The drive and determination. The hard work and endless hours of practice. All of it done to be thrust into the heavens as an Olympic god. Now that the Winter Olympics are over, the Olympians are done competing for a chance to get onto the podium and become an Olympic legend.
The United States Olympic team strutted into competition, with one of the largest teams in Olympic history. Team USA sported a total of 230 athletes in 15 events. Team USA came home with 9 gold medals, 7 silver medals and 12 bronze medals, with an overall grand total of 28 medals.
The athletes that won gold include Ted Ligety in Giant Slalom, Mikaela Shiffrin in Women’s Slalom, David Wise in Men’s Halfpipe, Joss Christensen in Men’s Ski Slopestyle, Maddie Bowman in Women’s Halfpipe, Meryl Davis and Charlie White in Ice Dancing, Sage Kotsenburg in Men’s Slopestyle and Kaitlyn Farrington and Jamie Anderson in Women’s Slopestyle.
The athletes that won silver were Andrew Weibrecht in Men’s Super-G, Elana Meyers and Laurvn Williams in Women’s Two-Man Bobsled, Gus Kenworthy in Men’s Ski Slopestyle, Devin Logan in Women’s Ski Slopestyle, the women’s hockey team, Noelle Pikus-Pace in Women’s Skeleton; Jordan Malone, J.R. Celski, Eddy Alvarez and Christopher Creveling in the 5000 Men’s Relay in Short Track.
The athletes that won bronze were Bode Miller in Men’s Super-G, Julia Mancuso in Women’s Super-Combined, Steven Holcomb and Steve Langton in Two-Man Bobsled, Steven Holcomb along with Curtis Tomasevics, Steve Langton and Chris Fogt, in Mans Four-Man Bobsled, Jaime Greubel and Aia Evans in Women’s Two-Man Bobsled, Nick Goepper in Men’s Ski Slopestyle, Erin Hamlin in Women’s Luge, Alex Deibold in Men’s Snowboard Cross, Kelly Clark in Women’s Halfpipe, Matt Antoine in Men’s Skeleton and Hannah Kearney Women’s Moguls. Gracie Gold, Ashley Wagner, Jeremy Abbot, Jason Brown, Marissa Castelli, Simon Shnapir, Meryl Davis and Charlie White also won bronze in the first ever team ice skating event.
Overall, these Olympic games were meant for the younger generation of athletes. Most of the medals were won by the less known younger athletes.
There were also a lot of shockers for the U.S. The U.S. Speed Skating team was expected to be a top competitor in almost all events going into the Olympics, but they were shut out from getting any medals at all. Another shocker was Shaun White, who was on his way to making Olympic history by winning gold in a single event three times in a row, yet came home empty handed. Overall the U.S. came in second to the host, Russia, in overall medals.
