The USA won 9 gold medals, 8 silver medals, 6 bronze medals and 23 medals overall, which placed them 4th behind, Norway, Germany and Canada but in front of the Netherlands, who finished 5th in the medal count. This was a disappointing result in overall medals won. The USA won 28 total medals in Sochi 2014 and 37 total medals in Vancouver 2010. The decline in total medals won should worry the United States Olympic Committee(USOC). There were several 4th place finishes by USA athletes, however. Russia was banned in country name only, as they were known as the Olympic Athletes from Russia(OAR). OAR won 17 medals with 169 athletes and the USA won 23 total medals with 242 athletes participating. Norway set a winter Olympics Games record with 39 total medals with 14 gold, 14 silver and 11 bronze, while Germany won 31 total medals, including 14 gold, 10 silver and 7 bronze. Canada did well too with 11 gold, 8 silver and 10 bronze for a total of 29 total medals and the Netherlands finished with 8 gold, 6 silver and 6 bronze for a total of 20 total medals. I will be reviewing the USA's performance in several winter sports in the next several sections.
The USA Ski/Snowboard Slopesyle/Halfpipe/Big Air team did very well at these games, winning 11 medals. Gold medals were won by Jamie Anderson in women's Snowboard Slopestyle for the second straight Olympics. There were only 2 runs instead of the usual 3 runs, the last run was cancelled due to high winds. Anderson also won silver(Last run by Austria's Anna Gasser beat Jamie Anderson for gold) in women's Snowboard Big Air. In Big Air, the totals of the best two of three runs are added together so a bad or incomplete run can really ruin medal chances unlike Slopestyle where only the best run is counted from the three runs. Red Gerard won gold in men's Snowboard Slopestyle and Kyle Mack won silver in men's Snowboard- Big Air. Shaun White was sensational in winning gold in men's Snowboard Halfpipe. White was in silver medal position at the end of the second run and White scored a 97.75 to win gold- his 3rd gold in Halfpipe(2006,2010 and 2018). Chloe Kim was another star for the USA, winning gold with a 98.25 score in women's Snowboard Halfpipe. Kim wrapped up the gold by her second run with a score of 93.75 and amazed the crowd and myself with a score of 98.25 on her final run. Arielle Gold won bronze in the Halfpipe for the USA. Nick Goepper won silver in men's ski Slopestyle and David Wise and Alex Ferreira go gold/silver in men's ski Halfpipe. Also Brita Sigourney won bronze in women's ski Halfpipe. The USA did not medal in men's and women's Snowboard Cross, however.
The USA did reasonably well at Alpine Skiing, winning 3 medals. Mikaela Shiffrin won two medals, gold in women's Giant Slalom and silver in women's Combined. Lindsey Vonn, in what probably was her last games, won bronze in women's Downhill but failed to medal in women's Combined. Several Alpine events were postponed due to high winds and Mikaela Shiffrin pulled out of the women's downhill to concentrate on the Slalom. In a big disappointment, Ted Ligety failed to medal at these games.
In the Luge/Skeleton/Bobsled Events, the USA won 2 medals as Chris Mazdzer won silver in men's Luge and Elena Meyers Taylor/Lauren Gibbs won silver in women's 2-man Bobsled. The USA did not win any medals in Skeleton and men's 2 and 4-man Bobsled.
Figure Skating was a disappointment, except for the USA team bronze medal and Ice Dance bronze medal. On the men's side, USA figure skater and gold medal favorite Nathan Chen had a not so good performance in the team event but his USA teammates picked him up. Chen flubbed the men's short program, falling on one occasion and suffered two stumbles on jumps. Chen failed to land a quad lutz and the reaction on his face after that performance said it all. Chen ended the short program in 17th place but after an incredible performance in the Free Skate in which Chen landed 5 of 6 quads, Chen won the Free Skate Program but finished 5th overall behind Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, who won gold for the second straight Olympics. Chen was the first to try 6 quads and land 5 quads in Olympic history. Chen won a bronze medal in the team event. Vincent Zhou was impressive in this Olympics debut, finishing right behind Nathan Chen in 6th Place and Adam Rippon was impressive as well finishing in 10th place but did not have any quads in his program. Rippon was flawless!
On the women's side, all three USA figure skaters, Bradie Tennell, Mirai Nagasu and Karen Chen fell on their first attempted jumps in the short program and fell out of medal contention. Tennell, Nagasu and Chen finished 9th, 10th and 11th respectively behind 15 year old OAR skater Alina Zagitova who edged out Evgenia Medvedeva of OAR for gold.
Zagitova back ended her Free Skate with all of her jumps and got a 10 percent bonus on each successful jump. Zagitova was more technical while Medvedeva was more graceful in their Free Skate performances. Each had an identical score in the Free Skate at 156.65.
In the Pairs program, Alexa Scimeca Knierim/Chris Knierim finished 15th of 16 skaters but won bronze in the team event.
American Ice Dancers did well with the sister/brother team of Maia Shibutani/Alex Shibutani winning bronze as part of the team competition and in the Ice Dance competition behind spectacular performances from Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir of Canada, who won gold and silver medalists Gabriella Papadakis/Guillaume Cizeron of France. The Shibutani's finished 2nd in Ice Dance in the team competition. The other two American Ice Dancers, Madison Hubbell/Zach Donohue finished 4th and Madison Chock/Evan Bates finished 9th after a heartbreaking fall in the Free Skate program.
In the team competition, Mirai Nagasu was the first American female skater to land a triple Axel at the Olympics and won bronze in the team event. The USA finished behind Canada who won gold and OAR won silver.
One of the most incredible moments for the USA at the Olympics was the USA women's Ice Hockey Team winning gold over Canada 3-2 in a shootout. It was the first win for team USA's women's Ice Hockey team since 1998 over Canada. American goalie Maddie Rooney saved the last shot by Canada in the shootout to secure the gold for the USA women.
In a first for the USA, Kikkan Randall and Jessica Diggins secured the first gold medal in winter Olympics history in Cross Country Skiing. They won gold in the Team Sprint Free Event.
Another great moment of these games was in Curling as I stayed up to watch the USA men's Curling team beat Sweden 10-7. It aired from 1:30 am to nearly 5 am on February 24. Team Shuster(John Shuster, Matt Hamilton, John Landsteiner and Tyler George) started out 2-4 and won their last 4 matches, including two matches over Canada and Great Britain and beat Sweden to win gold. The USA was tied 5-5 vs Sweden and scored 5 points in the 8th end to seal the gold medal.
Speed Skating was a major disappointment for the second straight Olympics. Speed Skating was dominated by Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands. The USA won only two medals, John-Henry Krueger won silver in Short Track men's 1000M and Heather Bergsma, Brittany Bowe and Mia Manganello won bronze in women's Team Pursuit. JR Celski and Shani Davis did not win any medals for the USA in Speed Skating. Maame Biney, a 17 year old first time Olympian, amazed us with her infectious smile and laugh but fell short in winning a medal at these games.
The biggest controversy at these games was even through Russia was allowed to compete as Olympic Athletes from Russia, two OAR athletes tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Two Russian Curlers, Aleksandr Krushelnitckii and Anastasia Bryzgalova had to forfeit their bronze medal in mixed gender Curling. Also Russian Bobsledder Nadezhda Sergeeva was facing doping violations as well. The IOC did not reinstate Russia until after the games were finished which meant that Russia could not march in the closing ceremony under their own flag.
As far as predictions go, I had the order wrong of the first three countries. I had Germany first with 39 total medals, Norway second with 37 total medals, the USA third with 34 total medals, Canada 4th with
30 total medals and the Netherlands 5th with 23 total medals. The actual order was Norway with 39 total medals, Germany with 31 total medals, Canada with 29 total medals, the USA with 23 total medals and the Netherlands with 20 total medals. I was off by 2 total medals on Norway(39 actual vs 37 predicted) and one total medal on Canada (30 predicted vs 29 actual). I was off by 11 medals on the USA (34 predicted vs 23 actual) but exactly 100 percent correct in predicting that OAR would win 17 medals or less(they won 17, minus the Curling medal). I was off by 3 medals on the Netherlands (23 predicted vs 20 actual) but off 8 total medals on Germany(39 predicted vs 31 actual).
The only correct predictions in USA Olympians winning medals are Mikaela Shiffrin winning gold, Jamie Anderson winning gold and Chloe Kim winning gold.
I was incorrect in predicting that USA Olympians Nathan Chen would win gold in men's Figure Skating and Lindsey Vonn winning gold in Alpine Skiing. I predicted gold medals for Maddie Bowman, Gus Kenworthy, Heather Bergsma, Brittany Bowe and Maia/Alex Shibutani, I was incorrect on all these predictions.
I was incorrect that Shaun White would win silver or bronze, Ted Ligety would win silver or bronze, Madison Chock/Evan Bates would win silver or bronze, Mirai Nagasu would win silver or bronze, Kelly Clark would win silver or bronze, Shani Davis would win silver or bronze, Jr Celski would win silver or bronze, Erin Hamlin would win silver or bronze, Katie Uhlaender would win silver or bronze and Lindsey Jacobellis would win silver or bronze.
NBC's coverage was a bit better than Rio 2016. The opening ceremony was taped for airing on NBC at 8 pm, nearly 14 hours after it occurred but was streamed live online at 6 am. During the parade of nations commercials were frequent, every 4-7 minutes. Actually NBC showed USA athlete interviews from 8 pm to 8:45 pm and then showed the opening ceremony. At least, NBC streamed the opening ceremony live online, which is an improvement over Rio 2016 when NBC forced viewers to see NBC's coverage taped, no live streaming of the opening ceremony was made available by NBC online for the Rio games. NBC did the same thing for the closing ceremony, as I watched it streamed live on NBCOlympics.com at 6 am on February 25 and NBC aired it from 8:30 pm to 10:30pm tape delayed. NBC started airing Olympic gold from 7:30 pm until 8:30 pm as a lead in to the closing ceremony.
NBC showed mostly live Olympic events like Figure Skating, Alpine Skiing and Ski/Snowboard Slopesyle/Halfpipe/Big Air. There were some taped events shown in prime time in the sliding and speed skating events. There was a few controversies on NBC's coverage. Figure Skating has been completely covered by NBC in past winter games but in these games the NBC Sports Network aired entire evenings of figure skating while NBC showed only the last group of skaters or just aired American skaters. Viewers were outraged. NBC instead showed Alpine skiing training runs and medal events like Downhill and Slalom races.
NBC also made a major mistake in declaring the incorrect winner of the women's Super G skiing race on February 18. NBC's Dan Hicks declared Anna Vieth of Austria the winner when Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic won instead. Hicks called it for Vieth with more than half of the skiers remaining by saying that Cornella Huetter of Austria was the last skier to compete that had any chance at winning a medal. Ledecka won gold by .001 of a second. NBC then switched coverage to men's figure skating a few minutes later still believing Vieth was the winner. Upon coming back from skating, NBC interviewed USA skier Lindsey Vonn and acknowledged she finished 5th, when Vonn actually finished 6th. Dan Hicks of NBC made the mistake several times in declaring Veith the winner and promised an interview with Veith, which never materialized. It took an hour for NBC to realize its mistake.
I finally found out who was the color analyst on NBC's bobsled coverage, its John Morgan, Morgan is a former bobsledder who has been covering bobsled since the 1984 Sarajevo games. It is John Morgan's 5th winter Olympics with NBC. Morgan was paired with Leigh Diffey, who did play by play of all of the sliding sports at these games. I like how excitable John Morgan gets when doing color commentating. Todd Harris did very well at announcing the snowboarding sports. The term " dropping in" is one of my favorites to describing an athletes turn to compete. The Figure Skating team of Terry Gannon, Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir were outstanding. Gannon is soft spoken and Lipinski and Weir were not afraid to criticize skaters when they made mistakes. I love the term "kiss and cry" area where skaters wait to get their scores. The skaters usually sit with their coaches and can be quite emotional hence the term "kiss and cry." I love the fashion statements both Lipinski and Weir made as they tried to transfer some of it to Gannon. The trio were tapped to narrate the closing ceremonies and it was an improvement over past closing ceremonies narration. They talked less over the ceremony. Every NBC play by play announcer/color commentator I saw did very well, even Dan Hicks and Bode Miller, who covered skiing, despite the mistake by Hicks. There were comments made on social media about how monotone Bode Miller was but I found Miller to be quite knowledgeable about skiing runs and angles to take on a run. Rebecca Lowe, Liam HcHugh, Carolyn Manno and Ahmed Fareed all were good hosts on NBCSN. Lastly, Mike Tirico did great as host on NBC's prime time broadcasts and late night broadcasts.
The last topic I want to talk about is declining Olympics ratings on NBC. These games had some of the lowest ratings of any winter Olympics, especially the last week. The opening ceremonies drew an audience of 27.8 million viewers. This was down 5 million viewers from the opening ceremonies of the Sochi games. Audiences started out at close to 20 million viewers a night the first few nights of the games and ended with 11 million viewers the last night of the games. Close to 15 million viewers watched the closing ceremonies. NBC averaged 17.8 million viewers a night and combined with NBCSN the average is 19.8 million viewers a night and that includes online streaming as well. Those figures are off 7% from the Sochi games which had an average audience of 21.3 million viewers a night across all platforms. I believe the ratings decline can be blamed on 3 things equally, NBC's coverage, more events streaming and fewer younger people watching the Olympics. Viewers want completely live Olympics and are sick of the commercials. There are too many commercials and that turns off viewers. I read the NBC fail hashtag on twitter throughout the games and lots of coverage complaints means viewers are turning the games off. Also complaints of talking over the ceremonies and coverage gaffes like Dan Hicks, turn viewers off. They complain about too many fluff pieces on USA athletes and choosing to air something in place of something else(NBCSN Figure Skating vs NBC Alpine Skiing.) The past few Olympics have included more and more live streaming events and that could cut down on the ratings of NBC viewership on television. I feel younger viewers aren't into watching the games like viewers over 50 years old, like I am. I've watched every Olympics since the 1984 summer games.
I enjoyed watching/blogging these games, on to Tokyo 2020!
