Olympics Day 14 Wrapup

After two whole weeks of competition in Vancouver, we have watched many spectacular performances in every sport and it continued today. The Canadian women's hockey team won the medal that the home country means the second most behind the men's hockey gold. In the other medal events, Norway's Marit Bjoergen won her third gold and fourth overall medal in the cross-country relay today. The big story for the Americans was getting a their first ever gold in nordic combined from Bill DeMong. Today tied Day 2 with the most American medals in a day with four.
The women's cross-country relay went the way it was expected with Norway winning the gold medal. Led by Bjoergen, the Norwegians were able to edge out Germany and Finland.
The women's giant slalom finished today after being postponed because of weather conditions. The gold was taken by Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany who climbed up the standings from sixth after the first run to claim gold for the Germans. Slovenia's Tina Maze won her second silver medal of the Olympics moving up from seventh. Elisabeth Goergl, who was first after the first run dropped down to third and took the bronze after finishing fifteenth in the second run.
Depending on who you ask the nordic combined long hill event was a great competiton or an event ruined by weather. For the three medalists it was a great race, especially for the Americans. Bill DeMong won the first American gold in the sport and Johnny Spillane won his third silver of the Olympics. The weather was a factor during the ski jump portion of the event where many top contenders like France's Jason Lamy-Chappuis lost too much time to contend for a medal. Bernhard Gruber of Austria kept with the two Americans for all 10k of the cross-country and took bronze.
The women's hockey gold medal game was all about Canada. Canada won 2-0 over the USA behind two goals from Marie-Philip Poulin, who was referred to as the 18-year old female version of Sidney Crosby, and 28 saves from goalie Shannon Szabados. In one of the best moments of the games, the whole crowd at Canada Hockey Place singing "O, Canada" along with the team during the medal ceremony. In the bronze medal game, Finland took down Sweden in overtime, 3-2.
The men's aerials, just like the women's competition, did not see the predicted Chinese domination. Belarus' Alexei Grishin took home the gold medal topping Jeret "Speedy" Petersen of the USA. Petersen's trademark jump "the hurricane" was enough to win him the silver and add the growing American medal count. China's lone medalist was Liu Zhongqing who took bronze.
The women's free skate in figure skating would not determine much that had not been decided already in the short program. The podium places stayed the same as they were entering tonight. Kim Yu-Na was nothing but dominant. After leading by 5 points going into the free skate, Kim scored a 150.06, 19 points ahead of any other competitor. Her total score was more than 25 points ahead of silver medalist Mao Asada from Japan. Canada's Joannie Rochette won the bronze in another emotional skate less than a week after losing her mother.
Today's Gold Medalists:
Norway (Cross-Country)
Canada (Women's Hockey)
Viktoria Rebensburg (Alpine Skiing-Germany)
Bill DeMong (Nordic Combined- USA)
Alexei Grishin (Freestyle Skiing- Belarus)
Kim Yu-Na (Figure Skating-Korea)
Medal Count after Thursday:
USA- 32
Germany- 26
Norway- 19
Canada- 17
Russia- 13
Austria- 12
Korea- 11
France- 10
China- 9
Switzerland, Sweden- 8
Netherlands- 6
Czech Republic- 5
Poland, Japan, Italy- 4
Australia, Belarus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland- 3
Latvia, Croatia- 2
Great Britain, Estonia, Kazakhstan- 1