Quietly, Koch Makes His Mark

Bill Koch earned the only medal ever won by a U.S. athlete in Nordic skiing at the 1976 Winter Games in Innsbruck.

A bearded 20-year-old from Vermont, Koch won the silver medal in the 30-kilometer cross-country race, finishing just 28 seconds behind Sergei Savelyev of the Soviet Union.

And according to news reports, there was not a single American fan or journalist in attendance.

Koch is still rather anonymous--and hard to find.

The search for Koch starts with the U.S. Ski Federation, then on to the father of one of Koch’s U.S. teammates, then to an official in the International Ski Federation, and finally to Koch’s mother, Nancy Ragle.

Ragle, who lives in Vermont, said her son lives in Ashland, Ore., with his second wife, Kate, and their 11/2-year-old daughter, Mehana. Koch, who also is the father of two grown daughters, became a father for the fourth time Friday when his son, William Oliver, weighed in at 10 pounds 2 ounces.

Just as Ragle was about to recount the highlights of Koch’s life since the 1976 performance, she stopped and said, “I’d better not say anything because I don’t want to make Bill mad. He is a very private person.”

And Koch agreed that he is. It is his nature.

Koch took up the Nordic combined--an event that combines skiing and ski jumping--as a teenager. But when he didn’t make the 1972 U.S. Olympic team, Koch decided to put all his efforts into cross-country. When he was 18, Koch became the first American to win a cross-country medal in international competition.

After his shocking performance in 1976, Koch’s progress was slowed by severe exercise-induced asthma. He finished 15th at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics in the 50-kilometer race and began concentrating on longer distances. Koch also pioneered a controversial technique that resembled speedskating on skis. In the mid-1980s, after trying to ban the technique, officials decided to hold races in two disciplines--classical and freestyle.

Koch became the first American to medal in the world championships with a bronze at the 1982 30-kilometer race in Oslo, Norway, and he also won the overall Nordic World Cup title that year. Koch skied in four events at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics but didn’t come near a medal and retired for nearly five years until coming back to make the 1992 Albertville team. There, he wasn’t a medal threat but he did carry the U.S. flag in the opening ceremony.

Since then, Koch has spent significant time living in Hawaii, where he was again a pioneer, using sand skiing as a way to train for cross-country.

He said he loved living in Hawaii but that Kate found living on an island too confining. So the couple have found a place they both love in Oregon.