Albertville. Lillehammer. Nagano. Salt Lake City. Turin. Vancouver. Sochi. What do those cities have in common? Aside from them being the hosts for the Winter Games dating back to 1992, They are also all Games which have featured Noriaki Kasai in ski-jumping. That's right, the man who turned 41 years old back in June is still competing in the Games this year. There are Olympians who weren't even born yet when Kasai started competing(including Team USA's dancing Luger Kate Hansen), which makes his age and the fact that he's still competing(and not suffering Plushenko-style breakdowns)really impressive. And not only did he still compete, he competed well, taking the Silver Medal, which was his first Individual medal(he won Silver as part of a Team in 1994).
Moving over to the Bolshoy Ice Dome, we've got some Hockey to talk about. Now it wasn't for the Gold Medal, but when you put USA and Russia up against each other, it's always going to be a hot ticket. And today was no exception. The two teams battled to a 2-2 tie at the end of Regulation, though that was only preserved by virtue of a Russian goal being waved off at the end of the period. So, it was on to overtime. After the scoreless overtime period, they moved to shootouts. At that point, T.J. Oshie skated out and finally scored the game-winning goal, moving Team USA to victory. Now it was only a match in Group play, so it wasn't as important as 1980 was, but there was one familiar face there. Al Michaels was calling the game on NBC. Yup, that Al Michaels.
Speaking of improbable and frankly insane finishes, let's go back to the Adler Arena for more Speed Skating. The Men's 1500 Meter race was contested, and this was the next big shot for Shani Davis to repeat as an Olympic Champion. Much had been made about the uniforms used by Team USA and their supposed inequities, and they received special dispensation to replace them with a better model. Alas, that did not seem to work, as both Davis and Brian Hansen finished off of the podium, in 11th and 7th place respectively. But that wasn't the most gripping tale to come out of the 1500 Meter. No, that comes to us courtesy of the uber-photo finish between Zbigniew Bródka and Koen Verweij. The two skaters finished so closely that it was initially called a tie, until the timing was reviewed and Bródka was declared the winner by three one-thousandths of a second.
The sport of Speed Skating wasn't done giving us Olympic moments though, and for that we head to the Iceberg for the Short Track heats. Victor Ahn was in the midst of trying to reclaim the Olympic glory that had eluded him, and had already captured a Bronze medal, when the 1000 Meter came up. After a well-fought battle, Ahn finally had Olympic Gold. So regardless of how old you may think you are, the Olympic dream is never totally out of reach. Just ask Victor Ahn and Noriaki Kasai.
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