Word: sport
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...It’s been great having Steven on the team,” O’Connor agreed. “He reminds me a lot of myself when I was a freshman with the passion and attitude he shows for the sport. I’m inspired by what Steven and the other freshman...
...Nordic combined sit in America's 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...
...Steitz's creditors accept Olympic medals as collateral? Prior to these Olympics, the U.S. had never won an Olympic medal in Nordic combined, a sport that has been contested in the Games since 1924. Countries like Norway (the sport's namesake), Finland and Germany have dominated the event. But to borrow a phrase from the host country of the Vancouver Olympics, the Americans now own the podium. Thanks in part to an infusion of coaches, technicians, physiologists and other ski specialists devoted to the team in recent years, Johnny Spillane on Feb. 14 clinched the first American Olympic medal...
...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...
...Regardless, the sport 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...