The 2014 Winter Olympics introduced a new event, the Ski Slopestyle, and the United States were sure happy about it. The USA men swept all the medals in this event on Thursday. This was only the 3rd time ever for the Americans to sweep all 3 medals in any event. The previous medal sweeps were in 1956 Men’s Figure Skating and 2002 Men’s Halfpipe Snowboarding.
The gold medal winner was 22-year old Joss Christensen of Park City, Utah, whose father passed away last August. His first run of the finals held up as the best score overall. Gus Kenworthy of Telluride, Colorado, also 22 years old, won the silver medal. 19-year old Nick Goepper of Lawrenceburg, Indiana won the bronze medal. Goepper is the first winter Olympic medalist from Indiana.
On Friday, the women had their last 2 runs of the skeleton. The skeleton is the opposite of the luge, in the way the person lays on the sled. For the luge the rider lays on their back feet first, while the skeleton rider lays on their stomach head first. Lizzy Yarnold of Great Britain won the gold medal, winning by almost a full second after the 4 runs. Noelle Pikus-Pace of the USA won the silver medal in her last Olympics.
The winner of the bronze medal was decided by .04 second after 4 runs. Elena Nikitina of Russia just edged Katie Uhlaender of the USA. What a way to miss out on a medal, getting so close, but losing by such a small margin.
With all the missed chances for medals by Team USA, it’s a little surprising that they are tied with Norway for the most medals, with 13, at the end of competition on Friday. Germany leads all countries with 7 gold medals. Former Olympic Champions Bode Miller and Teg Ligety both missed out on medals in the Super Combined (1 downhill run and 1 slalom run), after Miller failed to medal in the Downhill earlier this week. Julia Mancuso, who previously won a bronze medal in the Super Combined, failed to medal in the Downhill, which is her strength in the Super Combined.
2-time Olympic Gold Medalist Shani Davis in the 1000 meter speed skating event, not only failed to win the event in 3 straight Olympics, but he didn’t win any medal. In fact, no American speed skater has won a medal yet. Some have even stared to blame the losses on the uniforms they wear. Supposedly an air pocket in the back of the uniform slows them down. While it seems like an excuse, it is strange that their skaters have been doing so poorly in the Olympic Games so far.
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Sports With Frank Thomas
