Posted by Kevin on 2/12/2014
to
General
Thousands of miles away from our ski shop in Manchester, NH, some of America's greatest athletes are battling it out on snow covered trails, mountains, and halfpipes. Far across the pond in Sochi, Russia, the 2014 Winter Olympic Games are underway and producing some surprising results. Backed by
Burton Snowboards, the U.S. Snowboarding Team has currently collected two gold medals.
Unfortunately, Shaun White, who many had hoped would bring home his third Olympic gold medal for the halfpipe competition, came in fourth place. White fell twice during his first run down the halfpipe and just didn't get a score a high enough to put him in any medal position. A third gold medal would have been a record setting triumph had White been able to perform in the halfpipe competition as well as he did during early day qualifying runs. He managed to come in first place during yesterday's qualifying halfpipe runs but just couldn't keep that momentum going through to the actual competition.
"Tonight was just one of those nights," White said about his fourth place finish in the Men's halfpipe competition. After pulling out of the new slopestyle event to focus on the halfpipe competition, it seems that the, "Flying Tomato," won't be bringing any gold medals back to the states with him.
However, the U.S. Snowboarding Team has yielded a few gold medals already and the U.S. Women's Snowboarding Team is being heralded as the possible saving grace for America's overall Olympic medal standings.
In this year's new snowboarding event, the slopestyle competition, two Americans have already won gold medals. Both Sage Kotsenburg of the Men's Snowboarding Team and Jamie Anderson of the Women's Snowboarding Team each garnered gold medals for America, currently putting the U.S. in sixth place overall.
And, before hockey starts, the focus has been placed on the U.S. Women's Snowboarding Team to rack up a few gold medals. Not only has Jamie Anderson already won a gold medal in the slopestyle competition, but high hopes are being placed on Kelly Clark, Arielle Gold, and Hannah Teter to bring home medals as well. And we'll be cheering them on all the way from our ski shop in Manchester, NH.
