Go team North America
Charlotte Eriksen
Issue date: 3/8/10 Section: Sports
The Canadians are not as nice as they claim to be. The Olympic Winter Games did not take place in a winter environment, therefore inflicting more cost on Vancouver taxpayers for the creation of fake snow.
Team USA had the highest medal count in the history of the Olympic Winter Games with 37 total medals. And rightly so, Canada got its gold medals for hockey--as the Americans would win gold for American football or basketball.
At the closing ceremonies, IOC president Jacques Rogges called the Vancouver Games "friendly" and fun, but not the "best ever," as rumored to have said of past games.
I wouldn't know, but according to the medal count, this was the best ever for the American snow bunnies.
Short track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno (Seattle, Wash.) attributed much of the Americans' success to the Games' proximity to home.
Just two and a half hours away from his hometown, Seattle, Ohno said that the Vancouver Games were "especially important," to him. "I had a lot of friends and family and support from the Northwest area," he said. "I grew up skating here so I basically learned to speedskate in this area."
"It has felt like a home games for us," he added. "I think that's part of the reason why we're doing so well because we feel so comfortable here."
Nordic Combined gold medalist Billy Demong, who competed in Nagano in 1998, Salt Lake City in 2002 and Torino in 2006, compared the 2010 Games to the past Winter Games. "In Nagano we were a small country at the Olympic Games. As a whole team you still felt like kind of one of the outsiders in the Winter Olympics," he said. "And now we're here to win."
Regardless of where the Games are we're doing the right things to bring the right athletes with the right expectations to continue this kind of success."
Other Olympians, many of them medalists, were able to train in Vancouver in years leading up to the Games as well, Demong said.
And despite the outcome of the hockey games, possibly (in my opinion) the most excitable events--probably because the host was Canada, the hockey capital of the world-Team USA felt comfortable on a turf not far from home and even felt they could share in the excitement of the host Olympians.
Ruggiero said that the USA and Canadian Olympians were even rooting for each other throughout the Games. Whether or not the Canadians agreed, it doesn't really matter to us at this point does it? Or am I being the ignorant American?
Team USA had the highest medal count in the history of the Olympic Winter Games with 37 total medals. And rightly so, Canada got its gold medals for hockey--as the Americans would win gold for American football or basketball.
At the closing ceremonies, IOC president Jacques Rogges called the Vancouver Games "friendly" and fun, but not the "best ever," as rumored to have said of past games.
I wouldn't know, but according to the medal count, this was the best ever for the American snow bunnies.
Short track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno (Seattle, Wash.) attributed much of the Americans' success to the Games' proximity to home.
Just two and a half hours away from his hometown, Seattle, Ohno said that the Vancouver Games were "especially important," to him. "I had a lot of friends and family and support from the Northwest area," he said. "I grew up skating here so I basically learned to speedskate in this area."
"It has felt like a home games for us," he added. "I think that's part of the reason why we're doing so well because we feel so comfortable here."
Nordic Combined gold medalist Billy Demong, who competed in Nagano in 1998, Salt Lake City in 2002 and Torino in 2006, compared the 2010 Games to the past Winter Games. "In Nagano we were a small country at the Olympic Games. As a whole team you still felt like kind of one of the outsiders in the Winter Olympics," he said. "And now we're here to win."
Regardless of where the Games are we're doing the right things to bring the right athletes with the right expectations to continue this kind of success."
Other Olympians, many of them medalists, were able to train in Vancouver in years leading up to the Games as well, Demong said.
And despite the outcome of the hockey games, possibly (in my opinion) the most excitable events--probably because the host was Canada, the hockey capital of the world-Team USA felt comfortable on a turf not far from home and even felt they could share in the excitement of the host Olympians.
Ruggiero said that the USA and Canadian Olympians were even rooting for each other throughout the Games. Whether or not the Canadians agreed, it doesn't really matter to us at this point does it? Or am I being the ignorant American?
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