The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver
The 2010 Winter Olympics featured many different emotional experiences: glory, heartbreak and sadly death as well. The games officially opened on Feb. 12 in Vancouver when Governor General Michaelle Jean declared the beginning of 17 days of international competition. The opening ceremony consisted of performers such as Nelly Furtado and more than 300 Inuit dancers, but as these performances were going on, people had something heavy on their minds. Earlier that day, Georgian Nodar Kumaritashvili had crashed during a practice luge run and died shortly after from injuries sustained in the accident.
Day two put the games into a better swing of things as the actual competition began. Notable wins came from Hannah Kearney of the U.S. in the women’s moguls skiing, and also in short track speed skating, where Americans Apolo Ohno and John Celski captured silver and bronze behind South Korea’s Lee Jung-Su when Su’s two teammates crashed just seconds before the finish.
A new world record was set on day four when Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China received the highest score ever in short program figure skating. South Korea continued its success in speed skating as Lee Sang-Hwa won the women’s 500m race. Sang-Hwa squeaked past record holder Jenny Wolf of Germany by just 0.05 seconds.
On the same day, Lindsey Vonn of the U.S. took the gold in the women’s downhill alpine skiing event. This was after Vonn badly bruised her right shin during a previous crash while competing in Sweden in Dec. Vonn didn’t let her injuries keep her down.
Another comeback story from American skiing came from Bode Miller, who won his first Olympic gold ever in the men’s combined skiing event. Miller was ranked 7th in the downhill part of the event but wound up winning the gold after recording the 3rd fastest time in the slalom half.
Shaun White of the U.S. left viewers in awe as he threw down a beautiful double McTwist 1260 to easily take the gold in the men’s snowboarding halfpipe event. The day before White won his gold, Australian snowboarder Torah Bright won gold in women’s halfpipe. Bright was met at the bottom of the hill by her parents, who had secretly traveled to Vancouver to support their daughter, leading her to break into tears.
Canada breezed through the curling competition and took gold by defeating Norway 6-3 in the medal game. Another Canadian favorite was the men’s ice hockey team, but Canada hit a road block early on as they were beaten by the Americans 5-3 in the first round of play. They eventually turned their run around with some convincing wins, including a 7-3 defeat of hockey powerhouse Russia. The Canadians ended up meeting the U.S. in the gold medal game, but this time they found revenge with a 2-0 victory. The U.S. was somewhat of a Cinderella story. Coming into the Olympics as the youngest team, nobody really expected a whole lot, but led by tournament M.V.P. goalie Ryan Miller, the Americans shocked the world by making it to the gold medal game. Although they only received silver, it was still an amazing run.
The closing ceremony occurred on Feb. 28. Performers such as Michael Buble and Neil Young played, and Michael J. Fox made an appearance as well. Canada received the most gold medals, with a total of 14. The U.S. ended with 37 total medals to lead in that category.
