Nordic Combined

Watching the Nordic Combined.  This starts out on the K-95 hill (the smaller or normal hill).  It involves a single jump and followed by a 10K cross-country.  The event has been a part of the Olympic Games since their inception.  The U.S team has never medaled in this event but have a good chance to do so today. In fact one of the Todd Lodwick, Bill Demong and Johnny Spillane seem to have the skills to be comepetative to for a medal.

The air seems be working well for the jumpers today. It's such a rush to watch these guy in flight.

The way this works is the jumpers score points on the jump. Each point provides a 4 second advantage in the cross-county. Then based on those points they stagger the starts on the cross country.

U.S. team member Todd Lodwick just had a very nice jump. Not the leader but very nice.  Right now he'll start 34 seconds behind the leader. +

Demong has jumped now and his jump not as impressive as Lodwick. Spillane is yet to come.

Swiss Take First Gold

Simon Ammann - the Swiss ski jumper collects a Gold Medal on the K-95 hill. Polish jumper Adam Malysz took silver and for a few moments drove his Polish fans into frenzy. But Malysz was the next to the last to make his second jump and had to know there was a good chance Ammann who has the best jump in the first round was a strong possibility to overtake him, and he did. Both jumpers were quite impressive. The Bronze goes to old Gregor Schlierenzauer of Austria