Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — Johnny Spillane spent the latter part of his summer recovering from knee surgery, and the U.S. Nordic combined skier and Steamboat Springs resident appears to be quickly regaining his form.

Spillane collected two top-10 finishes at the second World Cup stop of the season last weekend in Lillehammer, Norway. Spillane just missed the podium, placing fourth in Sunday’s event. Germany’s Tino Edelmann won the one jump, 10-kilometer Gundersen event. Spillane was the top American.

Spillane was sixth in Saturday’s event, which was won by France’s Jason Lamy Chappuis.

“It was great to have a good weekend,” Spillane said in a U.S. Ski Team release. “I felt like I skied a pretty good race. I just got beat at the end when I was tired. But I was definitely satisfied with both jumping and cross-country.”

It was the first World Cup victory for Edelmann, who took control of the race after pulling away from the pack in an uphill section of the course at 7.5 kilometers.

He was followed by Anssi Koivuranta. The Finnish skier finished 2.2 seconds behind the leader, and Chappuis was 2.3 seconds back in third place.

This was the first event of the season for the U.S Nordic combined team, which elected to skip the World Cup opener in Kuusamo, Finland, on Nov. 28 and 29.

Spillane returned to the World Cup tour in Lillehammer along with veteran Bill Demong, Steamboat’s Bryan Fletcher and Park City skier Brett Camerota.

Demong was eighth in Sun­day’s event and 14th on Saturday. Fletcher was 39th in Sunday’s event and 41st on Saturday. Camerota did not finish Sunday’s event and was 56th in Saturday’s start.

The event scheduled for this weekend in Harrachov, Czech Republic, was canceled.