By Susana Field
Those of you following our blog (all of the previous entries posted here on our homepage can be found in our blog by clicking the “Blog” tab in the upper right of our home page), have been hearing the news about Steamboat’s hometown ski heroes at the World Ski Championships in Liberac, Czech Republic, this past week. We’ve specifically been following the men’s Nordic Combined team (ski jumping results combined with a cross-country skate ski race, which I describe in an earlier blog post). At our last writing, the Steamboat local, Todd Lodwick, had won two Gold Medals, and Billy Demong, originally from New York but trains a lot in Steamboat, had won a bronze medal, bringing the total number of medals EVER won by the USA in this event to five.
Then just this morning, before coming into the office, I watched the live feed over the computer, of the final 2009 event. Billy Demong took the Gold!! I cheered in the final leg of the 10K race as Billy regained his lead after a challenge, pumping my arms up into the air. And then broke down crying as I watched him cross the finish line to claim the Gold.
To understand the significance of Billy’s win, I need to tell you what happened two days ago in Liberac. It was the team event, and the USA had a great chance of medaling, if not of even taking the Gold. It started with the jumping event and Billy Demong was the first of the four Americans on the team to jump. But he didn’t, because he couldn’t, because he couldn’t find his jump bib. And the regulations say you have to be wearing your jump bib – it has the number which identifies you – to compete. So, he was disqualified, and as a result the USA came in last.
Can you imagine the disappointment? The cameras caught the look of confusion on his coach’s face. And caught Billy’s words to Todd, “It’s all my fault.” (The missing bib was later found inside Billy’s jump suit, down by his ankles, where it had fallen after Billy had tucked it, at one point, into the collar of his suit.) And I know it must’ve hit the other two team members – Johnny Spillane and Eric Camorata – especially hard, since it would’ve been there one chance at medaling.
From the great highs of the first two events, emotions plummeted to the great low of Billy’s disqualification.
But what does Billy do with that loss, that failure, that great turning of the tides? He fully accepts responsibility, and uses the energy from that crisis to earn his personal, first-ever Gold today. And so I cried. At his fortitude. At his redemption. At this phoenix rising so quickly from the ashes.
Is what happened with Billy and the USA team that unlike the wave of great exuberance and then great loss we’ve all felt this year with the economy and our housing investments? Do we stay wallowing in the pain and shock of our loss, after such great earlier success, as Billy and the US team could have done?
Or do we, like Billy, pull ourselves together and take stock of the still existing opportunity: Mortgage rates are at an all-time low, housing inventory in this world-class resort of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, is at an all-time high, and buyers are in the position of power. Do we, as potential buyers and livers of the dream, stay self-absorbed in our pain only to, years from now, ask What If? Or do we rouse ourselves in time to see we still have a chance, and win? I’ll see you at the finish line, and I’ll be crying.
