Nordic combined guys back in action on large hill
KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia (AP) — With one Nordic combined gold medal already tucked in his suitcase to take back to Germany, Eric Frenzel begins his quest for a second when official training begins Saturday for the individual large hill at the Sochi Olympics.
Frenzel won last year's World Cup and is the runaway leader in this year's competition after winning seven events.
In the normal hill competition held Wednesday, Frenzel led after the ski jumping phase, giving him a six-second head start over Akito Watabe of Japan in the cross-country ski portion.
Frenzel had a 4.2-second advantage at the end, speeding away from Watabe, who won silver, in the final 500 meters. Magnus Krog of Norway earned the bronze.
"I did a perfect jump, I didn't give everything I had too early," Frenzel, 25, said after collecting his medal.
If that's the case in next Tuesday's gold medal final, the rest of the field might have a tough time catching the man who has dominated the sport for most of the last two years.
Americans finished one-two in the large hill event at the Vancouver Games in 2010, with Billy Demong taking gold and Johnny Spillane the silver. Demong is back to defend his title, but Spillane, who also won silver in the normal hill four years ago, has retired.
Demong was the best of the American finishers in the normal hill event, finishing 24th, but the entire team will be hoping for a better performance on the large hill, where the U.S. won team silver in Vancouver.
The team final is next Thursday, the final Olympic event at the RusSki Gorki Jumping Center. Austria is the defending team champion while Germany, with Frenzel as one of its four members, took the bronze.
The 33-year-old Demong said he was not far from retirement and is hoping to go out with another Olympic medal.
"It was really final that I was done after this," Demong said in reference to the Sochi Games. "Unless I'm here in a different sport or capacity in four years' time, it's totally off the table."
The other Americans are 37-year-old Todd Lodwick, who is competing in his sixth games, and brothers Bryan and Taylor Fletcher. Demong and Lodwick, who is battling a shoulder injury and didn't finish the normal hill event, were on the American team that finished second in Vancouver.
Like the normal hill, the large hill uses the Gundersen method. The top finisher in the ski jumping starts first on the 10-kilometer cross-country race — four loops of a 2.5-kilometer track — and the rest of the field begins in staggered starts depending on their jumping finish.
