It was a day of death-defying American determination, from the gold-medal grit of skier Lindsey Vonn to the gravity-cheating flight of snowboarder Shaun White. Vonn, gnashing her teeth through a painful deep-tissue bruise on her shin, got things going early on an angry Whistler course that chewed up and spat out nearly a fifth of the field but couldn’t keep the gifted and telegenic downhill star from her date with destiny – and Olympic gold.
By nightfall came White, the only boarder in the Olympics with his very own video game, who put on a flame-haired display of half-pipe abandon – McTwisting his way to the top of the podium like some radical bandit, his face behind goggles and a Stars and Stripes bandana.
And in between, U.S. long-track speedskating star Shani Davis, 27, also demanded his share of the attention, lunging across the finish line in the men’s 1,000 metres to the delight of comedian-turned-pseudo-psychologist Stephen Colbert.It wasn’t an entirely American party, however: Marianne St. Gelais of St-Felicien, Que., celebrated her 20th birthday Wednesday by giving Canada the unexpected gift of silver in the women’s 500 metres.
“I’m still the rookie, but I’ve made a name for myself,” said the bubbly St-Gelais, who alternated between tears and giggles.”I pushed myself to the limit and I went as far as possible.”For most of the day, the story was Vonn and her badly bruised leg, a training injury that at the start of the Games was billed as a potential race-killer but seemed almost an afterthought by the end of a bruising, crash-filled women’s downhill.
“I got the gold medal that I came here to get,” said Vonn, who conceded she was the beneficiary of weather delays that plagued the alpine events.”That gave me a lot of extra time to heal my shin, and that’s exactly what I needed. Someone was definitely looking out for me upstairs.”
Swedish star Anja Paerson was sent to hospital after a horrific somersault that left her in a heap near the finish area. Many crashes came after a massive jump near the bottom, nicknamed “Hot Air,” which catapulted several competitors out of contention.”We will try to ease things down a little bit” before Sunday’s super-combined race, said Atle Skaardal, the women’s race director for the International Ski Federation.
Canada’s chances for a speedskating medal were diminished early when Denny Morrison, 24, of Fort St. John, B.C., managed only a 13th-place finish behind Davis in the men’s 1,000. Red Deer’s Jeremy Wotherspoon, skating in his last Olympic event, was next in 14th.At Cypress Mountain, where White was shredding the half-pipe with his Double McTwist 1260 (two flips while doing three-and-a-half rotations), his Canadian counterparts were among the ranks of the shreddees.
Justin Lamoureux of Ottawa, 33, the only one to make it to the final, finished well back of the leaders. Brad Martin, 23, of Ancaster, Ont., and 21-year-old Jeff Batchelor of Oakville, Ont., both failed to advance.At times Wednesday, it seemed the Americans were everywhere.
Colbert, the political satirist who’s been poking fun at Canada for months on his TV show “The Colbert Report,” was in Vancouver to extend an olive branch to his Canadian hosts, whom he described as “friendly and very easy to pander to.”With his tongue firmly planted in cheek, Colbert spent the day as an “assistant sports psychologist” to the U.S. speedskaters – and erupted with genuine joy from his rinkside seat when Davis crossed the finish line to claim gold.
