WHISTLER, British Columbia — With one more perfect run down sliding's most treacherous track, Steven Holcomb drove USA-1 to the Olympic gold medal in four-man bobsledding Saturday, ending a 62-year drought for the Americans in the event.

It was the first gold medal for the U.S. in sliding's signature race since Francis Tyler won one for the Americans at St. Moritz in 1948.

Holcomb's four-run time was 3 minutes, 24.46 seconds, with Justin Olsen, Steve Mesler and Curt Tomasevicz pushing for him again – just as they did in winning the world championship a year ago.

"This is bigger," U.S. coach Brian Shimer said.

German Andre Lange, who failed to win a gold medal for the first time in five Olympic events, had a nearly perfect final run to win the silver in his final race. Lange finished 0.38 seconds behind Holcomb and his team.

Lyndon Rush drove Canada-1 to the bronze.

Holcomb and his sledmates crossed the finish line then wrapped each other in American flags. Holcomb hoisted his helmet high as family and friends craned for photographs, and a party the U.S. program waited 62 years to throw was finally getting under way.

"This will take a while for it to sink in," Holcomb said. "You work so hard, and when you finally get there it's like, 'Well, now what? I don't know what to do.' We've worked so hard and gone through so much in the last four years to end on a high note like this is huge. It's overwhelming."

USA-3 driver Mike Kohn was a push athlete for Shimer's sled at those 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, when Todd Hays drove to silver and Shimer got the Americans a bronze.

"It's huge," said Kohn, who finished 13th. "This is a great moment. It's hopefully going to change the program and bring some publicity and some funding to this sport, just like it did in '02 when we won silver and bronze."

Minutes after it was over, Tomasevicz pulled off Holcomb's hat, planting a smooch on his pilot's bald, sweaty head.

Sealed with a kiss, it was, and then the four men stood atop the podium for the flower ceremony at trackside – medals come later Saturday night – and did what's known as the "Holcy Dance," the little shuffle step that Holcomb does to keep his team loose.

From there, Holcomb hugged anyone he could wrap his giant arms around, and Mesler hopped the wall of the bleachers to celebrate with his family.

"It means an awful lot," said Darrin Steele, CEO of the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation. "This has been a long road. But all the components came together. You put a sled and a team together, and you never know how it's going to go."

A slew of U.S. teammates rushed to Holcomb's sled, and one of the first to offer congratulations was Geoff Bodine, the 1986 Daytona 500 champion who was the driving force behind the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project – which funded and built the sleds Americans raced at the Vancouver Games.

"It's a great thing for the U.S.," Canada-2 driver Pierre Lueders said. "They've been competitive in bobsled for so long, but have been shut out quite a few times. He definitely is a talent, and I can't wait to see how he's going to do four years from now."

Holcomb had a lead of 0.40 seconds over Rush after Friday's first two runs, a giant advantage in sliding.

"It was actually torture to have to wait for a whole night for this," Steele said.

Holcomb was walking around trackside about an hour before the final heat, shaking his finger, mouthing the words "one more." With a lead of 0.45 seconds over Rush, all Holcomb needed to do was get his sled down the mountain without a huge mishap, knowing his lead was such that no one could catch him.

All he had to do was not wreck before Curve 13, this track's most dangerous turn, the one Holcomb himself dubbed "50-50" after seeing roughly one out of every two sleds crash there last year.

Holcomb and his sledmates grabbed each other by the hands one last time, took one last look down the hill and prepared to push the "Night Train" – the menacing, flat-black, super-high-tech sled that is coveted by almost every bobsledder in the world – into Olympic lore.

A mere 51.52 seconds later, it was over.

With that came a deafening roar, even louder than the silence that permeated the Whistler Sliding Center before these games began.

It's barely been two weeks since Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili crashed during a luge training run and died just hours before the opening ceremony. The Olympic track has been a lightning rod of criticism since. There were dozens of crashes on the super-fast surface, six during Friday's four-man heats alone, one bad enough to knock up-and-coming American John Napier – some say he'll be better than Holcomb – out of the Olympics with a sore neck.

It might be the toughest track in the world, but Holcomb made it look toothless.

It wasn't long ago that Holcomb had 20-500 vision – "profound visual impairment" – that could have ended his bobsledding career before he managed to scrape up $15,000 to have contact lenses embedded behind his iris to correct a degenerative condition. He's bobsled's best now.

Holcomb was 8 when he saw a big, red Canadian bobsled on TV speeding down a track somewhere in the world. Already hooked on speed from Alpine skiing, Holcomb was quickly fascinated with sledding – but it took about a decade to achieve.

Holcomb was about 18 when he got word that a bobsled tryout meeting was taking place at a bar in his native Park City, Utah. He and Tristan Gale tried to get in, unsuccessfully because neither was old enough to legally get past the door.

Fortunately for the USBSF, neither was deterred by Utah's liquor laws.

Gale won skeleton gold at Park City in 2002.

And eight years later, Holcomb joins her as an Olympic champion.

The "Night Train" guys were overwhelmed a few weeks ago, when they were surprised with shimmering championship rings for winning the four-man world title.

A new piece of jewelry awaits.

It was 1948 when Tyler, Patrick Martin, Edward Rimkus and William D'Amico went to St. Moritz and won the four-man bobsled gold for the United States, the second time in three Winter Olympics that Americans won sliding's marquee event.

A 50-year gap between world four-man titles for the U.S. ended last year in Lake Placid. And now, the Olympic skein is finally over.

"When they raise the flag and play `The Star-Spangled Banner' for your son," said Steve Holcomb, the bobsledder's father, his voice choking at the thought, "well, that's pretty cool."

More on Winter Olympics 2010

Filed under: Fashion, Celebrity, News

While these may be some of the fiercest athletes in the world, take them off the slopes and the ice and they sure clean up well.

In honor of heart health month, top female competitors at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics took time out of training to get their model on in a selection of red dresses.

Accessorizing with the American flag, skates, skis and even a hockey stick, these women show support for their country and a good cause while looking red hot.




Check out where your favorite past Olympians are now.

Olympics Style: Vancouver 2010 Athletes Don Red Dresses for Heart Health originally appeared on StyleList on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bode Miller's fourth medal of the 2010 Winter Games will not come in the Giant Slalom after the American failed to finish the first run on Tuesday. Switzerland's Carlo Janks leads after the first of two runs.

Bode Miller's fourth medal of the 2010 Winter Games will not come in the Giant Slalom.

Miller -- who nearly crashed during the top half -- hooked his glove on a gate, was unable to correct his line and skied off the course in Tuesday's first slalom run, eliminating him from contention (an athlete must successfully complete both slalom runs to qualify). Bode said it was his high-risk style of skiing that resulted in today's error. 

"I'm taking more risk than everyone else. That's partly why I'm able to get medals. It looks easy when you make it," Miller told The Associated Press in an interview after missing out on becoming the first man to win four Alpine medals at one Winter Games.

"When you crash like today, it's like, 'Oh, huh?' I did a good job today, too," Miller continued. "I was right there. I was right on the edge."

Though Miller won silver in 2002 in the Giant Slalom, he was not expected to compete in this year's event because of a lingering ankle injury, as Fourth Place Medal points out.

It's not surprising that Miller won't medal, and it's not even that surprising that he didn't finish. Miller has skied in only two giant slalom races this season. Suffering from a lingering ankle injury, he failed to finish in Colorado, and then wasn't fast enough to qualify for a second run in Italy.

In fact, Miller didn't even qualify for a spot on the United States team; he was added later as a coaches' selection in the hopes that he could turn in a couple of great runs. But it wasn't to be.

Fellow American Ted Ligety, one of the pre-race favorites, is in eighth place after the first run, 0.60 seconds behind the leader, Switzerland's Carlo Janka. Austria's Romed Baumann is second and Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, winner of medals already in 2010 (silver in Downhill and gold in Super-G), sits in third.

The second run begins at 4 p.m. ET; you can follow it live at the Vancouver 2010 website.

More: SB Nation’s full coverage of the Winter Olympics and the 2010 Winter Olympics Medal Count Tracker.

• Quick slalom run takes American from seventh to first
• Leader after downhill leg fails to press home advantage

A dazzling slalom run last night catapulted the United States' Bode Miller to victory in the super-combined skiing, a win which finally turned sporadic dominance into Olympic gold.

After lying seventh from the downhill run Miller skied one of the fastest slalom legs for a two-run combined time of 2min 44.92sec.

Miller has also won a silver and a bronze at the Vancouver Games – a sharp contrast from his medal-less performance in Turin four years ago, when he made more headlines for his late-night partying than his skiing.

Ivica Kostelic of Croatia took the silver medal, 0.33sec behind, and Silvan Zurbriggen of Switzerland won bronze, a further 0.07sec back.

The downhill leader Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway did not complete his slalom leg, ensuring the victory for Miller.

Miller was faster than Svindal on the upper section of the downhill run but acknowledged a series of mistakes on the lower part. Still, having begun his career as a slalom specialist, he was not counting himself out and charged all the way down in the second leg.

Miller increased his lead at both checkpoints in the slalom. He skied fluidly on the top, then started to get bounced up in the air as he tried to maintain his speed on the quicker gates in the lower section, dropping some speed before the finish but maintaining enough to beat Kostelic.

Miller gave a big smile on crossing the finish line and stuck out his tongue while the crowd roared in approval.

With his third medal Miller matched the retired Norwegian great Kjetil Andrea Aamodt for the most by a man in Alpine skiing at a recent Olympics.

Aamodt won two silvers and a bronze at the 1994 Lillehammer Games, while Jean-Claude Killy swept all three events at the 1968 Grenoble Games. Toni Sailer did the same at Cortina d'Ampezzo in 1956.

Maybe the hype was just four years too early.

American alpine skier Bode Miller, who infamously seemed more concerned with partying than winning medals in the 2006 Winter Games (he'd leave Turin without a single piece of hardware), has now won three medals in Vancouver, including his first ever gold.

Miller's gold came on Sunday, in Men's Super Combined, finally fulfilling the lofty expectations that had been placed on him after winning a pair of silvers in 2002. The win gives him three medals at the Vancouver Games, more than any other athlete thus far, including a bronze in Downhill and silver in Super-G.

Miller was in seventh place after the morning's downhill run, but then vaulted himself atop the medal stand with one of the fastest slalom runs. He beat Croatia's Ivica Kostelic by 0.33 seconds for the gold. Switzerland's Silvan Zurbriggen won the bronze.

Bode's total of five career Olympics medals is two more than any other U.S. skier.

Fellow American Ted Ligety, who won gold in Combined in 2006 in Turin, finished fifth on Sunday, 0.50 seconds out of medal contention.

With two more events still to go -- Giant Slalom and Slalom -- Bode has a legitimate chance to leave Vancouver with a total of five medals. After Turin, Bode said, he "got to party and socialize at an Olympic level." Now he looks like he has decided to ski at an Olympic level, too.

More: SB Nation’s full coverage of the Winter Olympics and the 2010 Winter Olympics Medal Count Tracker.

Bode Miller won his first Olympic Gold medal in the Men's Super Combined with a combined (slalom and downhill) time of 2:44.92.  Ivica Kostelic of Croatia won the Silver medal with a time of 2:45.25 and Silvan Zurbriggen of Switzerland  earned Bronze.

This win brings Bode's medal count in the Vanouver Olympics to three and his overall Olympic medal count to five.    With this medal, Bode ties the record for the most Alpine skiing medals won by a man at a single Winter Olympics and put him second on the overall Alpine skiing medal list.

In addition, Bode's Golde medal brings the U.S. Alpine Ski Alpine count to eight,  an Olympic record.

Also racing for the U.S., Ted Ligety was 5th and Andrew Weibrecht 11th.  Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, winner of the Gold in the Super G did not finish.

Related: Alpine Ski Racing | Alpine Skiing Schedule | Olympic Skiing

_{Bode Miller Wins Gold in Super Combined Copyright Getty Images}

Bode Miller Wins Gold in Super Combined originally appeared on About.com Skiing on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 18:54:33.

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Share + Feb 21, 2010 1:36 pm US/Pacific WHISTLER, British Columbia 1 of 1 Bode Miller of the United States celebrates at the finish during the Alpine Skiing Men's Super Combined Slalom on day 10 of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at Whistler Creekside on Feb.

Bode Miller of the United States won the Olympic gold medal in the men's Alpine skiing super combined at the Winter Games on Sunday.Croatia's Ivica Kostelic won the silver medal and Silvan Zurbriggen of Switzerland took the bronze.

Lindsey Vonn wasn't the fastest down the mountain today, but she stayed on her skis and won her second medal of the Olympic Games.

Vonn skied to a gutsy bronze in Saturday's super-G, falling behind Austria's Andrea Fischbacher and Slovenia's Tina Maze.

Vonn, who has already clinched the 2010 World Cup super-G discipline title with two races remaining, raced from the 17th spot and cruised to more than a half-second advantage over the field.  She lost critical tenths on the bottom section, however, and Fischbacher held onto a more aggressive line two spots later for a .74-second lead.

"When I came down to the finish and saw No. 1 next to my name, I thought 'Hopefully, this is another gold medal,'" she said. "Obviously, that wasn't the case, but I did my best, and I'm definitely very, very proud of another Olympic medal."

Vonn, who won gold in the World Championship downhill and super-G a year ago, came into Vancouver with hopes for a medal and now has downhill gold and super-G bronze.
This was her third of five events on Whistler Mountain after she hooked a ski tip and crashed out of the slalom in yesterday's super-combined.

"I'm a double Olympic medalist, and that's a pretty cool thing to be able to say, she said. "I obviously would have loved to have a gold medal today, but Olympic medals are never very easy to come by."

Julia Mancuso, for a while, seemed poised to collect her third medal of these Games after storming out of the gate first for a lead that held through 12 skiers until Germany's Maria Reisch beat her out by .04 seconds.

"When I watched Maria's run and she beat me by four-hundredths, I was bummed. But she beat me by a second in the section I made my mistake."

Nonetheless, Mancuso owns the most medals ever by a U.S. woman after adding silvers in downhill and super combined to her giant slalom gold in Torino.

"I have nothing to lose," she said. "I'm really, really proud of my Olympic career so far—a gold and two silvers. I'm not going into the GS ranked the best, but I've been training well and skiing really well. And I'm excited to go in there and give my best."

Mancuso and Vonn will try to add to the U.S. Alpine Ski Team's medal count when they return to Franz's Run for the giant slalom on Wednesday, with the first run at 10 a.m. PT.

"I don't have any regrets on any of my races here," Vonn said. "I definitely gave it everything I had every day. Especially on super-G, it's difficult. If you look back, you can always find places where you could have made up time, but having only one inspection and no training runs, it's difficult to always know how aggressive you can ski and how the line is going to run and what the speed is going to be.

"Given the circumstances—a lot of girls had trouble today—and given everything, I think today was a really solid result."

Watch Alpine Skiing Men Super Combined Downhill liveWatch everybody here to see an exclusive the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Games live video Alpine Skiing Men Super Combined Downhill. …

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Svindal, Bjoergen hike Norway haul Shanghai Daily Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal skis during the men's Alpine skiing super-G race at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler, British Columbia, on Friday. ... Double gold for Norway, Games accusations flyReuters Norway's Svindal Wins Men's Super-G, Topping MillerBusinessWeek Double gold for Norway - Canada and Britain win as well (3rd Roundup)Monsters and Critics.com Washington Post -New York Times -eTaiwan News all 1,230 news articles »

Photos: Italy's Peter Fill hit the slopes the hard way on Friday during Super-G alpine skiing during the Winter Olympics A February 19, 2010 3:37 PM A A A A Peter Fill of Italy crashes before the finish line in the men's Super-G February 19, 2010, in Whistler during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

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For greatest athletes on earth, flirting comes naturally: 100,000 condoms

In case link doesn't work.

By Mike Celizic
TODAYshow.com contributor
updated 1:11 p.m. ET, Thurs., Feb. 18, 2010

It may be the most exclusive neighborhood in the world. Money can’t buy a room there: The only currency accepted is supreme athletic talent.

It’s the Olympic Village, and its residents are the strongest, fastest, most competitive and most confident men and women in the world. Scattered among this population of athletic heroes are the greatest champions from across the globe, people who have won multiple Olympic medals and world titles and dominate their sports.

“You can’t believe there’s all these iconic champions from every sport you never thought you’d meet, and now you’re having lunch with them,” said Scott Hamilton, the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics men’s singles figure skating champion and a participant in the 1980 Lake Placid Games.
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100,000 condoms
The citizens of the village are young, remarkably healthy, and the definition of physically attractive. In such an environment, flirting is as natural as breathing.

“It’s eye candy all the time. Everybody’s checking everybody else out from moment they get there,” recalled Cammi Granato, captain of the powerful U.S. Ice Hockey Team that won gold in Nagano in 1998 and silver in 2002 in Salt Lake City.

Inevitably, some athletes get beyond flirting. That’s why the Vancouver organizers have laid in a stock of 100,000 condoms, which works out to 14 for each of the 7,000 athletes, coaches, trainers and officials housed in the Games’ two villages. (Apparently, skiing, skating and sliding aren’t the only activities at which Olympians excel.)


Slideshow
Image: XIIIth Winter Olympic Games, Lake Placid, NY
Winter Olympic villages
From Lillehammer to Salt Lake City, see which gorgeous snowy towns hosted the games in the last century.

more photos
The distribution of free condoms at the Olympics goes back at least to 1992 and Barcelona. In 2000, Sydney organizers thought that 70,000 would be enough. They were wrong and had to send out for 20,000 more. Beijing also ordered 100,000 condoms with an Olympic motto: Faster, higher, stronger.

Laugh if you will, but also give the International Olympic Committee credit for acting like a responsible parent: In addition to handing out condoms, they run HIV and AIDS information campaigns in the Olympic Village. And the U.S. Curling Association has gone a step further: In partnership with Kodiak Technology Group, they have introduced the Hurry Hard condom, named for a phrase curlers chant to get their teammates to sweep the ice faster. Proceeds from the prophylactics — which sport a happy cartoon curling stone on their label above the slogan “Be smart, stay safe” — are split between USA Curling and Monterey County AIDS prevention.

But few athletes reach for the condom supply while their events are going on. They’ve spent four years since the previous Olympics working, training and preparing for one shot at glory, and they’re not going to throw countless hours of hard work and sacrifice away for anything — even Norwegian cross-country champions and Chinese speedskaters.


Video
Take a tour inside the Olympic Village
Feb. 11: TODAY’s Meredith Vieira visits the place athletes from around the world will be calling home for the next few weeks.

Today show
The fact is, people with poor impulse control don’t make it to the Olympic Village. “Olympians are surprisingly mature, no matter what age. It’s required of you,” said legendary skier Picabo Street, who won gold in the super-G in Nagano and silver in the downhill in Lillehammer. “If you act like an idiot, you really stand out.”

Street’s strongest memory of her three Olympic villages — she also skied in the Salt Lake Olympics — is the incredible level of energy radiating from so many hypercompetitive people at the pinnacle of physical and mental conditioning.

“It’s hundreds of auras, which does lead to a huge movement of energy,” Street told TODAY. “It’s not normal, resting energy; it’s jacked-up, hyped-up, on-the-brink-of-my-dream-coming-true, got-to-get-it, got-to-do-it energy, and it’s there all the time.”

Kind of makes you hyperventilate just thinking about it.

Room and no boredom
With the athletes so cranked up, Olympic organizers make sure to provide plenty of activities to soak up their excess energy, from video games to concerts to computers with Internet access.

The Olympic Village in Vancouver includes a lounge, post office, café, stores, art galllery and a health clinic open 24 hours a day.
Vancouver has actually provided two villages — one for the skiing venues in the mountains outside of town, the other on the water in downtown Vancouver. Both will be sold as condos after the Games.

Individual teams are housed together in however many adjoining units they need. Athletes bunk two to a room, and bedrooms do not contain televisions.

Each venue has a separate lounge. In Vancouver the lounge is housed in a separate, 45,000-square-foot building, along with a post office, café, stores and an art gallery. Also available in the village are television lounges, game rooms with everything from Guitar Hero to pool and table tennis tables, training centers, and a 24-hour health clinic where athletes can get massages and other physical therapy.


Then there’s the food. It’s available 24 hours, and chefs attempt to satisfy as many international varieties of palate as possible. In Vancouver, that means different varieties of rice for Koreans, Japanese and Chinese cuisines. There are also McDonald’s at each village, and the food there, as in the cafeterias, is free.

Night life
There are no lights-out times or curfews in the Olympic Village, but coaches and team officials keep an eye on their charges, some more strictly than others. The Austrians, traditional kings of the Alpine events, are kept on a particularly tight leash, according to Street, while the Italians seem to take more joy out of each day.

Alcohol is not allowed in the village, nor are prying reporters or most other visitors.

Ever since 1972, when Palestinian Black September terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the Munich Olympics, security in Olympic villages has been as tight as organizers can make it. Once inside, the residents are in a virtual cocoon, insulated from the world outside.

And once they finish their competitions after years of grueling work and constant self-denial, the Olympic Village residents are finally free to blow off some steam.

For many, that means going to town, hitting the bars and clubs, creeping back home in the wee hours and hooking up. The trick for partying athletes is doing it without bothering peers who still have to compete.

NBC figure skating analyst Sandra Bezic was a wide-eyed innocent of 15 when she skated in the pairs competition for Canada in 1972. She remains struck by the fact that even when they party, Olympic athletes are in control.

“Athletes who have trained so hard and respect their bodies so much, their letting loose is not even like normal teenager rebelling,” Bezic said.

Still, some go overboard. In 1998, for example, NHL hockey players participated in the Olympics for the first time. The American team did poorly in the tournament at first, whereupon some players, after a bit too much sake, tossed their furniture out the windows of their high-rise dorms. The team was sent home in disgrace when it was eliminated from competition.

That was the same year the U.S. Women’s team won its first Olympic gold medal. Granato said that U.S. hockey officials tried to confine the women to quarters, too, because of the sins of the men’s team. “We ignored that for the most part,” she said with a laugh. Gold medals demand celebrations.

Dress code
Out in the real world, few people would have the nerve to hang a gold medal around their neck and go out to a bar. But in the Olympic Village, gold medals are a perfectly acceptable fashion statement for any occasion. Athletes regularly wear them to the cafeteria, to the game lounge — and to bed.

“We slept with ours,” Granato said.

And even in a society of champions, the medals are like magnets. Win a gold and everybody wants to be your friend. Rumor has it that male winners, in particular, have their pick of females.


TODAY asked ’84 gold medalist Hamilton if that was true.

“Really?” he said in mock surprise. “Why didn’t anybody tell me?”

That’s the thing about life in the Village. You hear stories, but there are never names attached to them. It would break the code: As with Las Vegas, what happens in the Village, stays in the village.

So no one will go on the record when talking about certain female figure skaters — no home country was specified — who, as one former athlete put it, “really liked hockey players — and I use the plural. I think Sweden was a very grateful country for that.”

Alpine Skiing Women Super Combined Downhill liveWatch everybody here to see an exclusive the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Games live video Alpine Skiing Women Super Combined Downhill. Va …

Hey, check it out, something else is awry with the weather in Vancouver! Clutch those pearls!

For the third time in the first four days of the 2010 Winter Olympics, an Alpine skiing event was canceled at Whistler Mountain due to weather conditions. Tuesday's men's super combined, a race in which Americans Bode Miller and Ted Ligety were expected to contend for a medal, was called off because of heavy snow at the top of Whistler.

Good grief, right? And yes, to review, that's after snow was trucked in, events were rained out, and ice-related delays proved Olympic organizing types can't even get the weather right indoors.

The men's super combined races have been tentatively pushed to  Friday; check the schedule a little closer to go-time to find out whether it'll actually take place.

Wet conditions, poor visibility, and mushy snow in Whistler, British Columbia, is playing right into the hands of US skier Lindsey Vonn.

The 25-year-old Vonn injured her lower leg in her first slalom training session last week when she jammed a ski tip causing her shin to impact the top of her ski boot.

After arriving in Vancouver, Vonn revealed that she might have to miss part or all of the Olympic Games as well as a number of training sessions.

She took pain killers and numbing cream on Thursday in anticipation of her first training run at Whistler, but the session was delayed and later postponed because of poor visibility on the slopes.

She was able to take part in the warmup and course inspection, but she never got the opportunity to test her ailing shin. A makeup training session was rescheduled for Friday, but that too was cancelled on account of a lack of visibility and wet conditions.

A third practice run today, Saturday, Feb. 13, was cut in order to prepare for the men's downhill race scheduled for this afternoon, but that was also called off because of constantly worsening weather.

What it all means for Vonn is that tomorrow's super-combined event (downhill and giant slalom) was postponed because the competitors haven't had sufficient time to train on the actual courses. As of Saturday afternoon, no makeup date had been set, although it is unlikely to go ahead until Tuesday at the earliest.

While Vonn was scheduled to contest all five alpine skiing events—and medal in at least three—she was never really favorite to win the super-combined gold that was initially planned to run tomorrow.

The downhill competition on Wednesday and the Super-G next Saturday are Vonn's preferred events, and with the extra rest that she is getting right now because of the delays and cancellations, she could actually be in good shape in her major disciplines at the middle and end of next week.

Will she be 100 percent? Probably not. But as her fiercest rivals know, a semi-healthy Vonn can still compete with the best in the world.

Sports bookmakers William Hill still have Vonn, injured shin and all, as the favorite to win both the downhill (6/4) and super-G (7/4) gold medal, and the odds of her taking a big medal haul will only grow with every day the events get pushed back and rescheduled.

The biggest loser in all of this is Vonn's best friend and closest rival Maria Riesch. With Vonn out of the picture, Riesch would be the heavy favorite to finish first in the downhill and to finish among the top two in the super-G. Vonn's participation also bumps Anja Paerson down one more place on the podium, although she is still expected to medal more than once in Vancouver.

While I think it is premature to call Vonn the favorite before she even tests out her shin, I do think her stock is already on the rise. Three or four days ago, there were doubts whether her Olympics was over even before it began.

Now she is once again in the discussion as the one to watch. Just the fact that she said she could "grin and bear" the pain is a strong sign that she will be ready to go whenever the races get underway.

Every passing day plays right into her hands, and as long as the competition gets delayed and rescheduled, Vonn will be rehabbing her leg and growing in strength and confidence.

No news is good news for the cover girl of U.S. skiing. For now, that's more than she could have wished for when she touched down in Vancouver just days ago.

Continuing rain and warm temperatures have forced officials to call off Saturday's scheduled men's downhill.

The announcement was made by the International Ski Federation and Vancouver organizers before dawn as soft, slushy conditions made the snow surface unsuitable for racing.

There was no immediate word on a reschedule date.

Among the American contingent getting the day off as a result of the cancellation is Bode Miller. He was expected to compete in all five alpine skiing events, although after a strong 2002 Olympics largely disappointed in Torino four years ago.

He will next be in action Sunday in a super-combined training run. His first chance of a medal will now come on Monday.

Elsewhere on the mountaintop, the U.S. snowboardcross team said the rain has not dampened their spirits.

"It's snowboarding," said five-time X Games gold medalist Nate Holland. "We work in this stuff all the time. Super cold, icy conditions...wet, rainy fog...it's all a part of it. I grew up in this stuff over in Idaho, so I'm pretty comfortable."

Two-time Olympian Graham Watanabe (Sun Valley, ID) said his only concern is getting one or two runs on the course on race day, in order to get a feel for the snow.

"It is pretty wet, so as it compacts, it's going to form ripples in the snow, especially in the turny sections," he said. "Being stable on the board is going to be more difficult than on a smooth course."

The XXI Winter Olympic Games are set to start Friday, February 12 in Vancouver for the 2010 games. This is the 21st installment of the winter games and the third time Canada has hosted the games overall and second time it has hosted the winter games.

While there will be a lot of coverage of the host country and how well the Canadians do on home soil. There is also a chance for Americans to have another good medal haul at the Winter Olympics.

The past two winter games the United States have had their best two medal counts in the Winter Games. In the Salt Lake games held on U.S. soil in Utah the U.S. won 36 medals and in Turin, Italy the U.S. won 25 medals.

Even with all the success the U.S. has had in the past two Winter Olympic Games, there are some events that Americans have had no or very little success in. So with the opening ceremonies upon us here is a look at the winter sports the U.S. look to end medal droughts in.

To break down these winter sports, here is the individual sport and the last gold medal won by a U.S. athlete plus the last medal overall. Also, we will look at the American athletes who will get a chance to break the medal droughts in these winter sports as well as the countries that are considered traditional powers that the U.S. athletes will have to beat to win a medal.

 

Nordic Combined

Last U.S. Gold Medal: None       Last U.S. medal overall: None

The Nordic Combined is one of two sports that American athletes have never medaled in at all. To compete in the Nordic Combined an athlete must be a good cross-country skier and ski jumper. This event is also a male only event.

There are three different events in the Nordic Combined, which are the Individual Large, and Individual Normal, Team. Only the Individual Large event has been at every Olympics while the Team event has been in the last seven and Individual Normal event makes its first appearances in these Olympics.

The U.S. Nordic Combined team is made up of five men. These men are Johnny Spillane, Bill Demong, Todd Lodwick, Brett Camerota, and Taylor Fletcher.

This U.S. team might be the best chance the United States has ever had at winning a medal in the Nordic Combined. The U.S. athlete with the best chance over all could be Lodwick, who came out of retirement in 2008, and won the World Championship in 2009.

For the U.S. to win a medal in the Nordic Combine they must fend off challenges by the traditional powers in this sport. Those traditional powers are Norway, Germany, Finland and Austria.

Norway has dominated this event by far winning the most gold medals with 11 and the most overall medals with 26 total medals. Finland is a distant second to Norway with four gold medals and 14 total medals.

 

Biathlon Men’s and Ladies’ Event

Last U.S. Men’s Gold Medal: None           Last U.S. Men’s Medal Overall: None

Last U.S. Ladies Gold Medal: None          Last U.S. Ladies Medal Overall: None 

The Biathlon is the other Winter Olympic event that no U.S. athlete has ever won. A biathlon is the term used for sporting events that consist of two disciplines.

In this case the two disciplines are cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. There are five events for both the men and women in the Olympics.

For the men there is the Men’s Individual (20km), Men’s Relay (4x7.5km). The next three events are intertwined starting with the Men’s Sprint (10km).

The top 60 finishers of the Sprint race qualify for the next event with is the Men’s Pursuit (12.5km). This event starts with the winner of the Sprint race followed by each of biathlon athletes at the same time interval they trailed the sprint winner.

The top 30 finishers of the Men’s Pursuit are qualified for the Men’s Mass Start (15km). This event has a single start for all the athletes.

In the Ladies’ Biathlon Events the distances are different but the events are the same. The Ladies’ Individual is (15km), Ladies’ Relay (4x6km), Ladies’ Sprint (7.5km), Ladies’ Pursuit (10km), and Ladies’ Mass Start (12.5).

The Men’s Biathlon is made up of five members. These members are Tim Burke, Jay Hakkinen, Jermey Teela, Lowell Bailey, and Wynn Roberts.

Of these five athletes Burke might have the best chance to end the medal drought in any of the five Biathlon events. In December of 2009, Burke became the first America Biathlon athlete to ever lead the overall Biathlon World Cup.

The Ladies’ Biathlon team is made up of four team members. These members are Haley Johnson, Sara Studebaker, Lanny Barnes, and Laura Spector.

None of the four Ladies Biathlon team members have had much success in any of the events. If the U.S. is going to get a medal from the Ladies’ Biathlon it might come from Spector the only woman to qualify for the U.S. based on her performance in the overall World Cup standings.

To win a medal in either the Men’s or Ladies’ Biathlon, U.S. athletes will have to find away to get past the teams from Germany, Norway, and Russia. These three countries have had a lot of success in this event.

Germany has had the most success in the Biathlon, winning 14 gold medal and 38 overall medals. Norway is second in the medal count overall behind the Germans with nine gold medals and 24 overall medals. If Russia counted the medals won by the U.S.S.R. it would lead the medal count with 16 gold medals and 36 overall medals.

 

Luge Men’s and Ladies’ Singles  

Last Men’s Single Luge Gold Medal: None    Last Men’s Single Luge Overall Medal: None

Last Ladies Single Luge Gold medal: None    Last Ladies Single Luge Overall Medal: None

The U.S. has won a Luge medal in the Doubles event four times and all four in two Olympic games. These games were in 1998 in Nagano, Japan and 2002 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

 All four of the medals won by American athletes in those two games were a silver and bronze. No U.S. athlete has ever won a gold medal in the Luge in any of the three events.

The Luge first made its Olympic appearance in the 1964 games in Innsbruck, Austria. This event has been in every Olympic game, since the games in Austria.

In the last 46 years the U.S. Men’s and Ladies’ single Luge teams have not been able to break through to reach the medals podium. It took the U.S. 34 years just to win a medal in this event.

The Men’s Single Luge team is made up of three members. Those members are Tony Benshoof, Bengt Walden, and Chris Mazdzer.

Benshoof is the U.S. best chance for a medal in the Men’s Single Luge event. While competing in the Turin games, Benshoof, finished fourth. This is the best finish ever for and American athlete in the Men’s Single Luge.

The Ladies’ Single Luge team is made up of three members as well. These members are Erin Hamlin, Julia Clukey and Megan Sweeney.

Hamlin has the best chance of the Ladies’ in the Single Luge Event. She finished 12th overall in the Single Luge in Turin four years ago.

If the Americans want to medal in any Luge event they will have to find away to bump the Germans off the podium. In the Olympic history of the Luge event it has been owned by the German Team.

No matter what flag the Germans have competed under they have dominated this event. Overall under every flag Germany has won 25 gold medals and 65 medals overall.

 

Men’s Two Man Bobsleigh

Last U.S. Men’s Two Man’s Bobsleigh Gold Medal: 1936    

Last U.S. Men’s Two Man’s Bobsleigh Overall Medal: 1952

While the U.S. men have not won a Gold Medal in the Four Man Bobsleigh Event since 1948, the American Men have medaled since then. In the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City the U.S. Four Man Bobsleigh team won a silver and bronze medal.

It has been 62 years since the U.S. last won gold in Four Man Bobsleigh it has been even longer since they won a gold in the Two Man Bobsleigh. The U.S. men have not won a gold medal in the Two Man Bobsleigh in 74 years and no medal overall in 58 years.

The U.S. has qualified three sleds in the Two Man Bobsleigh. Most of the American Two Man Bobsleigh team will also compete in Four Man Bobsleigh team as well.

To find a place on the medal podium the U.S. Men Bobsleigheder’s will have to find away to get past Switzerland and Germany. The good news is that the U.S. is third in overall medals in the Bobsleigh events with 18 overall. Those 18 medals are also with the Women’s two Ladies Bobsleigh team medals as well.

Switzerland is the best country in this event as far as medals go. The Swiss have won nine gold medals and 30 medals overall.

The Germans are also strong in this event under any flag as well. Germany has won 15 gold medals and 37 medals overall under different flags.

 

Men’s Ski Jump: three events (Large Hill Individual, Normal Hill Individual and Large Hill Team

Last U.S. Ski Jump Large Hill Individual gold medal: None   

Last U.S. Ski Jump Large Hill Individual overall medal: 1924

Last U.S. Ski Jump Normal Hill Individual gold medal: None

Last U.S. Ski Jump Normal Hill Individual medal overall: None

Last U.S. Ski Jump Large Hill Team gold Medal: None

Last U.S. Ski Jump Large Hill Team overall medal: None 

The U.S. has not had very much success in these three events. Only one medal in these three events and the last medal came 86 years ago.

The Large Hill Individual is one of ten sports that have been in every Winter Olympic Games. All the U.S. has to show for it is one bronze medal won in 1924 by Anders Haugen.

Vancouver could chance that for the U.S. with a strong three man team. This team is made up of Nick Alexander, Peter Frenette and Anders Johnson.

Alexander won first place in the U.S.  Men’s Ski Jump Championship in 2009. Frenette is a dark horse who has not competed in the Ski Jump World Cup.

Johnson is a returning Olympian who finished in the top 50 in all three events in Turin in 2006 and his best finish was a 14th place in the Large Hill, Team. This team could steal a medal if they make strong jumps and get some breaks from the best ski jump countries.

For the Americans to get in the medal race they will have to find away to beat three strong countries in the ski jump events. Those countries are Finland, Norway and Austria.

The Fins have won 10 gold medals and 22 medals overall. Norway has won nine gold medals and 28 medals overall.

Austria has won five gold medals and 20 medals overall. These three countries are the only ones to win double digits in medals in this event.

 

Men’s and Ladies’ Cross Country Skiing  (events: individual, team, speed and relay)

There are 16 Men’s and Ladies’ Cross Country Skiing Events combined. The U.S. has only managed one medal in Cross Country Skiing. 

Last gold medal in any Cross Country Skiing Event: None

Last overall medal in any Cross Country Event: 1976

Cross Country Skiing is another Winter Olympic event that the U.S. has struggled in. The last time an American won a medal in Cross Country Skiing of any time was 1976.

The U.S. has men’s and Ladies’ Cross Country Ski team. There are six members of the men’s team and five members of the ladies team.

Winning a medal in this event will be a long shot for the U.S. in these games. There are five countries who have won double digit medals in this event.

If the U.S. is going to get any medals they will have to find away to beat Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Italy. These five countries dominate the Cross Country Skiing Events.

The U.S. has one medal which was a silver medal and won by Bill Koch in the Men’s 30 km. This event was changed in 2006 to a 30 km double pursuit.

 

Other Winter Olympic Events That the U.S. Is In A Medal Drought: 

Pairs Figure Skating:

Last Gold Medal: Never             Last overall medal: 1988   

 

Men’s Alpine Skiing:

Men’s Downhill last gold medal: 1994     Men’s Downhill last overall medal: 1994

Men’s Slalom last gold Medal: 1984        Men’s Slalom last overall medal: 1984

Men’s Super G last gold medal: None     Men’s Super G last overall medal: 1994

 

Ladies’ Alpine Skiing:

Ladies’ Downhill last gold medal: none    Ladies’ Downhill last overall medal: 1994

Ladies Slalom last gold medal: 1972         Ladies’ Slalom last overall medal: 1972

Ladies Super G last gold medal: 1998      Ladies Super G last overall medal: 1998

Ladies Combined last gold medal: none   Ladies Combined last overall medal: 1948

 

Ladies’ Speed Skating:

Ladies’ 500 meters last gold medal: 1994   Ladies’ 500 meters last overall medal: 1994

Ladies’ 3000 meters last gold medal: none   Ladies’ 3000 meters last overall medal: 1980

Ladies’ 5000 meters last gold medal: none   Ladies’ 5000 meters last overall medal: none

 

Ladies’ Short Track Speed Skating:

Ladies’ 500 meters last gold medal: 1994     Ladies’ 500 meters last overall medal: 1994

Ladies’ 1000 meters last gold medal: none   Ladies’ 1000 meters last overall medal: none

Ladies 1500 meters last gold medal: none    Ladies’ 1500 meters last overall medal: none

Ladies’ 3000 meter relay last gold medal: none  

Ladies 3000 meters relay last overall medal: 1994 

Emily Azevedo

Emily Azevedo

Event: Bobsled.

Age: 26.

Local connection: She's from Chico and graduated from UC Davis in 2005.

Story line: A hurdler at UC Davis, Azevedo turned to bobsledding after watching the 2006 Olympics. She won a national title last year with driver Bree Schaaf. The pair finished 10th at the 2009 World Championships. Azevedo and Schaaf placed sixth in a World Cup race last season held on the Olympic track in Whistler.

Medal prospects: Unlikely. But not out of the question.

When competing: Feb. 23-24.

Shannon Bahrke

Event: Freestyle skiing.

Age: 29.

Local connection: Grew up in Tahoe City.

Story line: The 2002 Olympic silver medalist in moguls placed 10th in the 2006 Games before suffering a knee injury in 2007. She showed she's still a contender with a sixth-place moguls finish in the 2009 World Championships, a victory at the U.S. national championships and three consecutive top-five World Cup finishes in the past month. Her brother, Scott, is a promising aerialist.

Medal prospects: Solid. Her experience should help.

When competing: Feb. 13.

Stacey Cook

Event: Alpine skiing.

Age: 25.

Local connection: Born in Truckee.

Story line: The 2006 U.S. super giant slalom champion finished 19th in the downhill and 23rd in the giant slalom in the 2006 Olympics. Finishing 13th and ninth in two difficult downhill races in Austria last month secured her spot on the Olympic team.

Medal prospects: Remote. But she's gathering speed.

When competing: Feb. 17.

Elena Hight

Event: Halfpipe (snowboard).

Age: 20.

Local connection: From South Lake Tahoe.

Story line: Hight first stepped onto a snowboard when she was 6 and developed into one of the world's top talents, as evidenced by a sixth-place finish in the 2006 Olympic halfpipe. Finishing second at Mammoth Mountain last month suggested she might be at peak form.

Medal prospects: Slim. She has a good combination of youthful promise and experience but a lot of talent ahead of her.

When competing: Feb. 18.

Nate Holland

Event: Snowboardcross.

Age: 31.

Local connection: Lives in Squaw Valley.

Story line: The Idaho native has won five consecutive Winter X Games gold medals. He finished 14th at the 2006 Olympics, third at the 2007 World Championships and 13th at the 2009 World Championships. He has also posted four top-10 finishes on this season's World Cup circuit.

Medal prospects: Modest. His best performance puts him in medal contention.

When competing: Feb. 15.

Errol Kerr

Event: Ski cross.

Age: 23.

Local connection: Lives in Truckee.

Story line: Kerr, who lives with his mother, Catherine, will compete for Jamaica to honor his late father, who is from there. Kerr is still raising money to make the trip to Vancouver. The faster he skis in this new Olympic sport, the more comparisons he'll get to the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team depicted in the movie "Cool Runnings."

Medal prospects: Fair. Momentum might be on his side.

When competing: Feb. 21.

Julia Mancuso

Event: Alpine skiing.

Age: 25.

Local connection: Grew up in Olympic Valley.

Story line: She became a golden girl with her giant slalom victory in the 2006 Turin Games. Since then, she's fought through injuries, started a clothing line and struggled to get back to peak form. Under pressure, though, she thrives.

Medal prospects: Fair. She's rounding into form, so don't count her out.

When competing: Feb. 14, 17, 20, 24, 26.

Darron Rahlves

Event: Ski cross.

Age: 36.

Local connection: Rahlves moved to the Lake Tahoe area when he was 12, lives in Truckee.

Story line: The downhill specialist retired from Alpine skiing in 2006 after a career that included 12 World Cup victories, seven national titles and three World Championship medals. But he never won an Olympic one. His speed helps in ski cross. Rahlves dislocated a hip at the Winter X Games but is expected to compete in the Olympics.

Medal prospects: Solid. He looms as a potential breakthrough in his new sport.

When competing: Feb. 21.

Marco Sullivan

Event: Alpine skiing.

Age: 29.

Local connection: Truckee native lives in Squaw Valley.

Story line: The former North Tahoe High School football captain finished ninth in the 2002 Olympics in the downhill. He placed 25th in the 2009 World Championships in the downhill. He posted two top-five downhill and two top-five super-G performances on the World Cup circuit in 2009. He also won the U.S. downhill title last year.

Medal prospects: Remote. But his experience will come in handy.

When competing: Feb. 13, 16, 19.

Shannon Bahrke

Stacey Cook

Elena Hight

Nate Holland

Errol Kerr

Julia Mancuso

Darron Rahlves

Marco Sullivan

In St. Moritz, Switzerland on Sunday, Lindsey Vonn won her third consecutive Audi FIS Alpine World Cup super G race. This is the last race before the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and the win makes Vonn unbeatable for the World Cup Super G event title.

It wasn't a good day on the finish list for the U.S. men in Sunday's World Cup slalom in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, as no Americans made the final posting. However,  Ted Ligety, while being disqualified for a gate straddle was pushing the leaders' time on his second run.

Had he not miscued Ligety probably would have finished in the top five. So even though he was off the board for the race, it was, in fact, a real confidence builder - showing Ted can hang right in there with the European slalom specialists. Good news for the U.S. Team as they head into the break before the Olympic events.

Don't think the team is going to be just sitting around until the Olympics, as all the teams have training camps to mixup with a little down time.

I'll be bringing you all the U.S. Ski Team News and Announcements. I'll also be surfing up all the good stuff on the other Olympic competitors and bringing you the news right here.

For example, did you know - the current men's World Cup Downhill leader and 2009 Giant Slalom champion, Didier Cuche broke his right thumb in a crash in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, on Friday.  He is wearing a cast but says he will be ready to race in Vancouver - if the Swiss team gives him the O.K.

 Also, Daron Rahlves took a nasty tumble in a quarter-final Winter X Games race Sunday and had to be transported to the hospital, where he was treated and released. Stayed tuned for updates.

Related: Alpine Competition Overview | 2010 Olympic Alpine Schedule |  Join the U.S. Ski Team Fan Club

_{Photo Lindsey Vonn on St Moritz Super G podium Copyright Getty Images}

Vonn Clinches 2010 World Cup Super G Title originally appeared on About.com Skiing on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 01:00:10.

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The 2010 Winter Olympics from Vancouver are just two weeks away.

Shaun White and Team USA will look to continue their dominance on the half pipe; Lindsey Jacobellis will look to make amends for a showboating error that cost her a gold medal in Torino; and Lindsey Vonn will look to stand atop the alpine skiing world at the third time of asking.

America will likely move into second on the all-time list of medal winners in 2010, moving ahead of the Soviet Union and looking to close the gap on runaway leaders Norway. Team USA brought home 25 medals from Torino four years ago, their best ever haul on international soil, and a strong run north of the border could help them add to the 78 gold metals captured over the years.

In part one of my two-part look at America’s chances in Vancouver, here are the movers are shakers, the contenders and the pretenders, for the seven snow sports of the 2010 Games.

 

Alpine Skiing

The Basics

There are five different events in the alpine skiing program, each of which will be contested by the men and women.

The downhill and super-G events are known as the speed events, and medals are awarded purely on a “quickest down the mountain” basis. In the more technical giant slalom and slalom events, athletes make two runs and racers’ times are combined. In the super-combined event, changed slightly for this year’s Games, skiers make one downhill run and one slalom run, with medals awarded to the racers with the fastest combined times.

American Hopes

20 of the 49 athletes racing down the newly-designed Whistler Creekside courses next month will be representing Team USA.

Austria has historically been the dominant force in alpine skiing, having won twice as many medals than every other nation (101) other than Switzerland. But all eyes will be on Lindsey Vonn, who had a headline crash in Torino four years ago, as she looks to quench her thirst for an Olympic medal at the third time of asking.

Vonn is currently ranked No. 1 in the 2009-10 FIS Alpine World Cup standings. She won the women’s downhill event at Lake Louise in Canada and the super combined race at Val d’Iserein France in December, and she followed it up with downhill and super-G victories in Haus im Ennstal in Austria and at Italy’s Cortina d Ampezzo at the start of 2010.

25-year-old Vonn, an Olympian in 2002 and 2006, is still searching for her first Olympic medal, despite winning the World Championship twice. She has dominated in all five World Cup downhill races this season, and she’ll be looking to cap February off in style in Vancouver.

Leanne Smith from North Conway, N.H. is probably America’s next best hope of an alpine skiing medal, while Bode Miller on the men’s side will be looking to put a disappointing 2006 Games in Torino behind him and build on the two silver medals he captured eight years ago in Salt Lake City.

Competition

German Maria Riesch, ranked second overall in the World Cup standings, is a close personal friend of Vonn as well as the American’s biggest challenger in the downhill and slalom speed events. Defending World Champion Kathrin Zettel of Austria is accomplished in both slalom and giant slalom, and Sweden’s Anja Parson, a five-time medallist, can never be discounted.

Janica Kostelic, who defended her combined title and won a super-G silver medal in Torino will not be competing in Vancouver.

Chances of a Gold in Vancouver: 80 percent

 

Biathlon

The Basics

The biathlon combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting. There are five events scheduled for the 2010 Winter Olympics: individual, sprint, pursuit, mass start, and relay, where the format is the same for the men’s and women’s competition with only the distances varying.

American Hopes

Team USA has never won a medal in the biathlon—one of only two droughts for the red, white, and blue in the Winter Olympics—but a trio of New Yorkers are hoping to change all that in Vancouver.

Returning Olympian Tim Burke, Lowell Bailey, and Haley Johnson represent America’s best chances in the two-pronged event. Burke finished second in the 20km individual race in Ostersund in Sweden at the end of 2009, and he became the first American to lead the World Cup standings when he wore the yellow bid earlier this month.

Without the pressure of the eyes of a nation, Burke and co. might have a legitimate shot at picking up a medal in one of the four men’s events (10km sprint, 12.5km pursuit, 20km individual, and 15km mass start) north of the border.

Competition

Norway’s duo of Ole Einar Bjorndalen and Emil Hegle Svendsen make a gold medal unlikely for Burke, but if he shoots well, there’s every chance of him being in the mix.

The women unfortunately are less likely to break their 18-year biathlon famine—although Johnson had a top-30 finish in a World Cup event last month—and a team medal in either the men’s or women’s relay is out of the question because of the strength of nations like Russia, Austria, Sweden, Germany, and Norway.

Chances of a Gold in Vancouver: 15 percent

 

Cross-Country Skiing

The Basics

Cross-country skiing involves athletes skiing over different terrains in two different styles. There is the “classical” style where athletes glide across a prepared track that has parallel grooves cut into the snow, and there is “freestyle”which is move like ice skating where skiers transfer their weight over a smoothed course.

There are 12 events in Vancouver, six for the men and six for the women. The events, which specify whether you must ski in the freestyle or classical style, are the same for both men and women, but the distances vary.

American Hopes

America will send 10 athletes to Vancouver—eight who were allocated a roster spot and two more by quota re-allocation.

Kris Freeman is America’s best hope in the men’s competition, while Kikkan Randall will lead the charge for the women.

Freeman, from Andover, N.H., is the top distance racer in the country and he’ll be hoping for a medal when he takes his poles for the third time on the Olympic stage. He is a five-time World Champion, and he will have his best chances of a medal in the 15km freestyle or the 50km classical race.

For the women, Kikkan Randall is the USA’s best hope. She’s in the top 40 in the World Cup sprint standings, and she has been on the podium twice in 51 World Cup starts, most notably her second-place finish in Liberec last year.

She also finished an impressive ninth in the sprint event in Torino in 2006 after coming 44th in Salt Lake City in 2002.

Competition

Petter Northug is one of Freeman’s biggest rivals at the games. The Norweigien 24-year-old, who won three gold medals in last year’s World Championships, is arguably the favourite in four individual events in Vancouver. He’s the current Tour leader and world No. 1, and everything points to more success at Whistler.

In the 15km race, don’t discount Italian Pietro Piller Cottrer. He is a strong distance skier and was part of the Italian team which took gold in the relay in Torino four years ago.

Andrus Veerpalu from Estonia is one of the ones to watch in the 50kn event. The veteran, who turns 39 next week, will be competing in his sixth Olympic Games, and he’ll be favored to come away with a medal of some color after winning gold at the 15km distance twice before.

Randall will have to overcome the likes of Charlotte Kalla, Petra Madjic, and Justyna Kowalczyk if she wants to reach the podium in Vancouver.

22-year-old Kalla is widely touted as Sweden’s best hopes of a cross country champion in more than four decades, while Slovakian Majdic is a two-time defending spring champion at the World Cup. She came runner-up in the overall standings last winter.

Majdic lost out to Kowalczyk in the World Cup, the woman who also won Poland’s first ever Olympic medal in cross-country skiing in Torino in 2006. She won a pair of gold medals at the Worlds, so she will head to Whistler Olympic Park as a firm favourite.

Chances of a Gold in Vancouver: 20 percent

 

Freestyle Skiing

The Basics

There are three different events in the 2010 Olympic program: Moguls, aerials, and ski cross. Men and women compete in all three.

The mogul event will see skiers racing down a hill over a course of large bumps, making sharp turns while keeping their knees bend. There are also two ramps which send the skier into the air where they are expected to perform flips and twists. Skiers are judged on speed and style.

The aerial competition is one of the most exciting events on the Winter Olympics schedule. Skiers fly down a slope and over a concave ramp, propelling them up to 50ft into the air to give them enough time to perform multiple flips and twists before landing the other side. Get ready to hear a lot about the lay-full-full, lay-tuck-full, and double-full-full-full. Tune in to this—you’ll be glad you did.

The ski cross is a new event for 2010 and pits four racers against each other in a first-to-the-line battle over jumps and turns.

American Hopes

Team USA will go into the Olympics feeling confident. Four of the team’s women swept the top four spots at Lake Placid in upstate New York last week, and Jeret Peterson—a two-time Olympian and seven time World Champion—says he is looking to push the envelope with his trademark three-flip, five-twist jump.

Hannah Kearney will spearhead a strong mogul team in her second Olympic Games. She failed to live up to expectations in 2006 despite entering the games as the World Champion, but a strong showing on Whiteface Mountain has her name being thrown out once again as a possible medallist.

She has the speed and air assault to dominate the mogul, and it’s likely that the US will have a great start to the competition when Kearney takes to the mountain on Day One of the competition. Shannon Bahrke, Michelle Roark, and Heather McPhie could also challenge for spots in the top 10.

Also watch out for Emily Cook in the aerial event. She came in fourth in the 2009 World Championships and will be competing in her second Olympic Games. She is a strong medal contender, even if she is unlikely to strike gold.

Jeret Peterson, who has never placed better than seventh in his previous two trips to the Games, may represent the best chance for the men in the aerial competition. Talk will center around him landing “The Hurricane” his signature quintuple spinning triple flip. If the conditions are right and he pulls it off, his daredevil approach to his sport may just be worth it.

Competition

If the Americans hope to win a medal in the men’s aerial, a feat they failed for the first time in Torino four years ago, they may have to withstand the barrage of Canadian trio Steve Omischl, Kyle Nissen, and Ryan Blais.

Omischl has stood on the World Championship podium four times, including the last three years on the very top step. Nissen finished fifth at the 2006 Olympics and fourth in the 2009 World Cup aerials, and Blais rebounded from injury in 2007 to finish seventh in 2008.

Chances of a Gold in Vancouver: 60 percent

 

Nordic Combined

The Basics

This event combines cross-country skiing and ski jumping—two events in one day. It is a male-only event and features three events: two individual events distinguished by the size of the hill, and a team competition.

American Hopes

Bill Demong and Todd Lodwick will be flying the flag for Team USA. They have competed in nine Olympic Games between them and both have won the World Championships.

Demong won the bronze medal in last year’s World Cup, and he is excellent on the large hill; Lodwick took the gold in the 2009 normal hill competition.

Many fans of the sport will know Demong for one of two reasons: as the 22-year-old star forced to miss a year of action after fracturing his skull in 2002, or as the member of the American team that lost his bib in the 2009 World championships, and thus getting disqualified. He’s looking to set the record straight in February and be remembered for all the right reasons.

Johnny Spillane adds depth to the American roster for the team competition, and pundits are saying this is probably the best chance the country has ever had for its first Nordic combined medal.

Individually or as a team, the US really does have more than a punchers’ chance.

Competition

France’s Jason Lamy Chappuis is the skier in form heading to Canada. He won his fifth World Cup event of the season last weekend and currently holds a 38-lead over Felix Gottland at the top of the international standings.

34-year-old Gottwald came out of retirement last May, adding an extra threat to the Americans’ chances. He has won two gold medals, a silver medal, and three bronze medals in four Olympics, and he gives the Austrian team a dangerous combination of skill and experience.

Meanwhile, Finland’s Anssi Koivuranta, the defending World Cup champion, is as good as anybody on his day, and Notway’s Magnus Moan will likely be in contention in both the normal and large hill events.

Chances of a Gold in Vancouver: 75 percent

 

Ski Jumping

The Basics

There are three events in Vancouver in the ski jumping class: two individual events and a team event. As with the Nordic combined event, it is contested by the men only.

The individual events are separated into two categories: the normal hill and the large hill. Athletes are awarded points based on the length of their jump and their style, both in-flight and on the landing. The team event is also held on the large hill, where the scores of four members are combined to produce a grand total.

American Hopes

The US is sending three athletes to Vancouver to compete in the ski jumping events: Nick Alexander, teenager Peter Frenette, and Anders Johnson.

The bad news is that none of them will seriously contend for a medal.

Johnson, who became the youngest American representative on the Olympic ski jumping team when he competed as a 16-year-old in 2006, will look to improve on his 40th position in Torino, but it is doubtful whether he will even be in serious contention for a top-30 finish.

Johnson finished just inside the top 50 at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Liberec in 2009, and he has never finished better than 29th in a World Cup meeting. An ACL injury slowed down his Olympic preparations last year, but he insists he is fit and ready to go. Even a healthy Johnson is no match for more than two dozen other jumpers.

Competition

With Team USA unlikely to feature at the business end of any of the competitions, there are scores of ski jumpers you could expect to finish ahead of the American trio.

Gregor Schlierenzauer, a winner of a record 13 World Cup events in 2009, is definitely one to watch in Vancouver, as are fellow Austrians Thomas Morgenstern (large hill) and Wolfgang Loitzl (normal hill). Expect the Austrian team to win gold or silver in the team event and have at least one jumper on the podium in each of the individual competitions.

Swiss Harry Potter look-alike Simon Ammann, who burst onto the scene with individual victories in the normal and large hill eight years ago, can also be counted on for an impressive Olympics, and Finnish nine-time world champion Janne Ahonen could add some serious European spice to an already-bursting top five.

Chances of a Gold in Vancouver: Two percent

 

Snowboarding

The Basics

There are six events on the Vancouver snowboarding program, three for the men and three for the women. They are the halfpipe, parallel giant slalom, and snowboard cross.

American Hopes

America took home seven of the 18 snowboarding medals at the 2006 Olympics, including three golds.

Shaun White and Danny Kass went one-two in the halfpipe for the men, while Hannah Teter and Gretchen Bleiler replicated the feat in the women’s event. Seth Wescott took gold in the snowboard cross, while Team USA also took silver in the women’s cross (Lindsey Jacobellis) and bronze in the parallel giant slalom (Rosey Fletcher).

Jacobellis is once again one of the main gold medal contenders in Vancouver. Few will forget the crash that cost her gold four years ago when, with a big lead and the finish line in sight, Jacobellis mis-timed the landing on a showboat trick and hit the ground, allowing Switzerland’s Tanya Frieden to win gold.

Shaun White will also head into the Games as one of the favorites for a gold medal. One of Team USA’s more high-profile athletes, White will look to defend his Olympic championship with a lot of confidence.

He dominated the field at the US Snowboarding Grand Prix last week, finishing one point off a perfect score after nailing his “Double McTwist,” a jump including one-and-a-half horizontal flips packed inside two vertical flips.

On the women’s side, Kelly Clark is also in good form, winning her third half pipe event in the last four outings. The 2002 Olympic champion should have scooped a medal in Torino, but she tried a 900-degree spin to try and snatch gold when a 720-spin would have likely landed her at least bronze. She crashed and finished fourth. With that behind her, she is one of the favorites for another gold next month.

Two teammate who may have something to say about that are 23-year-old Hannah Teter and the covergirl of US snowboarding Gretchen Bleiler.

Teter, the defending champion and humanitarian from Vermont will more than likely be on the podium in Vancouver, while Bleiler is coming into form at just the right time after winning her first win of the season on Mammoth Mountain in California earlier this month.

Competition

Team USA’s competition could come from within: from friends and teammates. That said, there are still a number of athletes, particularly in the women’s competition, that could ruffle some feathers.

In the half pipe competition, China’s Liu Jiayu represents the biggest threat to an American sweep. She is the 2009 World Champion and could ruin more than one American dream in Canada mid-February.

22-year-old Australian Torah Bright could also upset the established order on the half pipe. She beat Kelly Clark to the gold medal three times in 2009, and she could very well bring the Aussies their first Olympic snowboarding medal.

Chances of a Gold in Vancouver: 95 percent

 

In part two I will preview the ice sports: bobsled, curling, figure skating, hockey, luge, short track, skeleton, and speed skating.

Let’s get the credits out of the way first: this February, NBC Sports will stream more than 400 hours of live event coverage on NBCOlympics.com during the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. That’s an astonishing amount of live video compared to the last Winter Games in Torino when the sum total was one hockey game. NBCOlympics.com also will offer more than 1,000 hours of full-event replays of all 15 sports, along with other coverage. Sounds like a veritable avalanche, eh?

Now for the context: that’s far less than the 2,000 hours of live coverage of the Beijing Olympics. More important, it’s a lot less than NBC has the right to deliver, ie everything live online in real time. This isn’t surprising. NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker told me last summer that live streaming devalues top events like the Olympics or Super Bowl—and there wasn’t a model that exists could show him how to avoid that. He hasn’t wavered. Given projections that NBC may lose money on an Olympics for the first time, it’s hard to see that changing.

At the same time, NBC will be using authentication to ensure that only viewers who already subscribe to multichannel providers who sign a deal with the network can watch live streaming video. That means the cut-the-cord crowd will have to find other options for many events, wait until it’s on demand or shrug off the Olympics. NBC is betting that last group will be the smallest.

Figure skating, alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, speed skating, snowboarding and short track primarily will air first on primetime TV whether they’re live or recorded. All in, NBC Sports plans to air 835 hours across six outlets: NBC; USA; MSNBC; CNBC; Universal HD and NBCOlympics.com. NBCOlympics Mobile will focus on results, breaking news and video highlights.

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Top North American talent, medallists to headline nightly Whistler Victory Ceremonies at 2010 Winter Games

Dec 15, 2009

Vancouver, BC ? The great outdoors will provide a spectacular winter backdrop for nightly Whistler Victory Ceremonies paying tribute to medal-winning Olympians with a lineup of top North American acts, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) announced today.

The 15 headliners, which include Feist, Usher, Our Lady Peace, and The Fray, will perform for one night each from February 13 to 27 during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games at Whistler Medals Plaza, a world-class outdoor amphitheatre built expressly for the nightly events and the Closing Ceremony of the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games. See below for the full list of headliners and dates they appear.

“Celebrations in Whistler will be rockin’ for 15 incredible nights during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games with this impressive lineup of top solo artists and bands ? all playing outdoors under the stars in honour of the world’s best athletes and their triumphs,” said Christy Nicolay, VANOC’s vice president of sport production and Victory Ceremonies. “Thanks to our partners, the Resort Municipality of Whistler and the Government of Canada, we’ll have a fantastic venue for these events ?Whistler Medals Plaza.”

Whistler Medals Plaza is an intimate space designed to serve the needs of the Sea to Sky community not only at Games time but also in the long term. Given its space limitations and the restrictions on travel into Whistler, access to Whistler Victory Ceremony tickets is limited to residents living from Squamish to Mount Currie.

The ticketed nightly ceremonies in Whistler ? which kick off on February 13 with the All American Rejects and the presentation of medals for men’s ski jumping and downhill skiing, as well as the women’s 7.5-kilometre sprint event in biathlon ? are designed to pay tribute to the world’s best competing in 2010 and celebrate Canada’s hosting of one of the world’s largest sporting events.

Whistler Medals Plaza includes a large “turntable” stage to accommodate both the medals presentations and the entertainment programming. Adjacent to each side of the stage will be video walls featuring Vancouver 2010 Look of the Games’ graphics, as well as two giant screens showing highlights of the athletes’ performances and enhancing the activity on stage.

Gates open nightly at 4:30 pm (Pacific Time) with a DJ and interactive games for the crowd, followed by a live simulcast of the nightly provincial and territorial preshow held at BC Place in Vancouver. At 7:00 pm, the medal ceremonies will be held for the winning athletes of the day at Whistler-area venues, followed 30 minutes later by that night’s headlining act. The evening celebrations will end at approximately 8:30 pm.

All medal presentations in Whistler will be televised around the world as part of Olympic broadcasting plans for the 2010 Winter Games. The nightly concerts on February 13, 22 and 27 will also be broadcast live.

Ticketing information for Whistler Victory Ceremonies
Whistler Victory Ceremony tickets will be distributed to the public in the Sea to Sky region through a contest operated in partnership with Tourism Whistler at www.whistler.com.

The contest will operate for 11 days, starting on January 4, 2010 and is open to residents from Squamish to Mount Currie. Entries at www.whistler.com will be limited to one per e-mail address.

The contest will close on January 15, 2010 and winners will be notified via e-mail by January 22, 2010. Tickets must be picked up by the winner (with ID and proof of address in the Sea to Sky region) at the Main Ticket Centre in Whistler, located next to Whistler Medals Plaza, by January 31, 2010.

A number of Whistler Victory Ceremony tickets were also previously made available residents from Squamish to Mount Currie who registered accounts prior to the “Locals” ticket sale (October 24 to 25, 2009), or who received a voucher at a Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) community event marking 100 days until the start of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games on November 4, 2009.

Whistler Victory Ceremony headliners’ line-up and dates they perform

Saturday, February 13: All American Rejects (www.allamericanrejects.com)
Live medal presentations in men’s downhill skiing, ski jumping (individual normal hill) and women’s biathlon (7.5-kilometre sprint).

Sunday, February 14: Estelle (www.estellemusic.com)
Live medal presentations in ladies’ alpine skiing (super combined), as well as men’s Nordic combined (individual normal hill) and biathlon (10-km sprint).

Monday, February 15: Pierre Lapointe (www.pierrelapointe.com)
Live medal presentations in men’s luge and cross-country skiing (ladies’ 10-km free and men’s 15-km free).

Tuesday, February 16: Feist (www.listentofeist.com)
Live medal presentations in men’s alpine skiing (super combined), women’s luge and biathlon (women’s 10-km pursuit and men’s 12.5-km pursuit).

Wednesday, February 17: Our Lady Peace (www.ourladypeace.net)
Live medal presentations in alpine skiing (ladies’ downhill) and cross-country skiing (men’s and ladies’ individual sprint classic).

Thursday, February 18: Deadmau5 (www.deadmau5.com)
Live medal presentations in men’s luge doubles and biathlon (women’s 15-km individual and men’s 20-km individual).

Friday, February 19: Hedley (www.hedleyonline.com)
Live medal presentations in men’s alpine skiing (super-G) and ladies’ cross-country skiing (pursuit, 7.5 km classic and 7.5 km free).

Saturday, February 20: Stars (www.sadrobots.ca)
Live medal presentations in men’s and women’s skeleton, ladies’ alpine skiing (super-G) and men’s ski jumping (individual large hill).

Sunday, February 21: OneRepublic (www.onerepublic.net)
Live medal presentations in men’s cross-country skiing (pursuit, 15 km classic and 15 km free) alpine skiing (giant slalom) and two-man bobsleigh, as well as biathlon (men’s 15-km mass and women’s 12.5-km mass).

Monday, February 22: To be confirmed
Live medal presentations in cross-country skiing (men’s and ladies’ team sprint free) and men’s ski jumping (team large hill).

Tuesday, February 23: The Fray (www.thefray.net)
Live medal presentations in Nordic combined (men’s team relay) and women’s biathlon (4x6-km relay).

Wednesday, February 24: Jet (www.jettheband.com)
Live medal presentations in ladies’ alpine skiing (giant slalom) and men’s cross-country skiing (4x10-km relay classic/free).

Thursday, February 25: The Roots (www.theroots.com)
Live medal presentations in women’s bobsleigh, Nordic combined (men’s individual large hill) and ladies’ cross-country skiing (4x5-km relay classic/free).

Friday, February 26: K’Naan (www.knaanmusic.ning.com)
Live medal presentations in ladies’ alpine skiing (slalom) and men’s biathlon (4x7.5-km relay).

Saturday, February 27: Usher (www.usherworld.com)
Live medal presentations in men’s alpine skiing (slalom) and four-man bobsleigh, as well as ladies’ cross-country skiing (30-km mass start classic).

The headlining talent for the Vancouver Victory Ceremonies, held indoors at BC Place in the heart of the city’s downtown, was released on December 8 by VANOC and is available at www.vancouver2010.com.

About VANOC
VANOC is responsible for the planning, organizing, financing and staging of the XXI Olympic Winter Games and the X Paralympic Winter Games in 2010. The 2010 Olympic Winter Games will be staged in Vancouver and Whistler from February 12 to 28, 2010. Vancouver and Whistler will host the Paralympic Winter Games from March 12 to 21, 2010. Visit www.vancouver2010.com.

Press Contact
If you are a member of the media, please contact mediarelations@vancouver2010.com

For all other inquiries, please contact info@vancouver2010.com

The official video game of the upcoming Olympics will be released on January 12, 2010.   Vancouver 2010 allows players to simulate the events of the actual Winter Olympic Games so I know that fans of the biggest sporting event in the world will probably want to pick up a copy. I wouldn’t say that this is the highest quality game I’ve ever seen which is unfortunate since the Olympics are such a big deal but it could be worse. The events include Alpine Skiing (giant slalom, slalom, downhill and Super G), Sledding two-man bobsleigh, luge singles, skeleton), Freestyle Skiing (aerials, ski cross), [...]Post from: EveryJoe Official “Vancouver 2010” Video Game ...

The official video game of the upcoming Olympics will be released on January 12, 2010.   Vancouver 2010 allows players to simulate the events of the actual Winter Olympic Games so I know that fans of the biggest sporting event in the world will probably want to pick up a copy. I wouldn’t say that this is the highest quality game I’ve ever seen which is unfortunate since the Olympics are such a big deal but it could be worse. The events include Alpine Skiing (giant slalom, slalom, downhill and Super G), Sledding two-man bobsleigh, luge singles, skeleton), Freestyle Skiing (aerials, ski cross), [...]

Post from: EveryJoe

Official “Vancouver 2010” Video Game

The 2010 Winter Games are right around the corner, and if the media has their way, US Skier Lindsey Vonn will be a household name by the time the Opening Ceremonies are under way. Lindsey is entering her third Olympic Games at age 25, her last two appearances didn’t yield her anything except experience – and plenty of it. With a legitimate shot at gold in all five women’s Alpine events: downhill, super-G, slalom, GS and super combined (one downhill run and one slalom run), Lindsey is being touted by the media as skiing’s answer to Michael Phelps. Pressure, much? In reading a recent AP article, Lindsey discusses the weight she bears as an ambassador of her sport – and the pressure that comes with success in the World Cup circuit in a pre-Olympic year. She is quick to remind people that she has not yet won an Olympic medal so any medal, any color would be an accomplishment in her eyes, not to mention the role that Mother Nature can play in the world of ski racing: “Having not won a medal, I would be really happy with just one bronze. I’m going to go out there and try to win gold, but, you know, there’s a lot of things that can happen in ski racing,” Vonn said when the women’s World Cup circuit made its lone U.S. stop in Aspen late last month. “I mean, I can get a big gust of wind, and my downhill race is over.” Let’s hope that Lindsey continues handle the balance between training and promotion of the sport she loves so much in the weeks leading up to the games. Good Luck Lindsey! Show your support for you favorite athletes with Vancouver 2010 Olympics Gear!