On the first weekend of competition in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the United States (USA) won both the men’s and women’s inaugural snowboard slopestyle events. Jamie Anderson won the women’s gold medal on Sunday, while Sage Kotsenburg won his gold medal on Saturday.
Anderson was in 4th place after her first run in the finals, but had clearly the best run of the day in her second run. She was the favorite, and she showed why. Earlier in a second run of the finals, one of the competitors who was one of the leaders after the one run, Sarka Panchocova of the Czech Republic, fell hard when attempting to land her first jump. After laying on the course for a few moments, she got up and finished her run, even though there was a sever crack on the back of her helmet. She seemed to be ok physically afterward.
Kotsenburg won his gold medal by landing a jump that he’s never even attempted before. He calls the jump the “Holy Crail“. It consists of spinning around 4 1/2 times in the air, while grabbing the board and arching your back, then of course landing successfully. For him to attempt this jump without even trying it in practice before, is the type of decision and execution that makes an Olympic Champion.
Another favorite to win a gold medal for Team USA was Bode Miller, in the downhill. He had dominated the practice runs leading up to Sunday’s final. It was commonly thought to be Miller’s race to lose, but he did lose it, finishing in eighth place. Matthias Mayer of Austria won the gold medal. In fact, Miller wasn’t even the top American in the downhill. Travis Ganong finished in 5th place.
After the first weekend of the Winter Olympics, Norway leads the medal count with 7 total medals, 4 of them bronze. USA and 3 other countries are tied for second place with 4 medals each. Norway, USA and the Netherlands are all tied leading the way with 2 gold medals so far. Most of the events have kicked into high gear, except men’s ice hockey. Since many teams in the National Hockey League (NHL) played as recently as Saturday, the men don’t start playing hockey until this Thursday.
I’m looking forward to the bobsled, short track speed skating, the 500 and 100 meter speed skating, snowboard cross, and of course hockey. I also became strangely attracted to curling in the last Winter Olympics. If you’re not familiar with curling, it’s kind of like shuffleboard on ice, without the stick. Anyway, enjoy the games, no matter what events you like.
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