Saturday, February 20, 2010

“Olympic Daily Preview - Sunday, February 21st - Tacoma News Tribune” plus 3 more

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“Olympic Daily Preview - Sunday, February 21st - Tacoma News Tribune” plus 3 more

Olympic Daily Preview - Sunday, February 21st - Tacoma News Tribune

Posted: 20 Feb 2010 10:13 PM PST

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There are six medal events scheduled as the second weekend of the Vancouver Olympics comes to a close on Sunday.

However, all eyes will be on the ice at Canada Hockey Place for the most anticipated preliminary round matchup of the men's ice hockey tournament between the United States and Canada.

It will mark the first Olympic game between the countries since Canada beat the U.S. in the 2002 gold medal game in Salt Lake City. The stakes will be smaller on Sunday as the teams are battling for the top spot in Group A.

Both clubs are 2-1 but the Americans hold a one-point lead because one of Canada's wins -- Thursday's shootout victory over Switzerland -- came after regulation. The winner of Sunday's game will receive a bye to the quarterfinals.

Also on Sunday, Alex Ovechkin and Team Russia will take on the Czech Republic and Finland will battle Sweden.

The women's ice hockey tournament takes a break on Sunday before the following day's semifinal matchups. The U.S. and Sweden will battle for one spot in Thursday's gold medal game, while Canada will take on Finland in the other semifinal.

The men's super combined is the biggest medal event Sunday and American skier Bode Miller will aim for his third medal of the Vancouver Games at Whistler Creekside.

Miller won silver Friday in the super-G, adding to the bronze medal he won earlier in the downhill. The four-time medalist has still never won Olympic gold, but could earn that elusive medal Sunday, especially if he turns in a strong run in the slalom portion of the event.

Ted Ligety won gold for the U.S. four years ago in the combined, but the format is different this time around. The Turin Olympics featured one downhill run and two slalom heats while the Vancouver Games has one less slalom race.

Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, who won gold in Friday's super-G, and downhill gold medalist Didier Defago of Switzerland are also considered favorites on Sunday. Svindal will try for his third medal of these Games after also earning a silver in the downhill.

American skier Andrew Weibrecht, winner of a surprise bronze in the super-G, will also be in the field Sunday.

Figure skating is also on Sunday's docket with the continuation of the ice dance competition at Pacific Coliseum.

Russian world champions Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin took the lead after Friday's compulsory skate and will try to build on that in Sunday's original dance segment. Domnina and Shabalin scored 43.76 points for first place, while Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir had 42.74 for second place.

Americans hold the next two spots. Meryl Davis and Charlie White were third with 41.47 points, while reigning Olympic silver medalists Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto were awarded 40.83 points for fourth.

Medals will be determined after the free dance on Monday.

Canada will aim for more speedskating hardware on Sunday in the women's 1,500 meters. Christine Nesbitt and Kristina Groves are the top two skaters in the world at the distance and both have won a medal already for the host country at Richmond Olympic Oval.

Nesbitt captured gold in the 1,000 and Groves was the bronze medalist in the 3,000. Brittany Schussler also has a shot at a medal for Canada.

Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic won gold in the 3,000 and should also compete for a medal in the 1,500. American skater Jennifer Rodriguez will skate in the last pairing with Nesbitt, but has only an outside chance at a medal.

Germany is in great position to win the first gold medal for bobsled at the Vancouver Games after posting the best two times in the opening heats for the two-man event. A winner will be determined Sunday after the third and fourth runs.

The German squad of Andre Lange and Kevin Kuske lead compatriots Thomas Florschuetz and Richard Adjei by just .11 seconds after Saturday's first two runs at Whistler Sliding Center. The American duo of Steven Holcomb and Curtis Tomasevicz are .62 seconds behind in fourth place.

Lange and Kuske won gold in this event at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

The last two individual biathlon events -- the men and women's mass starts -- take place on Sunday.

In the women's 12.5-kilometer race, Germany's Magdalena Neuner will aim for her third medal at these Games after claiming gold and silver in the pursuit and sprint events, respectively. Fellow German biathlete Kati Wilhelm has yet to win a medal here in Vancouver, but won three gold and three silver over the previous two Olympics.

While Germany comes in as a favorite on the women's side, Norway leads the way in the men's 15-km mass start. Emil Hegle Svendsen has a gold and silver already at the Vancouver Olympics. Countryman Ole Einar Bjoerndalen has 10 career medals but just one silver in this year's Games. Bjoerndalen, who won bronze in this event four years ago, has claimed gold in every biathlon competition except the mass start.

The remaining biathlon events at the Vancouver Olympics feature a relay on both the men and women's side.

The debut of Olympic ski cross -- freestyle skiing's version of snowboard cross -- will also take place on Sunday with the running of the men's competition. Just like snowboard cross, competitors will first race by themselves to qualify by time before moving into heats en route to a four-man final.

Past alpine skiing Olympians Casey Puckett and Daron Rahlves are on the U.S. team. Switzerland's Michael Schmid leads the field among the men, followed by Austrian Andreas Matt and Christopher Delbosco of Canada.

The curling tournament will continue round robin play with seven matches on the women's side and four in the men's bracket. The U.S. (2-4) will battle Great Britain (3-3) in men's round robin play. The American women, who are 2-3 after winning two straight, will have a pair of tough tests Sunday against Canada (4-0) and Sweden (4-1).

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ESPN - ESPN.com

Posted: 20 Feb 2010 10:13 PM PST

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sunday's North American hockey showdown between Team Canada and Team USA will grab most of the headlines, but it's not the only game in town. Here are our picks for the top events to watch:

Alpine Skiing: Men's Super Combined
This race, which combines the speed of downhill with the precision of slalom, was originally scheduled for this past Tuesday but was postponed because of snow. Sunny skies are in the forecast for Sunday, as skiers gear up for one run of downhill and one run of slalom at Whistler Creekside. American Bode Miller looks to earn his third medal -- and the U.S. Ski team's eighth -- in the event. He'll see stiff competition from Ivica Kostelic of Croatia, Austria's Benjamin Raich, Switzerland's Carlo Janka and super-G winner Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway. American Ted Ligety, who took home a surprise gold in this event in Torino, is also racing.

Two-Man Bobsled
Four more sleds -- from Canada, Australia, Great Britain and Liechtenstein -- crashed in the opening heats of the men's two-man bobsled on Whistler's ultra-fast track on Saturday night. Germany 1, piloted by defending champion Andre Lange, is in first place heading into the medal races Sunday afternoon, with countryman Thomas Florschuetz just 0.11 of a second behind. Russian Alexsandr Zubkov, American Steven Holcomb and Ivo Rueegg of Switzerland round out a tightly stacked top five. Holcomb, who nearly flipped his sled midway through his first run, is just 0.12 of a second out of medal position.

Figure Skating: Ice Dance Original Dance
Two American teams are within striking distance of a medal going into the second phase of the ice dance competition Sunday afternoon at Pacific Coliseum. Meryl Davis and Charlie White are in third place, while teammates Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto are fourth. Russia's Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin are in the lead, with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada in second. The original dance counts for about 30 percent of each team's overall score, with about 20 percent based on Friday's compulsory dance and about 50 percent on Monday's free skate.

Men's Ski Cross
The fact that U.S. athletes Casey Puckett and Daron Rahlves, the only members of Team USA, are competing Sunday morning is a story in itself. Puckett separated his left shoulder in a World Cup race in January and reinjured himself in a qualifying run at the Winter X Games two weeks later. The next day at Winter X, Rahlves dislocated his right hip for the fourth time in his career. Prior to this injury, Rahlves said the fastest he'd recovered from a hip dislocation was two months. This time, he had 21 days. Coming into the Games, Puckett and Rahlves, both former Olympic alpine skiers over the age of 35, were heavy medal favorites. Surprisingly, they still are.

Men's Ice Hockey: Russia vs. Czech Republic, Canada vs. USA, Sweden vs. Finland
Sunday's tripleheader is the best day of hockey at these Games that won't result in the awarding of a medal. All three tilts are huge rivalries, and they're also rematches of the past three Olympic gold medal games. Canada versus the U.S. and Sweden versus Finland are obvious border wars, while the Russian rivalry with the Czech Republic dates back to the former's occupation of the latter 40 years ago. But forget politics. These games pit skill against skill. Ovechkin vs. Jagr. Brodeur vs. Miller. Forsberg vs. Selanne. Grab your cowbells and hold on to your hats, this is going to be fun.

Speedskating: Women's 1,500m
Canadian fans are expecting nothing less than their first multiple-medal performance in Sunday's race at the Richmond Olympic Oval. Christine Nesbitt, the 1,000-meter gold medalist, is the obvious favorite for gold, but she has a fierce-but-friendly rivalry with countrywoman Kristina Groves in this event. Both have won a pair of 1,500m World Cup races this season. The only other skater to win one is Dutchwoman Ireen Wust, who also took bronze at the 2006 Olympics. She, along with Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic, will try to spoil Canada's party. However, if the home crowd is as inspiring as it's expected to be, a Canadian sweep is not out of the question. Winnipeg's Brittany Schussler is also a threat.

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Social media could get athletes too fired up - Norman Transcript

Posted: 20 Feb 2010 09:59 PM PST

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By John Fauber and Gary D'Amato The Norman Transcript

Norman — VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Racing down a ski hill or chasing a hockey puck is demanding enough, but the emergence of social media has created huge distractions that Olympians have never faced before.

"In Turin (the 2006 Winter Games) we were dealing mostly with e-mail," said sports psychologist Barbara Meyer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. "In 2002, it was mostly phones, like land lines."

But the popularity of Facebook, Twitter and texting can put an Olympic athlete just a few keystrokes from distractions that can hurt his or her performance, Meyer said from Vancouver, where she is working with eight Olympic athletes.

Her advice to several of them: Shut down the social media.

But coaches, even old school types who were around long before the Internet, realize that clamping down on social media is an uphill battle.

More than 80 U.S. athletes have Twitter accounts, with the highest numbers in speedskating, skiing, snowboarding and figure skating, according to the U.S. Olympic Committee.

"Tweeter? I'm still trying to figure that out," said Mark Johnson, coach of the U.S. women's hockey team and member of the men's "Miracle on Ice" team at the 1980 Winter Games. "It's a new world."

Johnson said coaches have to know their athletes and be willing to adapt to their needs.

"The athletes coming through our locker room now are much different than they were even 10 years ago," he said. "So are we equipped as coaches to be able to deal with it both on and off the ice, being in their world? We have to be willing to adapt."

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Williams gold heralds new ice age, say Brits - YAHOO!

Posted: 20 Feb 2010 09:02 PM PST

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WHISTLER, Canada (AFP) – Amy Williams's Olympic skeleton gold could herald a new dawn for winter sports in Britain, it was claimed on Saturday.

Despite Britain not having a sliding track, the 27-year-old managed to capture her country's first individual winter title since Robin Cousins claimed figure skating gold at Lake Placid in 1980.

The last time a British woman won an individual winter gold was figure skater Jeanette Altwegg in 1952.

"We talk about this being a dawn of a new era for winter sports and I think what Amy?s achieved will bring about that new dawn," said Britain's chef de mission Andy Hunt.

"For team Great Britain, it's been 58 years since someone's done this. It really is incredible."

Andreas Schmid, the performance director of the Great Britain skeleton team, praised Williams' ability to cope with pressure and her response when her rivals posted fast times on the fourth and final run.

"Everybody can imagine the Olympic Winter Games is very different to everything you do in your life," said Schmid, with British sliders winning skeleton bronze, silver and gold in consecutive Games.

"The pressure was there. But she had no nerves. We started with Alex Coomber's bronze in Salt Lake City 2002, then Shelley Rudman won the silver in Turin four years ago, and now gold.

"It's a big improvement for a country like the UK, this means a lot for the whole skeleton sport."

Williams said she hoped her win will inspire youngsters to take up the sport.

"Hopefully, it will encourage more kids to take up skeleton - to take up any sport," she said. "To realise you don't just have to stick to the normal sports."

For her family back in Cambridge, the party has started which looks set to continue until Williams flies home.

"I've spoken to my brother and sister who are now leading the party back home and spoken to a few friends," she said.

"They seem to be doing more media interviews than I am. I half wish I was back there sharing it all with them, but obviously I'm glad I'm here."

Having taken up the sport in 2002, Williams only made her Great Britain debut in 2003 and said her gold is also for all the people who helped her achieve her dream.

"Everyone believed in me more that I did in myself," she said.

"The medal is theirs as well, not only mine. I share it with all of you."

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