Park City nordic combined athletes see sports’ past, present, and future in Norway

Nordic Combined USA teenagers from around the country traveled to Norway for a summer training camp ahead of this winter's Junior World Championships. Included from Park City are Liam Demong and Augie Roepke. Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke

TRONDHEIM, Norway — Michael Ward, Nordic Combined USA‘s Utah-based U.S. Domestic Development Coach returned to Utah from Norway on Friday after nearly three weeks of jumping four hills with eight teenage athletes from Alaska, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Colorado and two from Park City, Augie Roepke and Liam Demong.

Liam Demong (white shirt) and another Nordic Combined athlete from the East Coast in Norway and fulfilling the request from local youth to sign their autographs as American athletes on their t-shirts. Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke

Ward, a retired U.S. Ski Team member who studied and worked in sports medicine at the University of Utah, grew up in Aspen, CO where, when he was these athlete’s age there was a nordic ski jump, no longer present. The training campers under his leadership in Norway were handpicked. For some, this was their first time not only in Norway but abroad, some belong to clubs at home comprised of hundreds of athletes among multiple ski disciplines, some however, make up their home club of one. 

Many have competed in Europe in the Junior World Championships in Slovenia, and all are striving to qualify for this winter’s competition being hosted in Trondheim, Norway on the same hills they jumped last week. Thanks to an administrative partnership between the U.S. and Norway in terms of coaching-staff services, this group was coached by Ward and Emil Vilhelmsen who is the Head Coach and Christian Ingebrigtsen who is the Ski Jumping Coach of Nordic Combined USA.

TownLift was in Norway embedded with the training camp and caught up with the two Norwegians one day in between the athlete’s morning jumping and afternoon roller skiing. They have spent time in Park City,like just  last month at the Utah Olympic Park’s Springer Tournee.

In Norway, Vilhelmsen told TownLift, “This training camp is really nice. It’s good to see these level of athletes here in Norway to get a bunch of training in on these jumps. Also, they’re getting to train with the national team athletes, it’s great for everyone involved.”

Ingebrigtsen added, “It’s very good to get this experience and see how everybody else is doing with what kind of training the Norwegians are doing and what kind of training we are doing, and also for the juniors who might end up coming back here for competitions this winter, it’s all helpful.”

Norway boasts a multitude of hills sprinkled all throughout the nation. Last summer a similar bunch of national teenaged competitors, including a couple of Parkites, attended a training camp which had them jumping and roller skiing the trails in Germany, Italy, and Austria.

A trip like this is invaluable so when those who qualify for future international competition can at that point avoid the initial experiences of touching down at complex airports, not being prepared for foreign signage, foreign language, foreign food, jet lag, wet weather, trains and busses hauling their extensive amount of equipment, and in the case of Norway, of utmost importance from a technical standpoint them feeling the different sensation of ski jumping air under their airborne skis at sea level altitude.

The specific suits and the specific skis utilized are made in Europe and in Norway, thus these athletes were able to acquire some of both and not have to pay shipping costs or wait for slow supply chains. 

Two-time Olympian, Park City’s Ben Loomis and Olympian and Park City Ski & Snowboard athlete Stephen Schumann train in Trondheim, where the 2025 Nordic World Championships were held, for what seems like more time than not in recent years and in this, an Olympic year, they were kind to take time out of their tough training regimens not only on the hills with this camp, but for a big Team dinner at night also.

Later this month they hope to be representing the USA in the FIS Nordic Combined’s Summer Grand Prix circuit on the same green plastic hills familiar to Park City fans. Those will be held in Germany, France, and Italy making Norway a convenient jumping off point for European travel. Other Parkites are also staying in Norway and jumping in France for FIS this summer.

After jumping and skiing, time was carved out to soak in some culture as the group toured historic churches, the Oslo’s Opera House, the National Theater, architecturally acclaimed libraries, world-class art museums, and famous colorful row houses along the riverside. As far as extracurricular athletic activities, they saw the Olympic bobsled/skeleton/luge track, spectated a national-level soccer match, swam and high-dived in the fridgid fjords, worked-out in the same gym as the Norwegian Olympic Handball Team, turned on their hotel tv’s pleasantly surprised to watch primetime broadcasts of international roller skiing races, a Norwegian normality, and perhaps the piece-de-resistance (especially for this hard to impress age range) may just have been the behind-the-scenes tour of the global headquarters Swix/Toko ski wax factory. 

Below is one of several social media posts on the FIS Nordic Combined sites of these athlete’s in Norway.

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by FIS Nordic Combined (@fisnordiccombined)

Further illustrating how omni-present Norway is to American nordic combiners, there was a second, parallel group of even younger athletes from around the USA traveling and training there simultaneously. For a few future Olympians, it was a mutual admiration society pipeline with those club athletes seeing the role model Nordic Combined USA older teenagers and Wards’ group seeing their role model U.S. National Team there. 

Interested parties may click here to make a donation to Nordic Combined USA.

It was insightful for these nordic combined athletes to learn that there are countries around the world in which their sport is more ubiquitous, than unique.