The last couple days – Days 9 and 10
BOBSLEIGH – 2-MAN
Wearing a Team Korea Coach jacket, Team Canada legend Pierre Lueders looked on as one after another, the three Canadian sleds posted top-10 finishes in the final heat of competition. Finally, the top ranked sled out of the first three heats, Canada-1 piloted by Justin Kripps and pushed by Alexander Kopacz, slid smoothly down the track to tie the Germans for Gold (Latvia took the bronze)! 20 years ago, Pierre Lueders (who mentored Kripps) stood atop the podium alongside the Italian team to share the gold medal in a tie as well.
Watching the Germans, and others, maul the Canadian sled in celebration was something else. Kripps and Kopacz didn’t realize for a while that they had tied – they thought the Germans were just being nice! Kopacz was in the locker room when he still asked one of the German sledders if they had won!
MEN’S AERIALS
Award for the best wipe out goes to the Belarusian, Stanislau Hladchenko. Attempting to match his female Belarusian counterpart, Huskova, atop the podium, Hladchenko went huge on his final jump but wound up bouncing and flipping down the hill like a cartoon character. He appeared to be physically okay.
Canadian Olivier Rochon was vying for Canada’s first ever gold in aerials. He pulled a move that no other skier can pull, but over rotated and couldn’t find the landing. Meanwhile, the final jumper, Chinese Zongyang Jia, was slated for the gold. The final score took a long time to show up on the board, but when it finally did, Jia stood shocked that he would only take home a silver. Ukraine took home their first men’s aerials Gold, and OAR bronze.
MEN’S SKIING SLOPESTYLE
Canada’s Alex Beaulieu-Marchand grabbed a bronze medal to increase the country’s medal count. The Canadian men’s moguls team cheered on as 3 of 4 Canadian skiers made it to the final round (A.B-M, Teal Harle, Evan McEachran). Harle and McEachran finished 5th and 6th, respectively. Norway took Gold, while USA took Silver.
ALPINE – MEN’S GIANT SLALOM
The wind was calm enough to run the event, which was won by Austrian Hirscher, Norway took the Silver and France the Bronze. France also grabbed the 5th, 6th and 7th positions. Canada’s Erik Read came 11th.
NORWAY continued to show their nordic strength earning bronze in Biathlon 15km, and Gold in the men’s 4x10km relay. In ski jumping, the moustache, Robert Johannson, helped his team earn Team Gold. Johannson has medaled in each ski jump event.
Back to the Rinks:
CURLING –
Rachel Homan and her Canadian rink are on an upswing, having won their last 3 matches after losing the first 3. Kevin Koe’s Canadian men’s rink are balancing things out, now on the downswing (won the first 3 and lost their last 3). Top four teams will advance to the semifinals. Each team has 3 games left.
SPEED SKATING
Long track continues to be the sport of failure – as in, if you don’t win Gold, you’re a failure! I thought this was only a Dutch way of thinking, but we saw in the women’s 500m, Korea’s Lee Sang-Wha reduced to tears when she won silver. The Japanese gold medalist Nao Kodaira and Bronze medalist Karolina Erbanova (Czech) consoled her as they all skated their victory laps.
Team Pursuit quarter finals are complete. The Canadian women advance to the semis which will take place on Day 12. The Canadian Men will settle for the D-Final vs. USA.
HOCKEY –
The women’s hockey semifinals took place on Day 10, and to no surprise, Canada will meet the USA in the Gold medal match on Wednesday night (ET).
Canada sent OAR packing with a 5-0 win. Wakefield grabbed a couple goals on a pair of beautiful setups, Poulin sniped a backhand off a sweet move by Daoust to fool the OAR defender, Emily Clark scored her first Olympic goal and Johnston netted a bit more safety.
In the earlier game, the USA physically manhandled Finland 5-0, complete with cheapshots before and after the whistle. It’s infuriating to listen to the USA post-game interviews talking about how much they are smiling on the ice, having fun … yes, having fun with intentional knee on knees, shots to the back of the head when the Finns are already down on the ice. Sounds like a fun game.
See you Wednesday, USA. Let’s hope that Team Canada maintains their composure and plays their game. Don’t get sucked in.