Contact

Map

Volume 47: 
Winter Olympics Special

Page 1: Alpine Skiing, Biathlon, Curling, Figure Skating
Page 2: Freestyle Skiing, Ice Hockey, Nordic Skiing
Page 3: Sliding Events (Bobsled, Skeleton, Luge), Snowboarding, Speed Skating

With the recent technical difficulties here at Informative Sports, we unfortunately missed bringing all you loyal readers up to date last week on all the action from around the globe. Since the last column on January 21, we've seen both the Australian Open and the African Cup of Nations crown their respective champions. The Winter Olympics are drawing ever closer as Vancouver scrambles to maintain its snow and out the finishing touches on every detail prior to the opening ceremonies. The knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League loom on the horizon. And cycling kicked off its 2010 season in Australia with the Tour Down Under...  

In this interim period I have also broken ground on my most ambitious project yet as a writer. Throughout the year, I intend to chronicle all the biggest sports events from tennis, cycling, soccer, the Olympics and all the other disciplines less familiar to American audiences. If all goes according to plan and I stay focused through the next eleven months, A Non-Traditional Sports Fan in America's 2010 Almanac will be in print and available sometime early next year. It will contain all the results and stats from the events accompanied by my commentary -- both what you read in this weekly column and in the Non-Traditional Sports World as well as exclusive material. I would love to hear from anyone and everyone to gauge interest and take suggestions about the project...  

But enough about me... it has been far too long since one of these has come online, and there is too much to cover in the wide world of sports to keep ranting about myself. So buckle up -- we are going to get up to speed on every discipline about to take place in Vancouver in this special extended Olympic preview edition of A Non-Traditional Sports Fan in America!

ALPINE SKIING

Didier Cuche, winner of four World Cup events this season including both the downhill and Super G events in Kitzbuhel on the infamous Hahnenkamm weekend, is recovering after a crash at the World Cup events in Kranjska Gora , Slovenia the last weekend of January. Cuche -- who along with Carlo Janka, Didier Defago and Silvan Zurbriggen will lead a stacked Swiss Alpine team to Whistler Creekside -- was forced to have surgery in Zurich after breaking his left thumb in the giant slalom. Cuche has been given the medical go-ahead to resume training mere days before the Olympic downhill is due to take place. While he will be able to contend for a medal, the best chances might reside with the 23-year-old Janka. Bursting onto the scene last year with a gold in the giant slalom and a bronze in the downhill at the 2009 World Championships at Val d’Isere, Janka has carried his momentum into the 2009-10 World Cup season with a sweep of the Beaver Creek opener and a monumental victory on home soil in the downhill on the fearsome Lauberhorn in Wengen. Either of these two men (or their compatriots Zurbriggen and Defago, 8th and 12th in the World Cup standings respectively) will be a huge threat in the downhill on February 13.

On the women’s side, American hopes are flying high as Lindsey Vonn remains on pace for a third consecutive World Cup overall title ahead of Vancouver. Vonn earned her 25th career World Cup victory in the super combined competition at Val d’Isere. The most fascinating detail of Vonn’s victory is the fact that she raced the downhill portion of the combined on a pair of men’s downhill skis. While this may seem like an unfair advantage, the reality is that there is no stipulation on race equipment which can be used by the women. For years conventional wisdom held that the skis were simply too long and too heavy for women to carve effectively upon. And for years, that conventional wisdom was true. But over the summer Vonn worked with her husband, former U.S. ski team member Thomas, to become familiarized with the longer, heavier equipment. It started on slalom and giant slalom skis... and now Vonn has progressed to the point where she can propel her 5’10” frame down a slope even faster than she could before. It should be interesting to see how many of her female competitors experiment with longer equipment in Vancouver ...

Men’s Favorites: Carlo Janka (SUI), Benjamin Raich (AUT), Didier Cuche (SUI), Ted Ligety (USA), Ivica Kostelic (CRO), Marcel Hirscher (AUT), Aksel Lund Svindal (NOR)

Women’s Favorites: Lindsey Vonn (USA), Kathrin Zettel (AUT), Maria Riesch (GER), Anja Parson (SWE), Fabienne Suter (SUI), Tina Maze (SLO), Ingrid Jacquemod (FRA)

BIATHLON

Even the most diehard of Winter Olympic fans in the United States usually pays little heed to the biathlon events. The sport, which combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting, has never seen a single American win an Olympic medal in any of its disciplines. Traditionally dominated by the Eastern European and Scandinavian nations, there is finally a reason as Vancouver nears for American fans to turn their attention toward the events transpiring at Whistler Olympic Park over the Olympic fortnight.

After decades of futility, the Americans finally have a legitimate contender to medal in the biathlon. The first Yankee ever to wear the yellow bib of the Biathlon World Cup points leader earlier this season, Tim Burke has been solid all season long. He took second in the 20km individual competition at the season opener in Ostersund , Sweden on December 3 and followed it up on December 5 with another podium placing, finishing third in the 10km sprint. Two weeks later, he took two more top-ten placings in the 10km sprint and 12.5km pursuit at the third World Cup event in Pokljuka , Slovenia . Maintaining his hot streak into the new year, Burke notched his second silver finish of the season in a World Cup event when he was runner-up in the first mass start of the season in Oberhof , Germany on January 10. He would hold the leader’s bib just one week, starting to slump as soon as he was the front-runner and ceding the lead the next weekend in Ruhpolding , Germany .

Despite the downturn in results that has seen Burke slip to fifth in the overall World Cup standings, the American still has a legitimate shot to give his countrymen something to celebrate in Vancouver . Burke will need to work on his shooting accuracy, especially from a standing position -- he has never finished a World Cup campaign with a total accuracy above 80%, the benchmark number that traditionally divides the successful from the failures. While he improved to 86% accuracy last season from a prone position, while standing he still strikes on less than 70% of his targets. An inspired shooting effort in Whistler could net him the United States ’ first Olympic medal in the biathlon. Watch for Burke in the 10km sprint on February 14, the 12.5km pursuit on February 16, the 20km individual race on February 18 and in the 15km mass start on February 21 -- any one of these four events could be the one in which Burke cracks the American curse and lands on the podium...

Others to watch for: Simon Fourcade (FRA), Evgeny Ustyugov (RUS), Christoph Sumann (AUT), Arnd Peiffer (GER), Ole Einar Bjorndalen (NOR)

Favorites on the women’s side: Helena Jonsson (SWE), Andrea Henkel (GER), Kati Wilhelm (GER), Olga Medvedtseva (RUS), Teja Gregorin (SLO)

CURLING

David Murdoch, the Scottish skip and captain of the Great Britain squad at the Olympics, has his sights set on finally making some noise on the Olympic level after having lost the bronze-medal match to the Americans in Torino in 2006. Since that time, he won World Championships with Scotland in 2006 and 2008 and European Championships in 2007 and 2008. Despite managing just a fourth-place finish on home soil in Aberdeen at the 2009 European Curling Championships, Murdoch has to come into the tournament as the favorite for the title. But that doesn’t mean that his Great Britain team will be able to walk away with the gold -- after all, they haven’t won gold in men’s curling since the inaugural Winter Games of 1924. (Of course, the event didn’t reappear on the Olympic roster of events until Nagano in 1998...

Smarting from losing on his own home soil last year is Kevin Martin, Canada ’s veteran captain and the man whose team lost to Murdoch in the 2009 World Championships in Moncton . Martin has a silver medal from the 2002 Salt Lake City Games and was the 2008 world champion in Grand Forks . Back on Canadian soil again, he will be looking to repay the favor to Murdoch and his Great Britain squad. The Swedish team that won the 2009 European Championships will once again be skipped by Niklas Edin and is coming into Vancouver on a hot streak. The same goes for Ralph Stockli and the Swiss contingent, losing finalists to Edin and the Swedes in Aberdeen just two months ago. And we can’t discount John Shuster and the Americans, who took bronze in Torino . Shuster was the lead on that team behind skip Pete Fenson which beat Murdoch’s Brits in the third-place matchup. Now Shuster has the opportunity to improve on Fenson’s results and carve a niche for himself in American Olympic history in the process.

On the women’s side, Cheryl Bernard will try to shake her hex in major tournaments and attempt to lead the Canadians to a better finish than their bronze medals in the previous two Olympiads. Bernard, competing in her first Olympic Games and getting to do battle on home soil, had never won a major tournament before taking the 2009 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials in Edmonton last December. The 44-year-old from Grande Prairie , Alberta carries the hopes of the host nation in her event. She will have to fend off a strong women’s field led by Anette Norberg and the defending gold medalists from Sweden . Also watch out for the team from Switzerland , which has been led to the silver medal each of the past two Olympics by captain Mirjam Ott.

Men’s Favorites: Great Britain , Sweden , Switzerland , Canada , United States

Women’s Favorites: Sweden , China , Switzerland , Canada , Great Britain

FIGURE SKATING

Failing in her bid to return to the sport after a long hiatus was Sasha Cohen, who returned to compete at the 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane attempting to gain a spot on the Olympic squad and improve on her silver medal from Torino . In her first competitive appearance in four years, Cohen performed well in her short program to slot in at second place behind 2008 U.S. champion Mirai Nagasu. But in the free skate, just as she did in Torino last time we saw her in competition, Cohen fumbled away the glory. Two-footing several of her jumps and falling on her second triple flip, the 25-year-old from Los Angeles dropped out of the running and off the podium in fourth. With the United States earning just two spots for the women in Vancouver for the first Olympics in ages, Cohen was relegated to second alternate behind qualifiers Rachael Flatt and Nagasu and bronze medalist Ashley Wagner.

Not failing in his attempt was Evgeni Plushenko, who returned to the sport after his own hiatus in hopes of becoming the first man to repeat as Olympic figure skating champion since Dick Button did it in 1952. He will head to Vancouver as the European champion after demolishing the field in Tallinn , Estonia at the continental championships. Scoring record points to lead after the short program, Plushenko stumbled on a triple lutz to remind everyone that he is human but then rebounded to complete a quad-triple toeloop combination and win the overall competition outright. Plushenko, though, isn’t about to let up yet. “It was not yet an Olympic performance,” the Russian retorted at his interview following the awarding of the gold. Citing his need to complete two clean quadruple jumps in his program in Canada , Plushenko is obviously motivated and will enter as the undoubted favorite. Unless he beats himself, he will join Button, Gillis Grafstrom and Karl Schafer as the only male repeat Olympic figure skating champions.

Men’s Favorites: Evgeni Plushenko (RUS), Patrick Chan (CAN), Daisuke Takahashi (JPN), Jeremy Abbott (USA), Evan Lysacek (USA), Stephane Lambiel (SUI), Brian Joubert (FRA)

Women’s Favorites: Joannie Rochette (CAN), Kim Yu-Na (KOR), Mao Asada (JPN), Miki Ando (JPN), Carolina Kostner (ITA), Laura Lepisto (FIN), Elene Gedevanishvili (GEO), Mirai Nagasu (USA)

Pairs Favorites: Aliona Savchenko/Robin Szolkowy (GER), Zhang Dan/Zhang Hao (CHN), Shen Xue/Zhao Hongbo (CHN), Yuko Kavaguti/Alexander Smirnov (RUS), Narumi Takahashi/Mervin Tran (JPN)

Ice Dancing Favorites: Oksana Domnina/Maxim Shabalin (RUS), Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir (CAN), Tanith Belbin/Benjamin Agosto (USA), Meryl David/Charlie White (USA), Federica Faiella/Massimo Scali (ITA)

Winter Olympics Special part II

Submitted 2/4/10

Comment on this article to Comments@informativesports.com

Contact the Mailbag if you have any Sports Questions 
Mailbag@
informativesports.com