U.S. team selects Demong to carry flag

VANCOUVER - The man who helped the Americans make waves in Nordic combined will carry the stars and stripes tomorrow into the party that puts a capper on the Winter Olympics.

In a vote among Olympic athletes, Billy Demong was selected late Thursday as U.S. flag bearer for the closing ceremony, an ideal reward for giving the Americans their first medals in the sport that mixes cross-country skiing and ski jumping.

Demong, 29, of Vermontville, N.Y., edged Johnny Spillane by 4 seconds Thursday for a gold in the individual large hill competition in Whistler, then proposed to his girlfriend, Katie Koczynski, a retired skeleton racer.

On Tuesday, Demong joined forces with Spillane, Todd Lodwick and Brett Camerota for a silver in the 20-kilometer relay. Demong recorded a sixth-place finish Feb. 14 in the individual normal hill, an event in which Spillane claimed a silver.

One of the most striking statistics after two weeks of competition is zero. That's how many athletes have been disqualified for positive drug tests, testament perhaps to the deterrent effect of the most stringent anti-doping program in Winter Games history.

Out of nearly 2,000 planned tests, the only doping violation so far has been minor - a female Russian hockey player was reprimanded after testing positive for a light stimulant contained in a decongestant before the games.

A few hundred more tests will be conducted over the final weekend of the games, with those results known early next week. Could these games really be drug-free? Don't bet on it.

"I'm a realist. I'm not naive," IOC president Jacques Rogge said. "The final judgment will come in 2018."

With American athletes assured of a national record medal tally and U.S. Olympic officials nearing a potential financial breakthrough with the IOC, no one is feeling much better right now than Scott Blackmun.

Blackmun, the new CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee, has been savoring the medal success of American athletes and working behind the scenes to improve relations with the IOC.

"It's hard to imagine that we could have done better. On and off the field, it's been a great two weeks for the United States," Blackmun said in an interview with the AP.

For Blackmun and USOC president Larry Probst, these games have been about more than competition and medals. They've focused on trying to repair relations with the international Olympic community after the humiliating defeats for New York City and Chicago in their respective bids for the 2012 and 2016 Summer Games.

Blackmun and Probst have met with IOC members and national Olympic leaders to show they are serious about cooperating and forging closer ties.