Word: cross
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...Finns, however, will have to deal with more disappointment. They shined in the air, taking the top spot in the ski-jumping competition, but broke down on the ground, finishing seventh in cross-country. (Norway, the patriarch of the sport, came in fifth.) In the afternoon, a steady snowfall turned the cross-county course into a postcard. American Brett Camerota, who at 25 is the youngest member of the U.S. team and supposedly its weak link, finished almost three seconds ahead of Finland's Ryynaenen in the first leg of the relay, giving the Americans the lead. American Todd Lodwick...
...cross-country race, a 14-sec. lead is a comfortable cushion. Yet Demong's push against Austria's Mario Stecher set up, for this observer's money, the most memorable finish of the Vancouver Olympics to date. It made you seriously wonder why this sport doesn't garner more attention in the U.S. as well as admire Europe's good taste in obsessing over an event that Americans foolishly offer a big fat yawn. After all, what's more engrossing than a good old-fashioned race to the finish...
...Winter Olympic hierarchy? "We were at the bottom of the barrel," says Tom Steitz, the U.S. Nordic combined coach from 1980 to 2002. "We owned last place." Over the past decade, Steitz has led the push to snare more funding for the obscure sport, which mixes ski jumping and cross-country skiing. But he recalls the days in which Nordic combined athletes trekked through Europe like broke college students, sleeping in elementary school gyms, piling into tiny rental cars like circus clowns, begging other countries to drive their skis to events (there just wasn't room in the backseats...
...Nordic combined, the sport with the terribly unsexy name, started in mid-19th century Norway. It is an anomaly in the Winter Olympics because it mixes two wildly different disciplines. Yes, both ski jumpers and cross-country racers wear skis. But other than that, you might as well mix ice dancing with speedskating and call it a day. Cross-country racing requires extreme endurance, while ski jumping requires insanity. "It is kind of stupid," says Finland's Janne Ryynaenen of the odd combination. Ryynaenen nailed the longest leap of the day, 138.5 m from the takeoff, during the ski-jumping...
...more than made up for its oddness in entertainment during Wednesday's competition at Whistler Olympic Park. In the team event, four skiers from each of the 10 countries complete one jump in the morning. Their combined jumping scores determine their position for the afternoon 4-by-5-km cross-country relay. For example, on Wednesday, the Finns, who finished first in jumping, got a 2 sec. head start on the U.S., which finished second, and a 2 min. 19 sec. advantage over the Italians, who leapt like little bullfrogs and finished last in the jump. There...