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Finding Their Ski Legs: Success in Liberec for Nordic Team

by Zach Bigalke

America is a nation which revels in the myriad talents of its athletes. The richest nation on the planet is certainly not deficient in the realm of sports action, and those champions who best perform these feats are revered as heroes. Even as our economy drifts perilously down the drain, there is an embarrassment of riches in our arenas of athletic achievement.

But one realm where Americans have never seemed to be able to get it right is Nordic skiing. Well... at least until the most recent FIS World Championships commenced last Wednesday in Liberec, Czech Republic. With five medals after ten of twenty events, the U.S. National Team has surpassed in the first half of this edition its total medal count for all previous world championships combined.

Todd Lodwick finally broke through to capture two Nordic combined gold medals, in the 10-kilometer individual normal hill and mass start disciplines. Long the sport’s brightest American star despite his dearth of medals at either the FIS World Championships or the Winter Olympics, Lodwick has returned to the sport after a two-year retirement with a mind of taking his last stab at Olympic gold in Vancouver. A longtime fixture in the World Cup top-ten standings, the 32-year-old Colorado native is well on path of finally achieving the goal which eluded him on home soil in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics...

But he is no longer the sole American hope. After half the events were complete, the United States led traditional powerhouse Norway in the medal count, with three gold, one silver and one bronze medal. In addition to Lodwick’s two golds, Lindsey Van took the inaugural women’s ski jumping normal-hill gold medal. The 24-year-old from Detroit is a budding star who has the potential to wreak havoc on the sport’s elite nations for championships to come. Bill Demong took bronze in the 10-kilometer normal hill combined behind Lodwick. And Kikkan Randall took silver in the women’s individual sprint.

Before the turn of the century, Americans had but two Nordic successes to celebrate. The first was the bronze medal in individual large-hill ski jumping at the 1924 Chamonix Olympics by Anders Haugen -- a Norwegian immigrant who did not receive his medal until fifty years later, when a scoring error was corrected in 1974. The first legitimate native-born American star, Bill Koch of Brattleboro, Vermont, would earn America’s second Olympic medal two years after Haugen finally received his.

Koch’s career marked the only sustained American success in Nordic skiing in its first seven decades of international competition. He took silver at the 1976 Innsbruck Olympics in the 30-kilometer skiing event. After regressing somewhat, he developed the technique which mimics ice skating and is now known as freestyle cross-country skiing and used it to reinvigorate his career. He capped his success with his skating style by taking bronze in the 30-kilometer discipline at the 1982 World Championships in Oslo.

It was not until Lodwick, the man of the moment for the team to date of this year’s championships, burst onto the scene in 1993 and started his ascent in the sport that American fortunes started to turn in earnest. The man from Steamboat Springs would take the 1996 Junior World Championship in Asiago, Italy. He would also become only the third American to medal at the prestigious Holmenkollen Ski Festival in Oslo when, in 1998, he bested all opponents and took gold in the 7.5-kilometer sprint. With two dozen podium appearances on the World Cup circuit, Lodwick was the golden boy for U.S. Nordic skiing.

The team started earning greater support form the U.S. Olympic Committee in advance of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. But despite the increased fiscal outlay, American skiers could not break through to medal -- the 4x5 kilometer team took fourth, anchored by Lodwick. The next year, at the 2003 FIS World Championships at Val di Fiemme, Italy, it was Lodwick’s teammate Johnny Spillane who took the first American gold in any event with a victory in the 7.5-kilometer sprint combined. It would take Lodwick six years, but he finally matched and surpassed his 2002 teammate, with a chance to do what neither could next year in British Columbia...

The entire American team looks on good form, and is on pace to put several skiers on the Olympic podium in 2010. Aside from Lodwick, the best shot in Vancouver looks to belong to Bill Demong. His bronze behind Lodwick in the 10-kilometer individual normal-hill combined comes after taking silver in Sapporo in 2007 in the 15-kilometer individual combined event. Such consistency bodes well for his chances come time for the Olympiad. The American star is belatedly ascendant... and traditional Scandinavian and Slavic powers are taken aback. As John Farra, the Nordic director of the U.S. Ski Team, said in Liberec, “I think [other athletes] all realize this is something really special for us.”

Regardless of what happens in the future, both Nordic enthusiasts and non-traditional sports fans of all stripes from sea to shining sea will be able to look back on this twelve-day period in the northern reaches of the Czech Republic and remember the finest moment in the sun that the U.S. team has ever enjoyed. Whereas Alpine skiing in the United States will yield its fair share of Moes and Streets, Ligetys and Millers, a Koch or a Lodwick comes but once every several generations for the Nordic crowd

While many a fan will decry the end of February as a dull moment for sports, as I’ve seen declared by many a fan trolling the various sites out there, the reality is far different. The end of football season and the post-All Star lethargy in basketball and hockey provide the perfect opportunity to look beyond the borders of both the nation and your comfort zone to find excitement in unlikely places. Sports fans of all nations can appreciate the enchanted performance of the American Nordic squad as it turns heads across the Atlantic.

Submitted 25 February 2009

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