As of Tuesday’s Olympic competition, Norway had 11 medals, Canada had 9 medals and the Netherlands had 8 medals. The United States was in 4th place with 7 medals, tied with Russia, but had 2 gold medals to Russia’s one.
Finally, Olympic anything for Erin Hamlin and the United States in singles luge. Leaving no doubt she absolutely rules her sport, Natalie Geisenberger won the women’s luge gold medal Tuesday at the Sochi Games — posting the second-largest victory margin in Olympic history. Her final time was 1.139 seconds better than silver medalist German teammate Tatjana Huefner, the 2010 champion. Hamlin finished third, grabbing the first medal for any American singles luge athlete at the Olympics, 50 years after luge first appeared at the games. So in the sport’s golden anniversary as part of the Olympics, Hamlin came up with bronze, a feat sure to go down as one of the great moments in USA Luge history. U.S. individual sliders had been fourth on three occasions at the Olympics, but never any better. So every four years, the same question gets asked — when will an American break through? t was the fifth Olympic medal for USA Luge, the first four — two silvers and two bronzes — having come in doubles races.
Dara Howell continued Canada’s dominance at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, soaring to Olympic gold in women’s slopestyle skiing on Tuesday. Devin Logan of the U.S. took silver. Canadian Kim Lamarre earned bronze. Canada has claimed seven medals in four days of snowboarding and freestyle skiing, including three events in which they took two of the three spots on the podium. Howell’s triumph was tempered by a series of scary crashes, including one by teammate Yuki Tsubota that ended with Tsubota being carried of the mountain on a stretcher.
In an Olympic stunner, Shaun White failed in his quest for three straight halfpipe gold medals Tuesday, falling to Switzerland’s Iouri Podladtchikov, known as the “I-Pod”. In fact, White didn’t even win a medal. “I-Pod,” landed the trick he invented, a 1440-degree whirling jump he nicknamed the “Yolo” jump. White tried that jump twice but flat-out fell once and couldn’t land it cleanly the second time. I-Pod scored a 94.75 on his second run, putting all the pressure on White, who went last and had fallen in his first try. White didn’t come through and finished fourth. The Japanese pair of Ayumu Hirano and Taku Hiraoka won silver and bronze, and the Americans were shockingly shut out of the halfpipe medals for the first time since the sport was introduced to the Olympics in 1998.
In men’s curling, the United States lost 9 to 4 to China. In women’s curling, the United States lost 9 to 7 to Russia and then lost 12 to 3 to Great Britain to remain winless.