By Susana Field

Yesterday, as Doug Labor mentioned in his blog post here, we learned that Todd Lodwick, a local Steamboat hero, won his second Gold Medal at the World Ski Championships in Liberac, Czechoslovakia this past weekend. Billy Demong, a New York native who has trained extensively in Steamboat Springs, also won his first Bronze Medal of the weekend.  And there are two events more to go!

All of these medals were won in the sport called Nordic Combined Skiing, which is really big in our town; and in fact is the sport that has contributed the most to Steamboat Springs, Colorado being called Ski Town U.S.A. (We’ve sent more athletes to the Olympics than any other town; 69 and counting.)

Nordic Combined actually consists of two disciplines: ski jumping and cross-country skate skiing. And it’s not the type of ski jumping where the skiers go up in the air and perform all sorts of wild flips and things before landing back on the ground. That’s called freestyle, which consists of aerial stunts and mogul skiing.

The type of ski jumping I’m talking about occurs off a HUGE ski jump. The jumpers wear special jump suits and use special jump skis which are eight feet long or so and maybe five inches wide.  From the top of the jump hill, each skier, one at a time, will drop off a bar they momentarily sit upon, down onto a  cut track (a long slide-looking thing called the inrun), in a crouched position. They continue off the edge of the inrun out into thin air, and down, parallel to the hill until they touch down. In flight, the ski jumpers’ body stretches forward to where the edges of their skis, held in a V shape, are held alongside the sides of their face, and their arms are shot back like in the start of a swan dive.

When the TV cameras show you the jumper sitting on the bar at the top of the inrun right before take-off, as well as when the cameras follow the jumper off the end of the inrun and into the air, you can see the spectators at the bottom merely as pin points on the landscape; the jumpers are that high up.

 The score that each athlete gets for his jump (based on distance plus style), determines at what time that athlete gets to leave the start gate for the cross-country skate ski race; the jumper who scored the most points goes out of the start gate first, the second best goes out so many seconds later, etc., until the last person goes out, which could be several minutes after the lead person took off.
The first person to cross the finish line (usually 5k or 10k in distance) wins.

Todd won this last Gold Medal after first gaining the most points for his jump, which gave him the best advantage into the race, and then holding on to the lead and claiming the medal by winning the 10K cross-country race, in just over 20 minutes.  And that’s 20 minutes of racing full out!

Walking through downtown Steamboat Springs on a winter’s night, the ski jumps just across the Yampa River may be ablaze in lights. You may hear the announcer’s voice blaring out from the loudspeaker, and may make-out the jumpers soaring through the sky.

In the summer, you’ll notice that one ski jump hill looks like a bright green ribbon upon the side of Howelsen Hill. What you are looking at is the summer training ground for our local Olympic-hopeful jumpers. The summer –used inrun is made of a porcelain track and the landing hill is clothed in plastic, kept smooth by water.

Todd Lodwick grew up on a local ranch. Johnny Spillane, who won the USA’s first Gold Medal at the World Ski Championships In 2003, also grew up on a local ranch. Coincidence, or is it something about the western ranching work ethic that has enabled these young men to jump far and ski hard?

But for those of us who would just like to watch the sport, and watch it from the privacy of our own, beautifully appointed, living rooms with a nice fire crackling in the fireplace, well Steamboat has that to offer to you too. There are currently five prime downtown Loft developments with numerous units for sale which look straight at the jumps. I’d love to show you these or any other property which would meet your Steamboat real estate needs.

And before you know it, you’ll be jumping up and down too when our local boys make it big on the world stage. Yep, you’ll be claiming them as your own.  And me?  I’ll be right alongside you.