March 5, 2010
Nice rings to it
New England skiers, boarders revel in medal haul at Olympics
Bode Miller captured three medals at the Vancouver Olympics, winning gold, silver and bronze. (photo: Clive Rush/Getty Images)
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The 2010 Vancouver Olympics started with an awkward malfunction during the opening torch lighting ceremony and ended with a thrilling overtime hockey game between the United States and Canada and a little humor at the closing ceremonies. In between, the 2010 Winter Olympics provided every possible emotion in the sporting spectrum. And New England athletes featured prominently throughout, helping the U.S. team win an Olympic record 37 medals.
There was redemption granted and narrowly missed in the stories of Alpine skier Bode Miller (Franconia, N.H.) and snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis (Stratton Mountain, Vt.). Miller was impressive in Salt Lake City in 2002, winning two silver medals. But at the 2006 games in Turin, Italy, where he was heavily favored to win big, Miller never finished higher than fifth in five events. He had DNF status in the super G and the slalom, and was disqualified from the combined event. Worse, he complained at the time that he didn’t want to be there.
Miller didn’t have those problems in Vancouver. He won gold in the super combined, silver in the super G and bronze in the downhill (he straddled a gate in the slalom and didn’t make the finals). New attitude, better results. “To come into the games, and perform the way I did, and to feel the kind of enjoyment from skiing and from expressing myself on my skis the way I did, is phenomenal,” Miller told The Associated Press.
Jacobellis entered the 2010 games as the favorite to medal in snowboardcross. She carried some baggage from the 2006 games, having blown a hefty lead attempting a trick down the final stretch. Jacobellis fell, allowing Tanja Frieden of Switzerland to pass her for the gold. Jacobellis finished with the silver.
In Vancouver, Jacobellis made it to the snowboardcross semifinals, and she was riding in second place until she came off a jump near another boarder, hit a gate, and was ruled out of bounds. She won the small final handily and wound up in fifth place overall. That put Jacobellis in the undesirable position of dominating in other competitions but falling short in the Olympics, the event to which the general public is paying the most attention.
“I’ve had a great career, but sometimes I dominate and sometimes I fall into a funk where things like what happened today happen,” she said in her postrace press conference. “It’s not the end of the world. But I guess I don’t have the best track record with the general public.”
Despite a gold medal in 2006 and three U.S. snowboardcross championships, Seth Wescott (Sugarloaf, Maine) wasn’t expected to take the podium in Vancouver. In a sport filled with 20-somethings, the 33-year-old Wescott was supposed to be past his prime. Yet there he was, passing Canada’s Mike Robertson and then holding him off at the finish line for a dramatic gold medal finish in snowboardcross.
“Pressure situations like this kick me into a different level of motivation,” Wescott told ESPN. “It’s an amazing feeling to have a singular goal all season and accomplish that goal.”
Hannah Kearney (Norwich, Vt.), who placed near the bottom in Turin, won gold in the women’s moguls, the first gold for the U.S. team in Vancouver. For that feat, Vermont governor Jim Douglas named Fe. 26 Hannah Kearney Day, and the skier was given a parade in her hometown. “I can’t believe it’s Hannah Kearney Day,” Kearney said, addressing the crowd at the parade. “That is something I never dreamed of.”
Another Hannah, Hannah Teter (Belmont, Vt.), followed up her gold medal performance in the women’s halfpipe at the Turin games with a silver medal in the halfpipe in Vancouver. She was closely followed by teammate Kelly Clark (West Dover, Vt.), who won the bronze. Clark is a former gold medalist, winning the halfpipe at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. Teter led after the first half of the finals but lost to Australia’s Torah Bright in the last round. Bright scored 45.0, Teter 42.4, and Clark 42.2 in an extremely close race for the silver medal.
Teter has attracted almost as much attention for her non-sports activities as her medal run. Ben & Jerry’s named a flavor after her — Maple Blondie — and she has her own products for sale to benefit charities — her Hannah’s Gold maple syrup, which benefits an African charity, and Sweet Cheeks panties, which benefits Haitian charities. Teter, who also donated her $15,000 silver medal winnings to charity, wanted to find something more high profile to sell for charity, and certainly found it in the underwear line. “Not everybody needs maple syrup,” she told ESPN, “but everybody needs underwear.”
Snowboarder Scotty Lago (Seabrook, N.H.) also got some unexpected attention in Vancouver. Lago was celebrating his bronze medal finish in the men’s halfpipe when he was photographed with a young woman in a provocative position. The woman was leaning over Lago’s medal, which he was wearing around his waist. When the photo got out to the Web, Lago packed up and left the games early, before any official reprimand could take place. His decision was lauded by U.S. Olympic Committee officials.
Lago later joked on his Twitter account that his Olympic experience had been a good one, despite the controversy, and that his medal was at home “in a safe spot.”
Overall, the 2010 Olympics were fruitful for the U.S. team. The 37 medals were an Olympic record, and it marked the first time Team USA had topped the count since 1932. The team did, however, finish third in the gold medal count with nine, behind Canada’s 14 — the best gold total in the history of the Winter Games — and Germany’s 10. This sets the bar particularly high for the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia.
Other New England notes:
► Michael Morse (Duxbury, Mass.) placed 15th in the men’s moguls.
► Nolan Kaspar (Warren, Vt.) finished 24th in the men’s moguls.
► Andy Newell (Shaftsbury, Vt.) placed 13th with the men’s 4x10-kilometer classic/free cross country relay, and paired with Torin Koos to finish ninth in the men’s cross country team sprint freestyle.
► Emily Cook (Belmont, Mass.) placed 11th in the women’s aerials.
► Laura Spector (Lenox, Mass.) placed 17th with the women’s biathlon team in the 4x6k relay.
