News

Olympics: Miracles On Ice

How our American athletes fared in Pyeongchang.

Hannah Padron, Staff Reporter
March 2, 2018

Did you watch curling?

Yes?

Ok, but did you watch U.S. Men’s Curling?

Yah?

Wow!

But did you watch the U.S. Men’s Curling team make history with the first ever gold medal win in U.S. curling history?

Because if you didn’t, then you definitely should have.

The team that ended up winning the gold was not even the group that was originally chosen to be the Olympic team.

John Shuster, a veteran Olympic curler, had recently been removed from the U.S. team following the team’s poor performance in Sochi. And his response was making his own curling rink, with the members being his fellow ‘rejects.’

The team surprisingly beat the ‘high performance teams’ and won the 2015 U.S. Championships in an upset victory.

The team went on to win a bronze at the 2016 World Championships, and win the 2017 National Championships, eventually winning the 2017 United States Olympic Curling trials which secured their place as the U.S. representatives.

At the actual Olympics, the highlighted and most anticipated match was the one against the reigning champions, Canada. Team Shuster won in another surprising victory, advancing to the gold medal round against Sweden. They won in a double take out, executed by Shuster, making the end score 10-7 and winning the gold medal, making U.S. history.

Another highly anticipated event was figure skating, which was dominated by the Russians and Canadians as usual. American figure skater, and a gold medal contender, Nathan Chen experienced several bad performances, including the crucial short program, which made the reigning national champion fall all the way into 17th place. Many figured that Chen no longer had any chance of making even the top 10, but Chen as usual, proved everyone wrong in his free skate performance. He landed five quadruple jumps, the most in any skating program in winter Olympic history. Even though Chen did not medal, his jump from 17th to 5th place will go down in American figure skating history.

Another star of the games was Adam Rippon, a openly gay figure skater and former U.S. champion who worked for years to make his way onto the Olympic team. He made headlines by refusing to meet with vice president Mike Pence over his views on gay rights and apparent support of gay conversion therapy.

The only single medalists from United States figure skating was the team of Maia and Alex Shibutani, otherwise known as the “Shibsibs”. They earned bronze in the ice dance, with the French team, Papadakis and Cizeron earning silver, and the Canadian darlings, Virtue and Moir, with gold.

But the real stars of the figure skating competition were Yuzuru Hanyu, and the two Russian rivals, Medvedeva and Zagitova

Hanyu, won men’s singles gold at the 2014 games in Sochi, and won again in Pyeongchang, becoming the first man to win gold medals back to back since an American named Dick Button did so in 1952. It also helped that Hanyu’s enormous fan base follows him around the world to encourage him.

The showdown between Medvedeva and Zagitova will go down in Olympic history, and one of the closest matches ever with Medvedeva only losing by a mere few points, even after placing first at most events for the past few years. To some viewers, Medvedeva was robbed of her gold.

Here is the final medal tally:

GOLD (9)

Redmond Gerard (Snowboarding/Slopestyle)

Woke up late and still won gold. Iconic.

Jamie Anderson (Snowboarding/Slopestyle)
Chloe Kim (Snowboarding/Halfpipe)

Became the youngest ever female halfpipe champion.

Shaun White (Snowboarding/Halfpipe)

Everybody knows Shaun! And if you don’t, then you definitely should. He’s a World-class snowboarder with a bunch of half-pipe titles.

Mikaela Shiffrin (Alpine Skiing/Ladies’ Giant Slalom)
Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall (Cross Country Skiing/Ladies’ Team Sprint Free)

A super big deal. Usually only European countries ever have a chance of medaling, let alone winning this event.

David Wise (Freestyle Skiing/Men’s Ski Halfpipe)
Women’s Hockey

A gold medal win over their rivals, Canada

Men’s Curling

Historic first ever gold medal win

SILVER (8)

Chris Mazdzer (Luge/Men’s Singles)

First ever U.S. Men’s Luge medal

John-Henry Krueger (Short Track Speed Skating/1,000 meters)
Nick Goepper (Freestyle Skiing/Slopestyle)
Elana Meyers Taylor/Lauren Gibbs (Bobsleigh/Women)
Jamie Anderson (Snowboard/Ladies’ Big Air)
Alex Ferreira (Freestyle Skiing/Men’s Ski Halfpipe)
Mikaela Shiffrin (Alpine Skiing/Ladies’ Alpine Combined)
Kyle Mack (Snowboard/Men’s Big Air)

BRONZE (6)

Nathan Chen, Adam Rippon, Bradie Tennell, Mirai Nagasu, Alexa Scimeca Knierim, Chris Knierim, Maia Shibutani, Alex Shibutani (Figure Skating/Team Event)

In this event, Mirai Nagasu became the first ever American woman in to land a triple axel jump in Olympic competition.