December 9, 2007 (Trondheim, Norway) – All good things must come to an end, even in Nordic Combined, the hybrid sport that blends ski jumping and ski running. Sunday, the end came to a surprise streak of World Cup podiums that started last March when American Billy Demong finished third at Holmenkollen in the sprint, which ended the 2007 World Cup season. And after a podium in the first three events this winter, the Americans came up dry in the combined sprint Sunday.

Johnny Spillane was 17th and Demong 21st in an event narrowly won by Austrian Christoph Bieler.

Bieler and Montana-born Jason Lamy Chappuis of France tied for third after the only round of jumping on Trondheim’s 134-meter hill. They overtook jumping leader Bernhard Gruber of Austria and Germany’s Eric Frenzel, the No. 2 jumper, and sprinted at the end for the finish. Bieler won by three-tenths of a second with a final lunge.

The Yanks had put someone onto the podium – into the top three finishers – of four straight events. Demong was third in that final sprint, Spillane was second in the season-opening competition Nov. 30, Demong was third the next day in a sprint and then he won a combined individual event Saturday.

By Sunday afternoon, though, the streak was history. But that’s okay, according to Coach Lasse Ottesen, who preaches a gospel of rebooting almost immediately for the next competition.

“We have to go out every competition and start over,” he said, calling the non-podium performances “a wake-up call for them.” Translation: yeah, maybe you won yesterday, but today is today, so get that engine revving again. There’s no automatic carry-over of success. You have to go out and do it again the next time. “Nobody awards a podium. You have to go get it,” he said.

“It was a tough day. It was a good lesson for us, too,” Demong said. “Both of us felt good – I felt the best since I got to Europe, felt rested and recovered…but it didn ‘t work out that way. I was a little late of my [jump] takeoff and had some time to make up…

“But when we went out to the cross-country course, we both picked the wrong skis. The course was really icy and our skis kept slipping out. The temperature went from about +1 or +2 [35 F.] yesterday to -8 [19 F.] and it was icy.

He and Spillane – along with another half-dozen, maybe more – went off the trails on turns on the bottom of slick downhill curves. Bad move: picking your way out the trees or crowd tends to cost you time.

The other lesson learned, Ottesen said, is that the two Yanks are targets for everyone else. “Everyone wants to beat Billy and Johnny now; they’re targets because they’ve won and been on the podium,” he said.

Full results here.