One day into the Vancouver Olympics, the U.S. freestyle team had already doubled its medal output from Turin. Two weeks later, the Americans can call it their best Olympics.
Whistler (AFP) – Steven Holcomb’s USA 1 won the United States’ first Olympic bobsleigh gold in 62 years on Saturday after their ‘Night Train’ sleigh bulleted past the field on the Whistler track.
“It’s huge, it’s great,” said Holcomb, who last year became the first American in half a century to win a world title and who arrived at these Games just two years on from sight-saving surgery for a degenerative eye disorder.
He drove his quartet to victory in a combined four-heat time of 3min 24.46sec as Andre Lange’s Germany 1 took silver in 3min 24.84sec for a comfortable American winning margin of 0.38sec.
Two-man champion Lange, missing a record third straight gold in the four-man, denied Lyndon Rush’s bronze medallists Canada 1 by just 0.01sec.
“I made some mistakes in the two-man. I came back and corrected those and it paid off,” said Holcomb, who placed sixth in the two-man, where Lange, whom he greatly admires, took the title.
“He’s pushed my game to a better level – competition breeds excellence,” said the burly, bearded American.
Lange brakeman Kevin Kuske insisted that all the talk of the track being too dangerous had to be put into perspective.
“Steven proved four times this track is really driveable,” said the German after Holcomb drove his crew of Justin Olsen, Steve Mesler and Curtis Tomasevicz to success.
Holcomb, 29, admitted that “it’s a tricky track, the fastest in the world. Nowhere else can you train for 95 mph (140 kph) tight curves.”
Saturday’s drizzly conditions ensured the track was slower than Friday, which saw six crashes, adding to more than a dozen previously in the men’s and women’s events.
Four teams did not start while five had already withdrawn before the opening heats as the difficulty and sheer speed of the track took a heavy toll.
Holcomb’s crew, leading the Canadians by 0.4sec overnight, added another 0.005sec in heat three, by which time the contest was effectively all over.
Lange at least had the satisfaction of the fastest final heat time of 51.36sec, but the margin held for the American quartet who celebrated at the finish, waving their helmets in the air and grabbing a huge Stars and Stripes flag.
The quartet then embraced and exchanged warm handshakes with their fellow podium finishers.
‘Smokin’ Francis Tyler won the last US bob medal in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 1948.
But Holcomb has shown great consistency on the way to laying to rest those six-decade old ghosts with driving skills that Kuske on Saturday lauded as “super genius”.
Many of the teams struggled with one crash on average for every four bobs on Friday on a track which witnessed the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili in pre-tournament training.
cw/dj10
Whistler (AFP) – Giuliano Razzoli of Italy stormed to a convincing win in the Olympic slalom on Saturday as Austria’s men’s team were comdemned to a medal-less Games for the first time in 74 years.
Razzoli clocked a combined total of 1min 39.32sec over the two runs, 0.16sec ahead of Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic with Andre Myhrer of Sweden taking bronze, a further 0.28sec adrift.
The Italian, whose sole World Cup victory came at Zagreb this season, led by 0.43sec after the first run but put any nerves to one side on the second run to nail an impressive day’s skiing in difficult conditions that included heavy rain, thick fog and very wet snow.
Razzoli edged Austrian Benjamin Raich into fourth place, meaning the Austrian men’s team remained medal-less for the first time since 1936 when alpine skiing was first introduced at the Olympic Winter Games.
“It’s a dream because I’ve been training a lot for this day. It’s incredible,” said Razzoli.
“It’s been a long time coming, the last time Italy had a medal in the slalom was in 1992, and now in 2010, it’s fantastic.”
The Italian who won silver at the Albertville Games was Alberto Tomba, who is now Razzoli’s coach.
“It’s an amazing day,” Tomba said. “He won a gold medal and it’s great.
“He lives close to my house. He was first in Zagreb, then first in Kranjsak Gora but went out in the second run.
“So he came here in great shape. I told him to keep quiet and keep focused.
“Watching the slalom in the finish area is unbelieveable. Now I can imagine what it’s like for parents. He’s like a son to me.”
Kostelic, who also claimed silver in the super-combined, said the snow conditions had been to his liking.
“I really like to ski in these conditions,” he said. “It’s spring snow, but we always train in this kind of weather.
“This result means, realistically speaking, that I had two chances for medal in the super-combined and slalom and I took both.”
Myhrer, who finished fourth in the slalom at the Turin Games four years ago, said: “The slope was okay, but there was a track and I tried to stay in it.
“I’m really happy with the medal. It has been a huge goal for me, my whole life to take an Olympic medal, and it’s an amazing feeling to get one.”
With Raich in fourth at 0.49sec, team-mate Marcel Hirscher was next at 0.49sec.
Slovenian Mitja Valencic, who was second after the first run, lost his speed in mid-course and finished in sixth at 1.03sec.
In poor visibility and heavy rain, the course claimed a number of high-profile casualties, notably Austria’s reigning world champion Manfred Pranger and American Bode Miller among 47 who did not finish the first leg.
American duo Ted Ligety and Miller also skied out, the latter after only three gates to bring his Olympic Games to a sad end after he had won super-combined gold, super-G silver and downhill bronze.
If Miller had medalled he would have become the first skier to have won medals in all five disciplines, but it was not to be as later racers were hampered by deteriorating visibility in thick fog.
But the 32-year-old American said he would leave the Games pleased with his three-medal haul.
“I’m 100 percent pleased. It couldn’t be better,” he said.
“Slalom’s always had a special place for me. I skied it well in the super-combined and it won me gold. And it’s the Olympic medal I don’t have.
lp/dj10
It’s been 62 years in the making, but Steve Holcomb and his “Night Train” squad became the first U.S. four-man crew to win Olympic gold on Saturday, after keeping a comfortable lead ahead Canada’s Lyndon Rush and Germany’s Andre Lange for the entire race.
Watch the thrilling men’s 500m finals where Apolo Ohno was DQ’d and where Charles Hamelin won the gold medal.
Vancouver (AFP) – Canada won the men’s speed-skating team pursuit gold medal on Saturday.
The United States took silver with the Netherlands claiming bronze.
dj/mp
Neighborhood rivals Canada and the United States will meet Sunday for the gold medal in men’s hockey, the home favorite against the surprise top seed looking for its first Olympic title since the Miracle on Ice in 1980.
The U.S. men already beat Canada once in Vancouver, but they’ll have to do it again to win the Olympic gold medal. The top-seeded Americans face the home team in Sunday’s final, a 2002 rematch. Watch LIVE on NBC at 3p ET/12p PT.
Apolo Ohno won his U.S. record eighth Winter Games medal with a bronze in the 5000m relay Friday night. But earlier he was disqualified in the 500m final for causing a crash. Watch the video and then you decide: Did he deserve the DQ?
Bode Miller’s bid to become the first to win a career medal in all five Olympic disciplines lasted about eight seconds before he skied out in the slalom. Ted Ligety also failed to finish. Still, America’s eight Alpine medals at Whistler is its most ever.