It's 4:45 in the morning and I'm curled up on the couch, remote in hand waiting to watch a sport most Americans have never heard of ... Nor can they tell you what on earth Nordic combined actually is.
Let's be real ... Until 2010, I couldn't tell you what Nordic combined was either.
And then Team USA tuore it up.
Johnny Spillane won silver and ended up in our condo, having a beer and borrowing a belt while we waited for the medal ceremony.
Billy Demong and Johnny went 1-2 in the large hill and Team USA won silver in the team event.
Somehow the Americans went from having never won an Olympic medal to being at the top of the country standings with four -- three silver and a gold.
And during all of that, I fell in love with both the sport and a team of athletes who couldn't have been nicer, more down-to-earth and, most importantly for a PR girl, media friendly.
Two of whom (Billy and Todd Lodwick who was named flag bearer at his sixth Olympic Games at 37 years old) are back for another go at it.
As I wait for the cross country portion, I figured I'd give my five blog readers a look at why you should be watching Nordic combined ... And don't worry, there's still two events left. The Long Hill is on the 18th and team competition is on the 20th.
First of all, it's one of the most spectator-friendly events of the Winter Games. It's easy really. First 40some athletes go flying off a hill. One by one with the best skiers at the end. Everyone gets one shot at it and you bomb down this ridiculous hill and fly through the air.
It looks crazy on TV. It's worse in person. The "normal hill" isn't my definition of "normal" at all. They really should be named "Hella High Hill" and "Masochistic Mountain."
But people do it and it's amazing to watch folks fly through the air over the distance of a football field in the normal hill and a field and a half for the large hill.
You're scored based on two main things: distance (how far you go) and judge points (what a group of folks in suits thinks of how you looked while you did it). And then there's an adjustment for wind to make things fair.
Sounds complicated, but it books down to "fly far, don't flail, land clean."
After the jump, there's a break while everyone trudges over to the cross country course.
Cross country doesn't sound spectator friendly, but it really is. Unlike alpine where athletes go down a mountain and are racing a clock, in cross country, you're racing actual people. Your start is determined by your score in the jump and every 15 points back equals a minute behind the leader at the start which is run in pursuit format.
And then they're off. They start in a stadium, loop through the woods (all of which can be seen on massive screens) and then they loop back through the stadium, back into the woods and so it goes for 10km at which point there's a frantic race to the finish and then bodies splayed all over the snow. Literally. It's like "cross the finish line, ski forward just far enough to not be a speed bump and fall over." Eventually you'll get up and celebrate or commiserate with your teammates, but first you must enjoy the snow in a fashion that looks something like this ...
People use cliches like "leave it all out there" and "put everything on the line." Yeah, that's what that looks like.
Set your DVRs and early morning alarms now ... They're back at it in less than a week.
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