An Alpine Phenom, Speed Skating, and a Denial of Gold: Sochi Day 16

     Okay everybody, our first stop in Sochi are the mountains of Rosa Khutor, where we spend our final day out on the slopes taking in the Women's Slalom heat.  There were many athletes demanding our attention on the slopes, but the one with the most hype coming in was 18-year old American Mikaela Shiffrin, who was in Sochi for her first Olympics.  However, the field was quite deep, and Shiffrin wouldn't be facing a walk in the park on the run-throughs.  The first big contender was Maria Hofl-Riesch, coming in defense of her Vancouver Gold in the Slalom, as well as coming off of a Gold in the Super Combined in Sochi.  Not just that, but the field also contained the formidable Tina Maze, who was coming off of several dominant performances in the Games.  After the heats had all been run, Shiffrin came away the winner of the event, giving all of us a tantalizing taste of Olympic skill that we should see for years to come.

     Moving on to Speed Skating, we started off with the Men's Team Pursuit.  The Quarterfinal round of this sport saw the Dutch taking on the French, in a contest that wasn't even close from the start.  The Dutch ended finishing 8.6 seconds ahead of the French, in a victory so dominant that the Dutch nearly ran a whole lap ahead of the French by the end of the race, proving once again that the Dutch are unstoppable.  Needless to say, the Dutch wound up winning the event.  Going back to the Iceberg for the Short Track Events, we saw the Men's 5,000 Meter Relay.  This sport is something else, as it has teams of 5 from each country in a relay format.  How it works is that one of the skaters goes around the track while the other skaters warm up on the inside track.  Then after a certain number of laps, the next guy up skates up behind the returning skater and gives him a push on the back to send him on his way.  When you actually look at it, it can get quite chaotic.
     The final highlight of the day was the big hockey game between USA and Canada.  We were out for blood after our loss in the 2010 Final, and we fought the good fight.  Alas, we ended up losing, but never fear, we'll be back in 2018.