Winter Olympics Sochi 2014: Day 12

Not a super exciting day in Sochi. For the first time during this Winter Games, I saw snow! What was fun today was watching some of these new events like ski halfpipe. The US assembled a strong team in four young men: Aaron Blunck, Lyman Currier, favorite to win the gold Torin Yater Wallace, and gold medal winner David Wise. Wise is 23, lives in Reno, Nevada, is married, and has a two and a half year old daughter. Wise suggests this is not the norm for someone in his sport, but why be normal when you can be yourself? Wise is a youth leader at his church but he's also won the past three X Games in his event. Winning the gold seems to be the perfect way to acknowledge an amazing career so far.



The Results:

Freestyle Skiing: Men's Ski Halfpipe

1. David Wise, USA, run one: 92.00, run  two: 3.40, best: 92.00
2. Mike Riddle, Canada, run one: 71.40, run two: 90.60, best: 90.60
3. Kevin Rolland, France, run one: 88.60, run two: 29.80, best: 88.60

7. Aaron Blunck, USA, run one: 68.60/ 79.40
**Lyman Currier and Torin Yater Wallace finished out of the final 12.

Not too long ago, Alex Deibold was a wax technician. He waxed the snowboards of athletes like himself. Now he can count himself a bronze medalist in the Olympic Games. The gold medalist Pierre Vaultier was wearing a knee brace because of an ACL injury, and yet, still came away a champion. He talked about how his injury didn't seem to hurt as much with the gold. Nikolay Olyunin proved to Russia that snowboarding is important; he was a major underdog in all this. Favorite to win once again was Nate Holland who didn't make it out of qualifying after he caught too much air on a jump.

The Results:

Snowboard: Men's Snowboard Cross

1. Pierre Vaultier, France
2. Nikolay Olyunin, Russian Federation
3. Alex Deibold, USA

Tina Maze won her second gold of these Games, she won today in the giant slalom, her weakest of five events, and she won last week in the downhill. What Maze probably hasn't even thought about is the fact that one of her biggest rivals, Lindsey Vonn, is absent from these games. Well, maybe she does realize cause she's winning easier than before.

The Results:

Alpine Skiing: Women's Giant Slalom

1. Tina Maze, Slovenia, total time: 2:36.87
2. Anna Fenninger, Austria, total time: 2:36.94
3. Viktoria Rebensburg, Germany, total time: 2:37.14

5. Mikaela Shiffer, USA, 2:37.37 <--- lindsey="" next="" p="" the="" vonn="">
Another sweep by the Netherlands in speedskating....

The Results:

Speedskating: Men's 10,000 m

1. Jorrit Bergsma, Netherlands, 12:44.45 Olympic Record
2. Sven Kramer, Netherlands, 12:49.02
3. Bob De Jong, Netherlands, 13:07.19

Look who got their medals today....