As of yesterday’s Olympic competition, Norway leads the medal count with 12 medals with Canada and the Netherlands tied with 10 medals. The United States follows those 3 with 9 medals. Germany has 8 medals, but leads with 6 of them being gold.
It wasn’t a very good day for the American athletes yesterday, except for this duo.
Kaitlyn Farrington of the U.S. captured gold in the women’s Olympic snowboarding halfpipe final Wednesday, edging defending champion Torah Bright and American teammate Kelly Clark for the title. Farrington posted a score of 91.75 during her second run, just good enough to beat Bright’s 91.50. Clark, who smacked the wall during her first run in the finals, recovered to earn bronze and win her third Olympic medal. Farrington, who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, had spent most of the run-up to the games playing second-fiddle to Clark, the 2002 Olympic champion. The 24-year old needed to navigate the semifinals to reach the medal round but responded brilliantly. The victory gave the U.S. just its third gold medal of the Games, all of them coming at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.
In women’s hockey, Megan Agosta scored twice and assisted on Hayley Wickenheiser’s goal to lead Canada to a 3 to 2 victory over the United States on Wednesday in a tense preview of the expected gold medal match. Agosta scored in the second period to tie the game 1-1, and Canada added the go-ahead goal 93 seconds later on a shot that U.S. goalie Jesse Vetter seemed to have stopped, drawing a whistle from the referee. But the puck trickled through her pads and over the goal line. A video review confirmed it went in before the whistle. The Americans pulled the goalie down 3-1 with more than two minutes left and cut the deficit to one on Anne Schleper’s goal.
Stefan Groothuis gave the Netherlands another gold medal in speedskating, upsetting two-time Olympic champion Shani Davis in the 1,000 meters Wednesday. Groothuis posted a time of 1 minute, 8.39 seconds at Adler Arena, earning the fourth gold medal in five speedskating events for the Dutch at these Winter Games. Davis was attempting to become the first man to win the same speedskating event at three straight Olympics. He finished eighth in 1:09.12.
In men’s curling, the U.S. team won for the 1st time by beating Denmark 9 to 5. Meanwhile, the U.S. women’s remains winless with a 7 to 4 loss to China.
Jonathan Quick will be the goaltender for the U.S. when it plays Slovakia today in its Olympic hockey opener. Coach Dan Bylsma says he has a plan in net for other preliminary-round games, but on Wednesday declined to say what it was. Quick will get the start instead of Ryan Miller and No. 3 goalie Jimmy Howard. Miller helped the Americans win silver at the 2010 Olympics.