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Canwest News Service
A GOLD IN SKELETON TRACK’S CLOSET
Maybe it was a bad omen that the Whistler Mountain ski resort went belly-up before the Games started. When competition began, Canadian success in the Village was as rare as affordable housing in the picturesque playground of the rich. Canada’s sliders, biathletes and skiers of all kinds –alpine, cross-country and jumping– waged Quixotic struggles for hardware, up to and including skeleton racer Mellisa Hollingsworth’s disastrous last run last Friday night. That was until skeleton racer Jon Montgomery of Russell, Man., set a track record at the Whistler Sliding Centre en route to pipping Latvia’s Martins Dukurs for gold by seven-hundredths of a second.
ROCHETTE’ S COURAGE ON ICE
Had it come from Hollywood screenwriters, Joannie Rochette’s bronze in women’s figure skating would have been rejected as unbelievable. Days after learning her mother, Therese, died of a heart attack soon after she arrived in Vancouver to see her daughter skate, the 24-year-old Quebecer followed up a third-place short program with a bronze-winning performance in an emotional free skate at the Pacific Coliseum. It hardly mattered that two skaters beat Rochette, given gold medalist Kim Yu-Na of South Korea broke a world record with a highly memorable routine.
LANE CHANGE SIGNALS TROUBLE
In the Netherlands, where speed skating is revered by locals in the same way backpacking North American youth salute lax local drug laws, a coaching error by coach Gerard Kemkers pushed the fall of the Dutch government off the front pages. What should have been 10,000 metres of triumph for speed-skating superstar Sven Kramer on Tuesday became nothing more than a tortured tune-up. A confused Kemkers incorrectly called for his star pupil to switch lanes, handing gold in Kramer’s signature event to South Korea’s Lee Seung-Hoon.
DANCING THE PODIUM
It was not quite a miracle on ice, but Ontarians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s win in ice dance provided history and a national ego boost to the host country. On the same day officials officially gave up on the ill-fatted “Own the Podium” program and about 24 hours after a demoralizing 5-3 loss to the U.S. spawned worried questions about Canada’s men’s hockey team, the 110-pound waif Virtue and her hardly burly partner Moir lifted the country’s spirits Monday night as the first ever non-European Olympic champions in their sport.
MILLER’S TIME, NOT MILLER TIME
Redemption is a hallmark of many of the best sports stories, and it certainly was there for American skier Bode Miller at these games. Shut out in Turin four years ago where reports of his conduct as an ill-prepared boor added insult to injury, the 32-year-old from New Hampshire at once became the most decorated U.S. skier in Olympic history and equaled famed Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy’s record for men’s alpine ski medals at a single Games with a gold in Sunday’s super-combined following an opening week down-
SLIDING TO SILVER AND GOLD IN BOBSLED
Before Wednesday night, Canada never had won a medal in women’s bobsled. By the time it ended, the country had two -gold and silver -a one-two punch courtesy of new champions Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse and runners-up Helen Upperton and Shelley-Ann Brown who sent the Whistler Sliding Center into a roaring frenzy with their medal-winning final runs. That Upperton missed a medal four years ago by .05 of a second driving Moyes, whose arrival in her sled booted a broken-heart Humphries, simply added another layer of drama to the moment.
IT WASN’T 1972, BUT IT WASN’T TOO FAR BEHIND
Shades of 1972 hung in the air in the build-up for Wednesday’s match in men’s hockey between Canada and Russia. The host country’s 8-2 win over hockey lightweight Germany propelled Canada into a quarter-final with its arch-rival, but did little to assuage concerns raised by a 5-3 loss to the U. S and narrow shootout escape over the Swiss. Unlike Game 8 in 1972, the Canadians needed no Hendersonian heroics in the final moment, storming out to a 3-0 lead and cruising to an easy 7-3 win that, for a moment at least, put a salve on a wounded hockey nation.
AN EPIC GLIDE FROM BEHIND
Never giving up is a fine ideal in sport, but in a grueling event like the cross-country 4 x 10 km relay, entering the final leg in sixth place and trailing the leaders by more than 37 seconds might have given Norway’s Petter Northug reason for entertaining thoughts of surrender. Of course, the 24-year-old had not already won a gold and bronze without a strong will, even while equipment problems prevented shots at another two medals. Northug’s awesome anchor run pulled Norway past three rivals and gave his team silver over the Czech Republic by a mere 0.6 seconds.
IOC COMPLAINTS GO UP IN SMOKE
Champagne, beer, at least one cigar and an attempt to drive an ice resurfacing machine. It sounds like a typical championship celebration, save for the fact the IOC and Hockey Canada felt the Canadian women’s team somehow provided a disservice to Olympic “ideals” by enjoying as they saw fit on the ice of, what is for all non-Olympic events, GM Place, a 2-0 gold medal win over the U.S. four years in the making. Never mind that IOC honchos can dine with whatever wine and spirits they like, the court of public opinion determined the whole thing a tempest in a non-teetotalling pot.
A SATISFYING FINNISH FOR HOCKEY BRONZE
When an Olympic event ends with the president of the IOC announcing to the world a sport needs changes to remain on the program, it might be a down. Just do not tell Finland’s women’s hockey team, for which their overtime win against Sweden on Thursday had all the feel of gold. Just as the Swedes in 2006 stunned the hockey world by upsetting the Americans for the first non-U. S./Canada final in women’s Olympic hockey history, Karoliina Rantamaki’s goal 2:33 into extra time gave them their first medal since women’s hockey’s debut Olympics in 1998.
Tags: 2010 Olympic Games
