Day 15 proves to be golden for Canada

On Day 15 of the Olympic Games, Canada would face victory and defeat on way to collecting four medals. In men’s short track alone three medals were won, two of them gold. While in curling, silver came as a disappointment as gold slipped away. The medal count is now at 21, with a Canadian Winter Olympic record ten golds.

Short Track

In what had been a disappointing showing in the Olympics, the men’s short track team put together a golden effort on Friday.

First in the men’s 500m event, Charles Hamelin would inspiringly skate to the gold while Francois-Louis Tremblay rounded out the podium winning bronze.

Korea’s Yoon-Gy Kwak won silver as American Apolo Anton Ohno was disqualified for an illegal contact ruling, he has protested the disqualification.

This would prove to be the appetizer as later that evening the men’s 5000m relay team provided a memorable performance on way to winning gold. Both Hamelin and Tremblay would have a hand in the strategically won race, washing away any critics with a fantastic finish.

The strong contingent from Korea took the silver, narrowly edging the U.S., featuring Ohno in what could’ve been his last race in Olympic competition.

Also winning medals were China’s Meng Wang who won gold in the ladies’ 1000m event.

Katherine Reutter of the U.S. claimed silver while Korean, Seung-Hi Park, won bronze.

Curling

Cheryl Bernard of Canada gave away a two score lead in the tenth end, leading to a loss to Sweden and skip Anette Norberg. Bernard held a 6-4 advantage in the tenth end and possessed the hammer, but on her final throw the game would take a turn for the worse.  A crucial miss to close out the tenth end forced an eleventh end where Norberg led her team to gold once again, winning 7-6.

Earlier in the day China would obtain their first ever medal in an Olympic curling event as they defeated Switzerland 12-6 in only eight ends to take home the bronze.

Hockey

Canada can get redemption for their loss to the U.S. earlier in the tournament, as they will meet the Americans in a game for the ages gold medal matchup. Holding off a late Slovakian push allowed Canada to get by with a 3-2 victory.

More impressively the U.S. needed just the first period to dispose of Finland, scoring six in the opening frame en route to a 6-1 dismantling. With both teams with lots to prove, Sunday’s game should be prove to be nothing less than a classic.

Speed Skating

After the first two rounds of men’s team pursuit, Canada set two Olympic records on way to qualify for the gold medal race against the U.S. on Saturday. In the quarter-final run the Canadians put up an Olympic record of 3:42.38 and it would only take their next run for them to beat that mark posting a time of 3:42.22.

In the bronze medal race Norway will face-off against the Netherlands.

The strong performances by the Canadian women’s team didn’t continue on Friday afternoon as they failed to qualify for the semi-finals of the team pursuit event.

Qualifying for the two semi-final heats were Japan who will be matched against Poland and Germany who will face the U.S.

Alpine Skiing

A double- gold medalist was crowned in women`s alpine skiing at Whistler Creekside and it wasn’t American favourite Lindsey Vonn. Instead Maria Riesch of Germany found her way to the top of the podium for the second time at these games.

Marlies Schild of Austria would add to her Olympic medal collection, having won bronze in this event in Turin in 2006, finishing 0.43 seconds back of Riesch to come away with silver.

Finishing 1:01 seconds back would be bronze medalist Sarka Zahrobska of the Czech Republic.

Snowboarding

In the ladies’ parallel giant slalom at Cypress Mountain, Nicolien Sauerbreiji of the Netherlands took gold, the first snowboard medal ever won by her nation.

Coming behind Sauerbreiji was 22-year-old Russian Ekaterina Ilyukhina, finishing just 0.23 second back.

Marion Kreiner of Austria would win the small final beating out Germany’s Selina Joerg, to claim the bronze.

Biathlon

Veteran biathlete, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen of Norway, led the Norwegian 4×7.5km relay team to gold. This marks his 11th medal, second of these Games and sixth gold, on his trek to become the most decorated winter Olympian.

The silver and bronze medals were separated by a mere 0:00.2 seconds and would go to the Austrian and Russian teams respectively.

About this article

By: Umar Ali
Posted: Feb 27 2010 12:35 pm
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Filed under: Winter Games