Billy Demong, a Vermontville native and Olympic medalist in Nordic combined, addresses a crowd at the Olympic Speedskating Oval in March 2022. (Enterprise photo — Lauren Yates)

LAKE PLACID — Billy Demong may be leaving USA Nordic Sport, but he’s not done with the Olympic world.

Demong, a Vermontville native, announced his resignation as USA Nordic’s executive director earlier this week after a six-year run with the national governing body for ski jumping and Nordic combined.

Demong, a 2010 Olympic gold and silver medalist in Nordic Combined, joined USANS in May of 2016. He served through two Olympic Games and three World Championships during his time with the organization. Now, he’s ready for a break.

“I feel like I’m going to get a diminishing return in my ability to continue doing the role I’m in right now, because it’s been six years of a really high pace,” Demong said Thursday after Lake Placid’s Athlete Parade and Welcome Home Olympians celebration, where he was a guest speaker.

When Demong started with USANS, it was a “pretty small organization.” Now, all of the men’s and women’s ski jumping and Nordic combined teams are together under one roof.

Demong said he could stay on as executive director, but that he’d “for sure” be signing up for another four years with the organization. He said that after seven winter games in ski jumping and Nordic combined between his time as an athlete and as USANS’ executive director, he needs to breathe, back up and get some perspective.

One thing Demong is looking forward to is having more time to think about how to improve the U.S. Olympic movement. Resources are increasingly scarce, he said, from youth to top level Olympic sports. He’s seen that firsthand with USANS.

Demong flew around 150,000 miles for work last year, and about a third of those were with the USANS team. The rest of the time, he was fundraising, sponsoring, doing events and generally wearing a lot of hats. He said they’re big, tough jobs, but that it’s normal in the Olympic movement to have a small staff that has to multitask.

“You have a couple people that just do it all,” he said.

Demong also wants to improve Olympic resources to invite more people into the movement. He’s said in the past that he’s interested in making Olympic sports as accessible to as many people as possible.

“My biggest thing is really, how do we make this more sustainable, more fun, for more kids, more clubs, more athletes in this country,” he said Thursday. “Right now, I think we’re 20 years overdue a bit of a reset in terms of what kind of resources are available.”

But, he said, there’s a lot of potential for change on the horizon. The Empowering Olympic, Paralympic, and Amateur Athletes Act, which protects amateur athletes from abuse, was passed in 2020, and Demong said the International Olympic Committee just got more funding. Demong also applauded the state government and the state Olympic Regional Development Authority during his speech on Thursday for their investment in Lake Placid’s Olympic facilities.

There’s a lot brewing in the Olympic movement, and Demong said that’s part of the reason he left USANS — because he’d be too busy to participate in those changes. As to what those changes are, Demong says: “Stay tuned. I want to breathe first, and then I’ll be diving back in, I’m sure, in 100 different other ways.”

Demong said he wants to spend more time with his children, who are 6 and 11 years old, and take some time to relax. His version of relaxing? What he does after every career change: Flipping a house.

Demong rebuilt a house after he medaled in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and after he retired from skiing. He doesn’t own the houses at the same time, he said, he just fixes and flips. Demong said he occasionally funded his ski career by operating a concrete countertop company and working as a general contractor. Now, he’s ready to turn off his phone, throw on the toolbelt and get to work again.