Reminiscing Sochi 2014

So much Olympics so little time.  The world spends four years in anticipation for two weeks worth of competition from the best athletes.  The closing ceremonies aired on Sunday, and now withdrawal symptoms set in.  So before we put away our Winter Olympic enthusiasm for another four years let’s recap some of the highlights from Sochi 2014.  This year we saw a lot of new competitions debut.  From snowboard slopestyle to ski halfpipe, we were entertained night after night.  Sage Kotsenburg calmed us with his laid back attitude and smooth execution of new tricks in the men’s snowboard slopestyle.  Maddie Bowman would have made Sarah Burke proud with her gold in women’s ski halfpipe.  In men’s slopestyle skiing we swept the podium.  Unfortunately, Sean White fell short in men’s snowboard halfpipe with not even a bronze.  The women’s team did much better with Kaitlyn Farrington taking gold and Kelly Clark taking bronze.  At thirty Clark says she has to train six days out of the week to stay at the top of her game, and she’ s been at the top for a while proving that age should never keep you from pursuing your passions.  Pikus-Pace understands a thing or two about chasing one’s dreams.  She not only juggles raising two kids with her husband, but medalling in women’s skeleton.  For the first time an American won a medal in a single’s luge competition.  Congratulations Erin Hamlin!  The big upset took place in women’s figure skating when Adelina Sotnikova of Russia took gold, pushing Kim Yu-Na of South Korea to silver and Carolina Kostner of Italy to bronze, leaving Gracie Gold and Ashley Wagner off the podium.  In the mixed ice dance, childhood friends, Meryl Davis and Charlie White took gold.  Despite Holcomb’s calf injury, the American 4 man and 2 man bobsled teams slid into bronze.  In women’s 2 person bobsled Williams and Meyers took silver leaving Evans and Greubel to pick up bronze.  The women’s  hockey team lost to Canada, but still proudly took silver.  Ted Ligety finally earned his gold in men’s giant slalom, and  Alex Deibold, the wax tech in the 2010 winter Olympics, earned his bronze in men’s snowboarding cross.  Good job Team USA!

Look for the paralympics to start in a few days!

Olympics Update

All right, time for an Olympics update.  It is now, 168 days until opening day.  Are you excited?  I just saw the medals and if I were an athlete I would be super psyched about getting my hands on one of those.  They’re pretty sweet and detailed.  Apparently, I could have seen these medals back in May, but it takes me a few months to catch on.  They highlight the Russian Federation cultures through a quilt design.  The medals aren’t solid, but have cutout pieces around the quilt.  Super cool!  98 medals will be awarded to hard-working athletes dedicated to their respective sport.  Sochi has added more competitions to the winter games, setting an Olympic record.  There will be 12 new events that were not at Vancouver in 2010, and 9 of the games will involve skiing.  Women will appreciate this next update.  For the first time ever, women will be allowed to compete in ski jumping!  Women’s ski jumping will take place Tuesday the 11^th.  For all of you riders out there, there will now be four freestyle skiing events and four freestyle snowboarding events, so eight total!

Here’s a breakdown of the sports and their venues:

Coastal Cluster (29 medals):

Ice Hockey

Speed Skating

Short Track Speed Skating

Figure Skating

Curling

Mountain Cluster (69 medals):

Ski Jumping

Nordic Combined

Biathlon

Cross-Country Skiing

Alpine Skiing

Freestyle Skiing

Snowboard

Bobsleigh

Bobsleigh Skeleton

Luge

 

Here is a link to the schedule: http://sochi2014.blob.core.windows.net/storage/games/schedule_sochi_en.pdf