Age: 25

The Steamboat Springs native is making his second trip to the Olympics. In 2018, he finished 43rd in the 10-km large hill and 45th in the 10-km normal hill races at Pyeongchang. After high school, he joined the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program, allowing him to continue training while serving the country.

Competing: Feb. 6-9, 12-17

The Centennial State will have 23 athletes, by their recognized hometowns, according to the United State Olympic and Paralympic Committee. It is tied for the second biggest contingent with Minnesota and behind only California (29).

Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, of Edwards, is the most decorated among the Colorado crew, having won two gold medals (slalom in 2014 and giant slalom in 2018) and a silver (combined in 2018). The two golds are tied for the most all-time among American Alpine racers.

Vail-born skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender will be competing in her fifth Olympic Games, tied for the most on the Americans with Lindsey Jacobelis, John Shuster and Shaun White.

Silverthorne’s Red Gerard returns for his second Olympic Games. In 2018, he became the youngest winter Olympian to win a gold medal at the age of 17, after capturing the slopestyle title in snowboarding. Goaltender Nicole Hensley, of Littleton, will again mind the net as the U.S. women’s hockey team looks to defend its gold. Aspen native Alex Ferriera won silver in the freestyle ski halfpipe in 2018. Alex Deibold won bronze in the snowboard cross in 2014.

Nordic combined racer Taylor Fletcher, of Steamboat Springs, is competing in his fourth straight Olympics, while Aaron Blunck, of Crested Butte, is going to his third. Other Coloradans returning for their second Games, include Taylor Gold (2014), Mick Dierdorff (2018), Alex Deibold (2014), Hagen Kearney (2018), Jasper Good (2018) and Joanne Reid (2018).

Here’s a look at the list of Colorado athletes, including ones not officially listed by the USOC:

Alpine skiing

• Nina O’Brien, Denver
• River Radamus, Edwards
• Mikaela Shiffrin, Edwards

Biathlon

• Joanne Reid, Grand Junction

Bobsled

• Sylvia Hoffman, Colorado Springs

Cross country skiing

• Hailey Swirbul, Aspen

Figure skating

• Mariah Bell, Monument
• Brandon Frazier, Colorado Springs

Freestyle skiing

• Aaron Blunck, Crested Butte
• Alex Ferreira, Aspen
• Hanna Faulhaber, Basalt
• Birk Irving, Winter Park
• Kai Owens, Vail
• Dylan Walczyk, Blue River

Hockey

• Nicole Hensley, Littleton
• Nick Shore, Denver

Nordic combined

• Taylor Fletcher, Steamboat Springs
• Jasper Good, Steamboat Springs

Skeleton

• Katie Uhlaender, Breckenridge

Snowboarding

• Chris Corning, Silverthorne
• Alex Deibold, Boulder
• Mick Dierdorff, Steamboat Springs
• Lucas Foster, Telluride

• Stacy Gaskill, Golden
• Red Gerard, Silverthorne
• Taylor Gold, Steamboat Springs
• Zoe Kalapos, Vail
• Hagen Kearney, Norwood
• Cody Winters, Steamboat Springs

Veteran Olympian Bryan Fletcher of Steamboat Springs finished 18th with a strong jump and an uncharacteristically slow ski. His brother Taylor Fletcher, one of the fastest skiers in the sport of Nordic combined, finished 35th with a disappointing performance on the 10-kilometer cross country course, where he is more than capable of posting a top-five skier time but on Wednesday was only the 15th fastest skier in the 47-athlete field.

Germany’s Eric Frenzel won gold, followed by Japan’s Akito Watabe for silver and Austrian Lukas Klapfer winning bronze.

Bryan said he was disappointed and lamented that his skis were slower than those of his competitors.

“Maybe not our best skis today and that made it really difficult. Immediately out of the start I knew it was going to be a really hard day so I dug deep,” said the two-time Olympian, who was happy with his ranking of 18th in the jump, which left him with time deficit of 2:06 heading into the ski. “I know I can be in the fight there (on the jump) and also know with some better skis I can be in the fight in the cross country. I was really hoping for a top-10 performance and I think it was completely doable.”

Taylor said his day was “not awesome.” He had an average day on the jump — finishing 39th with a time deficit of 3:37, which is typically not insurmountable for the strong skier.

His jumping has improved dramatically this season and that����ap helping.

“I still have got a ways to go but I’ve shown in the last couple weeks that slightly better jumps are leaps and bounds better for me,” Taylor said. “I just gotta jump a little earlier and a little more forward with speed and it will be there.”

The Nordic combined team has four athletes from Steamboat Springs, including two first-timers Jasper Good, 21, and 22-year-old Ben Berend, who didn’t compete in the individual normal hill. In many ways, these Olympics are training for the young newcomers, including Wisconsin 19-year-old Ben Loomis.

Good finished 45th, clawing back from a last-spot ranking on the jump with an admirable 39th on the ski.

With high winds whipping the Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre, Good wrestled with nerves at the top of the jump in both training and Wednesday’s contest.

“On top, it literally felt like a hurricane. The wind is just howling. First time I got up for training this week, I thought there is no chance for jumping right now but the wind barriers they have set up do an amazing job, so when you actually get to the jump the wind is fine. So it����ap more of a mental battle,” Good said.

Good has spent his life dreaming of competing in the Olympics and on Wednesday, his dream came true.

“I’m super pumped about that but definitely didn’t have my best performance on the jump, so I wasn’t super satisfied with that but overall, I had a blast competing today,” he said.

Loomis finished 41st, ranked 37th in the jump and 40th in the ski. He too grappled with winds on the daunting jump. But he didn’t come to South Korea with a goal for results or certain numbers.

“This is my first Olympics and I’m one of the younger guys. I’m just looking to take it all in and learn from this and really get as much experience as I can for the next Olympics in four or even eight years,” said Loomis, who was happy his contest jump was better than his training jumps. “I’m walking away with things to learn from.”

Bryan, who is 31 and a father of a young daughter, . He is enjoying his younger teammates and their energy. He’s offering some guidance, hoping to seed the next generation of potential medal contenders.

“When they are up they are up and when they are down they are down but it����ap fun being the older guy to help level them out and give them some pointers and advice along the way,” Bryan said. “I think they have been calling me dad all week because they love the advice. They certainly give me as much energy as I give them.”

Three-time Olympian Taylor has some simple advice for young teammates.

“Enjoy it,” he said, noting that setbacks and victories are part of Nordic combined experience. “Really just take it with a grain of salt and get back on track.”

The Nordic combined team competes again on Tuesday, Feb. 20 in the large hill and Thursday, Feb. 22 in the team event.

He was in a hotel lobby in Austria as it began to sink in. His coaches called a team meeting.

Berend wasn’t happy about that.

“I was definitely wondering why I was in that meeting. They were starting to talk about the Olympics and I was like ‘Oh, this is just torture,” he said.

His South Korea-bound teammates were in the room: Steamboat Springs brothers Bryan and Taylor Fletcher, his life-long pal Jasper Good and Wisconsin’s Ben Loomis. So was Bill Demong, the executive director of USA Nordic Sport. It was the afternoon of the last day to announce Olympic team rosters.

“None of us actually knew why we were there,” said Taylor, noting that the team had more than a few bad-news meetings over the season and he was fearful maybe the U.S. was about to lose an Olympic spot. “They really had to drag Ben up from downstairs to come to the meeting.”

Then Demong said he’d just heard some news. There’s been some shuffling in the international field of 55 Nordic combined athletes. The U.S. was getting a fifth spot.

“He looks at Ben and goes, ‘So make sure you get your bags packed for Korea,’ ’” Taylor Fletcher said. “You could see the whole attitude shifted, just an overwhelming amount of joy comes to his face. That����ap a moment we all kind of live for.”

Berend called his dad for the second time that day. This time with good news. They needed to buy new tickets to South Korea.

Nordic combined is an intriguing marriage of ski jumping and cross-country racing. In individual and team events, the key is to fly far and get a good start on the cross-country race. Land short and you start with a time deficit. It makes for exciting contests, with a vibrant blend of endurance and audacity. And Steamboat Springs is a North American breeding ground for Nordic jumpers, thanks to the jumps at the city’s Howelsen Hill ski area. Every Wednesday, Howelsen teems with Steamboat kids who fly off ski jumps in between pizza sessions in the fabled Olympian Hall.

“I remember those were the best days of my life,” said Berend, who once faked illness to get out of school until his mom reminded him as she was driving him home that it was Wednesday. “And my mom said ‘You know if we get home you are not allowed to go to Wednesday night jump. So I had her drive me back to school and told her I’m not actually sick.”

Those jumps fostered Steamboat����ap Nordic Olympic medalists like Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane. Good and Berend took a bus from their middle school to Olympian Hall to watch Demong, Lodwick and Spillane win silver in the team event at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

“We were standing on trash cans in the back of the room and it was the coolest thing ever to see those guys win,” said the 21-year-old Good, whose dad was a national team moguls coach.

Good had secured his spot on the U.S. Olympic Team a few hours before Berend. He got the news while they were sharing a room at that Austrian hotel. He was obviously elated. But despondent for Berend. They had spent a stressful, laborious year urging each other to dig deeper and work harder to secure their Olympic dream.

“It was a very odd place to be,” said Good of his sways between celebration and sorrow.

Steamboat Springs fielded two Olympians — Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane — on the American Nordic combined team in 2010 and that worked out really well, with a harvest of four medals that established the U.S. as a competitor in the European-dominated sport. It’s not unusual for the U.S. to send large Nordic combined teams to the Olympics. For Salt Lake City in 2002 there were seven, in Turin in 2006 there were five and in 2010’s Vancouver Winter Games, there were five. Four U.S. athletes competed in Nordic combined in Sochi.

Fewer cities cultivate Olympic aspirations like Steamboat Springs. Growing up, Berend said his hometown felt like the center of the Nordic combined universe, a place where Olympic dreams are not so elusive and dreamy.

In December, Berend was weaving though hordes of ski jumping kids at Olympian Hall when he came upon a dad and his son.

“This kid was probably three, four-years-old,” he said. “And he looked up at his dad and really matter-of-factly just said ‘You know, I think I’m going to the Olympics someday.’ It made me smile. That����ap what it kind of teaches you growing up in Steamboat, that����ap something you can dream of.”

It’s all in the name: Events are a combination of Nordic sports, cross-country skiing and ski jumping.

Nordic combined has been in the Winter Olympic program since the first Games in Chamonix, France, in 1924. The team event was added in 1988 and a second individual event, using a large hill ski jump, was added in 2002.

Q: How many Nordic combined events will be contested in PyeongChang?

Three, all at the Alpensia Jumping and Cross-Country Skiing venues.

The event names seem complicated until you understand the format. For instance, the first event contested in PyeongChang will be the individual Gundersen normal hill/10 km. That means it’s an individual event, with the ski jumping done on a normal hill, followed by a 10 kilometer cross-country race.

So what is “Gundersen”? The finish of the ski jumping portion is used to calculate the start order of the cross-country race. The formula was created by Norwegian Gundar Gundersen and has been used since the 1980s.

The other events are the individual Gundersen large hill/10 km and the team Gunderson large hill/4.5km relay.

All events are for men, but women’s events are being developed for World Cup competition and could be added to future Olympics.

Q: Which countries are best at Nordic combined?

Norway swept the medals in the normal hill event in the first four Olympics, but the playing field has leveled. Finland, Austria and France are among the top teams, but in 2018, the Germans are the ones to beat.

Q: Has the United States ever won an Olympic medal in Nordic combined?

Yes, four medals, all in the 2010 Olympics at Vancouver. Bill DeMong won gold in the individual large hill, and Johnny Spillane won silver in both the large and normal hill events. The United States also took the silver in the team event.

Q: Who is competing for the United States in PyeongChang?

Brothers Bryan and Taylor Fletcher, Ben Berend, Jasper Good and Ben Loomis. Bryan Fletcher is the top-ranked American in the World Cup standings, at No. 29.

Q: Who are some athletes to watch?

In late January, Akito Watabe of Japan become the second combined athlete in history to win all three days of competition at a World Cup event in Seefeld, Austria, and he is the current leader in the World Cup standings.

The first athlete to do so, Germany’s Eric Frenzel, won the gold medal in the normal hill at the 2014 Olympics, and he’s won the past five World Cup titles.

Jan Schmid of Norway has won three World Cup events this season and is just 20 points behind Watabe in the World Cup standings.

Norway’s Joergen Graabak won a World Cup event in Val di Femme, Italy, in January, edging Germany’s Johannes Ryzdek and Austria’s Lukas Klapfer.

Ryzdek is the reigning world champion, and with Frenzel, Fabian Riessle and Bjoern Kircheisen, Germany has the inside track for team gold.

Q: When is Nordic combined contested, and how can I watch it on TV?

The first Nordic combined medal is awarded on Feb. 14, the first full day of Olympic competition, and the last comes on the 22nd.

All events will air on NBC and NBCSN, but only two will be shown live. Here is a schedule of the finals, with television coverage in parentheses (all times Eastern). Races are also available by live-streaming at NBCOlympics.com or on the NBC Sports app.

Feb. 14: Individual Gundersen normal hill; ski jumping, 1 a.m. and cross-country, 3:45 a.m. (NBCSN, 2:30-6:30 a.m., live; NBC, 3 p.m.-5 p.m.)

Feb 20: Individual Gundersen large hill; ski jumping, 5 a.m. and cross-country, 7:45 a.m. (NBCSN, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; NBC, 3-5 p.m.)

Feb. 22: Team Gundersen large hill, ski jumping, 2:30 a.m. and cross-country relay, 7:20 p.m. (NBCSN, 2 a.m.-5:20 a.m., 5:20 a.m.-7:45 a.m., live; NBC, 3-5 p.m.)

The 242-athlete U.S. Olympic Team heading to PyeongChang is the largest delegation from any nation in the history of the Winter Olympics. Colorado, the ski capital of the nation, is sending more athletes than any other state to the Winter Games, with 23 men and 13 women competing in 17 disciplines. Nineteen of those athletes will be competing in their first Olympics.

Colorado is home to three Olympic halfpipe skiers, three moguls skiers, three Nordic combined skiers, three Super-G skiers, three snowboard cross racers, three hockey players, three slalom skiers, two slopestyle and big air snowboarders, and two halfpipe snowboarders.

Red Gerard, the 17-year-old snowboard slopestyle phenom from Silverthorne, is the youngest U.S. Olympic Team athlete from Colorado and Crested Butte slalom skier David Chodounsky is the veteran at age 33.

The U.S. Olympic Team will be looking for its 100th gold medal in PyeongChang, with the count currently at 96. In the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, Coloradans accounted for three of America’s 28 medals, with Mikaela Shiffrin earning gold, Gus Kenworthy earning silver and Boulder’s Alex Deibold grabbing bronze.

Here’s a look at the Colorado athletes (Tap on their names for more details):

Alpine skiing
David Chodounsky, Crested Butte
Wiley Maple, Aspen
Alice McKennis, New Castle
Sarah Schleper, Vail
Mikaela Shiffrin, EagleVail
Lindsey Vonn, Vail

Biathlon
Joanne Reid, Boulder

Bobsled
Lauren Gibbs, Denver
Nathan Weber, Pueblo West

Cross country
Simi Hamilton, Aspen
Noah Hoffman, Aspen

Freestyle skiing
Casey Andringa, Boulder
Aaron Blunck, Crested Butte
Chris Del Bosco, Vail
Alex Ferreira, Aspen
Tess Johnson, Edwards
Jaelin Kauf, Vail
Gus Kenworthy, Telluride
Keaton McCargo, Telluride
Torin Yater-Wallace, Basalt

Ice hockey
Nicole Hensley, Lakewood
Troy Terry, Highlands Ranch
Mike Testwuide, Vail

Nordic combined
Ben Berend, Steamboat Springs
Bryan Fletcher, Steamboat Springs
Taylor Fletcher, Steamboat Springs
Jasper Good, Steamboat Springs

Skeleton
Katie Uhlaender, Breckenridge

Snowboard
Chris Corning, Silverthorne
Mick Dierdorff, Steamboat Springs
Red Gerard, Silverthorne
Arielle Gold, Steamboat Springs
Hagan Kearney, Telluride

Kyle Mack, Silverthorne
Jake Pates, Eagle
Meghan Tierney, Edwards

Specialty: Nordic combined

Age: 21

Good’s father, Jeff, is a former national team coach in freestyle moguls but Jasper wanted to fly higher, focusing on the ski jumps at historic Howelsen Hill. He honed his craft with the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club and moved to Park City, Utah, when he was named to the national team in 2015.

Competing: Feb. 14, 20, 22