Olympic report
Medals race While the Vancouver Olympics aren’t finished, the medal races are — and in spectacular fashion for North Americans. The United States is guaranteed 37 medals and Canada will finish with at least 13 gold medals. Both are the best of these games and part of the greatest hauls ever at a Winter Olympics.
The Americans will leave with the most medals by any country at any Winter Games. They also will win the medal count for only the second time, the other being at Lake Placid in 1932. they have nine golds. The 37th American medal will come from the men’s hockey team. Whether it is gold or silver will be determined today.
Skiing American Bode Miller wasn’t able to add anything beyond the gold, silver and bronze he’d already won. He bailed out just a few gates into the slalom, a casualty of “grabby” snow that bedeviled a slew of skiers. Miller is one of only five men to get three Alpine medals at a games, a record performance for a U.S. skier. His five career Olympic medals are tied for second on the career list behind Norway’s Kjetil Andre Aamodt, who has eight. Giuliano Razzoli won, giving Italy its first Alpine medal in the Winter Games in 16 years.
•In the women’s 30K classical race, Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk beat Norway’s Marit Bjoergen in a photo finish. Kowalczyk, the World Cup leader, now has a medal of each color. Bjoergen has five medals in Vancouver; nobody else has four.
Hockey Finland won the bronze medal in hockey, rallying from a late two-goal deficit for a 5-3 victory over Slovakia. Olli Jokinen scored the tying and go-ahead goals.
Speedskating American Chad Hedrick and a pair of 19-year-old teammates couldn’t keep up with the Canadians, finishing with silver in the men’s team pursuit. He goes out with five medals in five events, joining Eric Heiden as the only American men to win that many at the oval.
•Germany repeated as the gold winners in women’s team pursuit, edging Japan by two-hundredths of a second in the final after escaping the semifinals with Anni Friesinger-Postma’s belly slide across the line to beat the Americans. Poland claimed the bronze, overcoming the United States when Catherine Raney-Norman couldn’t keep up with teammates Jennifer Rodriguez and Jilleanne Rookard. They crossed ahead of the Poles, but the time only counts when all three skaters finish.
Snowboarding Seven-time World Cup champion Jasey Jay Anderson carved through the rain-sluiced, fogged-in course to take down Austria’s Benjamin Karl, the top-ranked rider in the world, in the men’s parallel giant slalom. It was his first Olympic medal in four tries, adding it to his four world championship golds.
Curling Eight years ago in Salt Lake City, Kevin Martin’s final stone went an inch too far and the Canadians lost the gold medal to the Norwegians. This time, with a sellout crowd singing the national anthem, Martin’s final stone didn’t matter in Canada’s 6-3 win. Switzerland swept past Sweden for the men’s bronze medal.