I’m not making any money. It’s a big financial undertaking, but it’s been well worth it.”
In January 2006, Lalive broke her left kneecap in a freak downhill training mishap landing a jump — she didn’t fall — the same day she was named to her third Olympic team. She seemed poised to rejoin the team a year and a half later when she blew out her other knee.
She was all set to resume her World Cup career in Aspen last month but found herself back in the hospital a few days before those races, this time for an appendectomy. She bounced back quickly from that, racing in Lake Louise and St. Moritz.
A five-time podium finisher on the World Cup, Lalive has high hopes of making her fourth Olympic team a little over a year from now, when she will be 30 years old.
“I still had that passion to do well,” Lalive said last week from St. Moritz. “What’s more, I really wanted (that) when I did retire, it was on my terms. I didn’t want a phone call from someone telling me I was done. The last thing I would want would be to go past this point in my life and wonder what could have been. I wanted to have the opportunity to make a go of it, and if it doesn’t work out, to be proud of how hard I fought to come back.”
