Spillane, Demong share longtime bond

This article was originally posted in February 2009 before Bill Demong won two medals -- one of them gold -- at the world championships.

WHISTLER, British Columbia -- Sitting in a hotel lounge, Nordic combined skiers Johnny Spillane and Bill Demong wore the same clothes for the third-straight day.

The airlines lost their luggage -- temporarily, it turns out -- which means no boots, no gear and no training for them on this January day for the World Cup at Whistler Olympic Park, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games venue.

The pair handled this with as much concern as a couple of guys laying on the beach. After 10 years together on the circuit, from junior worlds to World Cup B races to the World Cup big-time, they know each other well enough to finish each other's sentences. And well enough to know not to.

"You can make a safe assumption that Johnny and I, and Todd [Lodwick] and I, have probably roomed in the same room or slept in the same Euro-style double bed on an average of 200 nights a year for the last 12 years," Demong said, standing at the base of the ski jump the next day, boots and luggage back in the team's possession. "We probably know each other even better than brothers. Especially Johnny and I -- we have been around since we were both 15, 16."

A missed day of training didn't mean much -- Demong would win the World Cup the next day for his fifth career victory, and take third in another World Cup competition the following day. Spillane finished 22nd and 11th.

After Whistler, the U.S. team skipped four World Cup events to train for the world championships in Liberec, Czech Republic.

Demong and Spillane were linked even before they met at a Junior Olympics meet in Michigan when they were 12 or 13.

They were born the same year, 1980, the year of Lake Placid's Olympic Miracle on Ice. Demong trained at nearby Lake Placid, just south of his hometown of Vermontville, N.Y; Spillane in Steamboat Springs, Colo., the former longtime home of the U.S. Nordic combined program.

Growing up half a continent apart, they each courted their own miracle: winning America's first Olympic medal in Nordic combined, the event that pairs ski jumping with cross-country ski racing.

No American has done it since the Winter Olympics began in 1924. In fact, the U.S. team has performed abysmally in Olympic Nordic events, with Bill Koch's 1976 cross-country silver and Anders Haugen's 1924 jumping bronze the only Olympic medals in cross country, ski jumping, biathlon and Nordic combined.

Now, U.S. Nordic combined skiers are closer than ever to a medal, or two. But it's been a long haul. Both Spillane and Demong were on the team that won the 1999 Junior World Championships. Both have made three Olympic teams, suffering an oh-so-close fourth place in the 2002 Games four-man team event.

Spillane's breakthrough came with gold in the 2003 world championships sprint event, a first for the U.S. team. He has five career World Cup podium finishes. At the 2006 Torino Olympics, Spillane finished 10th in the sprint and 30th in the individual event. Injuries have slowed him in the past, but he has a ninth place and an 11th place in two of four races this season.

Demong was out in 2003, recovering from a fractured skull after a pool-diving accident. He finished 15th in the individual event and 25th in the sprint at the 2006 Torino Games but won a silver at the 2007 world championships, a in 2008 recorded a U.S. first with a third place finish in the overall World Cup standings. No American had placed in the overall before. He has 14 World Cup career podiums.

"I was out of the picture and those guys stepped it up," said Lodwick, 26-time World Cup medalist who "retired" in 2006 but returned this season to two runner-up finishes so far. "It's something that you have to give them props for."

The competition between Spillane and Demong has forged not only a tight friendship but Olympic podium potential.

"It was always a game of one-upsmanship," Spillane said. "He would get a top 10. I'd get a top 10. He'd get a top five, I'd want to get a top five. I'd get on the podium, he'd got on the podium. It was fun. It is fun. We're still doing the same thing. We feed off one another's success."

Spillane, who still lives in Steamboat, is now married and Demong lives in Park City, Utah. But even in the off-season, they get together. They've traveled to Alaska and have teamed up to build concrete countertops for family and friends. Both, along with Lodwick, took up bowhunting for elk a few years ago.

"We both kind of got addicted," Demong said. "The first year was just trial-and-error. We didn't get anything. We were just in the woods, in the snow and the rain, for like 10 days straight non-stop, eating whatever granola bars we got for free from the ski team all day."

A few years ago, Spillane led Demong to his first elk while they were hunting in knee-deep snow and rough terrain a couple miles from the car. That was the easy part. Elk can weigh 600 pounds, about half that after gutting. To get the carcass closer to the car, they improvised.

"We ... sledded it down the hill, as far as we could," said the 5-foot-10, 150-pound Demong. "We actually rode the elk down the mountain. I ended up cutting the elk in half, putting the front half on [Spillane's] pack and the rear half on my pack, and it took two-and-a-half hours to walk two miles. I was dying."

Both Demong and Spillane eat a lot of elk meat. Consider the endorsement possibilities: Elk: The Other Red Meat.

"Johnny eats more meat than anyone else in the world," Demong said. "He lives off pure meat, I think. Sports drink, Powerbars and meat."

Maybe there's enough elk to fuel a couple of Olympic dreams. Tune in next year to find out.