Second Best or Second Worst

The U.S. Winter Olympic team in Torino has suffered numerous disappointments and fiascos.

Bode Miller “trained” in the bars and missed three gates in his oafish 0-for-5 downhill skiing non-performance.
Chad Hedrick sought five speed skating golds, instead picked up one medal of each color, feuded with a teammate, and boasted about his “big heart.” It would fit in his mouth; that’s for sure.

Lindsey Jacobellis showboated on her snowboard, and let a gold medal slip away.

Sasha Cohen fell and had to settle for a silver in the figure skating. Johnny Weir felt “all black inside” and didn’t medal.

The American women’s hockey team, the world’s co-dominant team with Canada, also missed out on the gold medal game.

And so it went. The press is filled with dire reports and hand-wringing.

But wait a minute. The United States took 25 medals, just behind Germany. We medaled in speed skating (7), snowboarding (7), downhill skiing (2), short track speed skating (3), figure skating, curling, bobsled, freestyle skiing, and ice hockey.  Not as good as 2002 in Salt Lake City, where home field advantage helped us garner 34 medals. But before that, we had never taken more than 13 medals in a winter olympics.

25 medals and a second overall ranking is very, very good. And those medals represent a wide range of disciplines. Only Germany, Russia, and Canada have a similar breadth of accomplishment. In contrast Holland took 9 medals, all speed skating. Austria took 23 overall, 14 of them in Alpine skiing. Korea took 9, all short track speed skating. The United States has never medalled in any of the Nordic disciplines:  Cross-country skiing, Nordic Combined, and Biathlon. Considering this “hole” in our program, we did very well, coming in second to Germany.

Actually, considering all the individual disappointments (which presumably we can recover from), the USA did just fine, and should do even better in Vancouver in 2010.

Comments

  1. Daniel wrote:

    Well yes, with the caveat that snowboarding, figure skating and freestyle skiing are not sports, the US did well.

    At least now we can gear up for the NCAA tournament, which so far at least, has resisited the temptation to add “style points” to the scoring.

    Posted 27 Feb 2006 at 7:06 am

  2. commissar wrote:

    Aw, c’mon, Daniel. :)

    You gotta admit that figure skating, is, at least, a long-standing, original element of the winter games.

    Personally, I like snowboarding, but do take your point that the expansion of medals in trendy, odd stuff does dilute the achievement.

    Posted 27 Feb 2006 at 9:44 am

  3. rbj wrote:

    I like the snowboardcross. It’s fun to watch folks sliding downhill going up against one another, rather than racing a clock.

    Posted 27 Feb 2006 at 1:07 pm

  4. Steve the LLamabutcher wrote:

    It’s not that snowboarding and short track aren’t sports, but they are X-Games stuff added for tee-vee ratings (plus the chance to get some non-traditional winter olympic countries like Australia and Korea into things). When you subtract those 10 medals, you’ve got 15, right at the top of the old boundary.

    That said, I’m looking for them to add an American Combined event for 2010—snowboard halfpipe, downhill, and cross. Heck, you can turn it into a Slacker Pentathalon if you add ariels and a bong-hit endurance event.

    Posted 27 Feb 2006 at 1:09 pm

  5. commissar wrote:

    Steve,

    I think even in the 90’s, when we won 13, that included some short track skating and freestyle aerials.

    Before that stuff came in, we were in single digits.

    Let’s face it, we need a cross-country skiing program in this country.

    Posted 27 Feb 2006 at 2:31 pm

  6. Steve the LLamabutcher wrote:

    What was our medal total in Sarajevo? I think that was the low point of the post Franz Klammer era.

    Biathalon was still my favorite winter olympics sport—go out in the woods and kill ****. It would be even better if they had to ski to the targeting area, and then using a tool fashioned from a reindeer’s jaw, quickly carve a Clovis spear point and impale a large animotronic mammoth, complete with flailing head, tusks, and trunk. talk about your “level 4 footwork”

    Posted 27 Feb 2006 at 3:08 pm

  7. Daniel wrote:

    Sorry this is so late; I’ve been traveling this week.

    Here’s my point: If you can measure it, as in who is fastest, highest, strongest, scores more points, etc., it’s a sport. If you must rely on subjective (and easily corruptible) judges, it is not a sport. We may enjoy it, but it is a competition, like a dog show or a beauty pageant, and not a sport.

    Snowboard racing is a sport. Snowboard halfpipe double-double 720, 360 doodah all the live-long day is not a sport.

    Posted 01 Mar 2006 at 10:36 am

  8. commissar wrote:

    Daniel,

    Reminds me of the Olympic drinking game: Take a shot every time Scott Hamilton says, “Tri-i-i-ple Lutz … Tri-iple Axel … Yes!!”

    Posted 01 Mar 2006 at 11:18 am

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