Winter Olympics Part V: Sochi Wrap-Up

There were a number of amazing things about the Sochi Winter Olympics, here's a short list of stuff you should know.

Alright, this is it, the last Olympics post! (At least until the Summer Olympics in 2016. Rio, yeah! But I digress.) Before I get back to my regularly scheduled program of international myths, mystery, and history (Hey! I have a regularly scheduled program!), here are the highlights of the XXII Winter Olympics.

New Events
Twelve new events were introduced at Sochi:

• Men and Women's Ski Half-Pipe
• Men and Women's Snowboard Slopestyle
• Men and Women's Ski Slopestyle
• Men and Women's Snowboard Parallel Slalom
• Women's Ski Jumping
• Biathalon Mixed Relay
• Figure Skating Team
• Luge Team Relay

Women's Ski Jumping was an early favorite, won by Carina Vogt of Germany. The Figure Skating Team was also a hit, with Russia taking the Gold, Canada the silver, and the US the bronze, while the world enjoyed a preview of the individual events to come.

Carina Vogt (German), who won the first ever Olympic Gold in Women's Ski Jump (by Manugf [Wikimedia Commons])

US Ice Dancing Gold Medal
 Meryl Davis and Charlie White gave the US their first Gold medal in Ice Dancing, skating to music from "My Fair Lady" in the Short Dance and Scheherazade in the Free Dance. The pair have been skating together for 17 years.

Meryl Davis and Charlie White at the 2011 World Figure Skating Championships (photo by Luu [Wikimedia Commons])

Men's Snowboard Half-pipe
American favorite Shaun White finished fourth in Men's Half-pipe after a pair of runs that were decidedly less than his best (in his defense, he is coming back from a back injury). Iouri Podladtchikov, competing for Switzerland, landed the Gold and flipped his way into superstardom.

*There were numerous concerns about the safety and suitability of the half-pipe, as there have been about several other courses at Sochi.

US Bobsled
The Men's two-man team grabbed the bronze medal, the first medal for the US Men's two-man since 1952.
The Women's two-woman bobsled teams claimed both silver and bronze, behind Canada's gold. This is the first time the US has had two teams medal.
The first run of the four-man team (a men's only event) will happen on the 22nd with the gold medal run happening on the 23rd (at 4:30am E if you're brave enough to watch it live).


Women's Hockey: US vs. Canada
After a loss to the Canadians for Gold in the 2010 Winter Olympics, the US women's hockey team was more than ready for a rematch. They faced Canada in the gold medal match on the 20th, but Canada pulled out a win in overtime, relegating US to the Silver.

The US Men's Hockey team will face Canada in the semifinals today at Noon E. and the gold medal match will happen on the 23rd.

The Olympics will finish up this Sunday, the 23rd. With the way the standings have been fluctuating, I'm not quite sure which country will come out on top, though Russia, the US, Norway, Canada, and the Netherlands seem to have been fighting it out for the last week or so to top the medal counts. Then, of course, there's Germany and Switzerland... I give up. Go Team USA!

So there's my recap, consisting, I will admit, mostly of what I was paying attention to. :) What were your favorite parts of the games?