Highlights/Lowlights of the Olympic Games So Far

After tomorrow, the Winter Olympics are halfway done. It's time to take a look at the highlights and lowlights so far of this year's competition so far.

To me, from an American perspective, there's been a lot more good than bad. We currently sit at 18 medals, 6 of which are gold, and currently lead every other country in terms of most medals and gold. I think we're in great shape to collect the most medals and still like our chances for most golds, but that will be a closer race. Onto the highlights.

Highlights

Hannah Kearney's Gold in the Women's Moguls
Any first gold medal for a country is special and important, but the fact that she beat one of her biggest rivals and one of the best Mogul skiiers in the world in Canadian Jenn Heil, on Heil's home turf, is incredible. I think many people doubted that she would be able to beat Jenn, but she pulled off the upset for the first American gold.

J.R. Celski's Bronze Medal in the 1,500 Meter
A few months after cutting himself very badly, the fact that J.R. Celski got as far as he did, let alone a bronze medal is quite an accomplishment. He showed in this race that he may be the future American face for the men in short track after Apolo Ohno retires.

Nordic Combined
This is something two-fold to be proud of. The Nordic Combined Race beat the Daytona 500 in terms of viewership. Think about that. Supposedly, the country's most watched sport(it's not a sport, in my opinion) gets beaten by an event that not many Americans are exposed to, nor have we ever been that good in it. That, however, would also change thanks to the United States big three competitors for the sport in Johnny Spillane, Todd Lodwick and Bill Demong. They finished second, fourth, and sixth, respectively. More importantly, they have shown that the United States will be a threat in future Nordic Combined events.

United States Hockey Teams
I was just reading a blog on cbssports.com saying how a performance like yesterday by the United States men will never be good enough to beat Canada. The score was 6-1. The idiot blogger said that we let them hang around for way too long. THE SCORE WAS 3-1 BEFORE YOU COULD BLINK AN EYE! That's not letting them hang around. It was a comfortable win by the United States and they should be very content with how they're playing so far and will obviously have to play a great game to beat Canada Sunday night and win their pool. Their other win was Switzerland, who they took care of fairly easily and beat them 3-1. And another thing, the blogger obviously wrote his blog prematurely as Canada needed to win in a shootout to beat the Swiss. In that method of thinking, if Canada plays like that, they'll never be able to beat the United States. On the other side, the women have just been completely dominant again, outscoring their competition 31-1. As usual, it looks like it will be them and Canada to decide who will win the gold medal.

Lindsey Vonn's Gold in Downhil Skiing
After all the hype and doubt that went on regarding her bruised shin, much of America wanted to see Lindsey win this and prove that she could overcome her injury and she did. She went through this course very well and was able to beat her countrywoman Julia Mancuso for gold. It was a great scene when they showed her in joyous tears and you could really see then how badly she wanted it and how hard she worked for it and didn't want her injury to prevent her from doing her best.

Julia Mancuso
After Lindsey got all the hype after her gold, a lot of the talk was how impressive Mancuso's run was. Many people doubted her ability to get silver. Yesterday, after Vonn's fall, Mancuso took another silver in the Super Combined, another event where she wasn't expected to get the silver. If she keeps this up, she could potentially overshadow Lindsey and become the "it-girl" of this year's Olympics. I expect Lindsey to finish out stronger than Julia, however, but we'll see. Nonetheless, both have had great performances so far.

Wednesday Night
This Wednesday was the greatest night for the Americans in Winter Olympics history. In the span of about 5 hours, the United States picked up 3 gold medals and 6 overall. Shani Davis repeated as the men's 1000 meter champion and Chad Hedrick also picked up a bronze. Lindsey had also won her medal which was shown on primetime. But it was...

Shaun White
Shaun White deserves his own space for me to praise him. How impressive were his two runs on Wednesday, particularly his second run...and that was already when he won the competition. For him to do the Double McTwist 1260 with the gold already being won prior to him even doing that, shows how much of a professional he is and that he wanted to challenge himself because he knows how good he is and wanted to push himself to do even better. That was as dominant a performance for an individual that you're ever going to see in the Olympics. He blew away his competition and made it look easy. He also has such a down to earth personality that you can't help but like him. He is also cross-generational, while he is a role model to a lot of kids, I think he's also someone that a lot of parents can relate to as well. And lastly, the way he has revolutionized snowboarding is incredible. I think an underrated aspect in people's legacies is what have they done to evolve a sport or add something different to it, and Shaun White unequivocally has and I hope to see him at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Evan Lysacek's Gold
This was another feel-good story for the Americans. Evan was second place after the short program and in order to beat Evgeni Plushenko, who is one hell of an athlete, he needed to skate the program of a lifetime to win. Plushenko is also the first person to medal three times in a row in figure skating since 1932, which really shows you how great he is. Earlier in the day, Plushenko had criticized Lysacek for not having a quad in his repertoire, which was due to an injury that Evan suffered a few months ago, but thanks to his technique being better as well as him having more jumps than Evgeni in the final two minutes where everything is doubled, Lysacek was able to cut down a legend and bring America another improbable gold.

Lowlights

Nodar Kumaritashvili's Death
Unfortunately, I think the lasting image ofthe 2010 Winter Olympics will be the graphic video of Nodar flying off the luge and into a unprotected steel beam and later died, which is unfortunate. The first couple days of the games were overtaken with the emotion of his death and how they changed the luge so that it wouldn't happen again. For someone at 21 to die is terrible and the fact that he died on a training run getting ready for his Olympic Debut makes it even more tragic. Shame on the Canadian team by the way for saying it was his fault, only about 12 hours after his death. How heartless can you be? It's stupidity like that which is why Canada gets a bad rap sometimes.

Obviously everything will pale in comparison to Nodar's death, but here are several more things I think have been some of the lowpoints so far.

Opening Ceremony
This is usually an overrated event as it is. My only favorite part generally is the parade of nations and the lighting of the torch. I could totalyl deal without all the artistry stuff which makes the event take forever. And the opening ceremony has become such an integral part to the Olympic that to me, the media kind of shoves it down your throat and almost forces you to like it. But let's get this straight, this wasn't Beijing. I'm not a fan of the artistry, but in Beijing, they put on one hell of a show for its worldwide audience. Nothing in this year's ceremony was spectacular and the end with the torch just solidified it with the scene with Wayne Gretzky waiting there for several minutes waiting for the fourth arm to come up, which never did. It was a bad time for something like that to go wrong. I thought the end, however was pretty cool, where it was all the Canadian people running to catch up with Gretzky on his way to lighting the torch. A scene like that told you how important Gretzky was and continues to be in Canada.

The Weather
This is a good and bad thing. The weather postponed Lindsey's early runs which helped her heal her shin a little bit. I also like how there's more events than originally expected still to come in the second half of the Olympics, but at the same time, a few of the events have been postponed, which obviously is never a good thing. Tons and tons of snowboarding ticket money has been refunded too, because it has been so warm that much of the area for viewers has turned into slush. But the weather over the next week looks to be good and Canada should have a good finish.

United States Curling Teams
As good as our hockey teams have been, the same could be said for how bad our curling teams have done so far. The United States Men haven't gotten blown out yet, but haven't won yet either. They've lost 7-5 to Germany, 6-5 to Norway, 7-6 to Switzerland and 7-6 to Denmark. The women have lost 6-5 to Germany, 9-7 to Japan and 7-6 to Denmark. This has undoubtedly been our worst sport and I don't think we make the playoffs on either side. Hopefully we'll be able to finish strong at least.

Lindsey Jacobellis
This is a perfect exampleof why you should never showboat. You may never get another chance at gold. Lindsey in Torino, got a silver medal, but she had blew away the field until she showboated at the end and fell which cost her the gold medal. She had a chance to redeem herself this year, but did not and clipped the board of one of her competitors and lost in the semifinals. She did wind up winning the 5th place heat, but unfortunately, we only remember the Gold winner most of the time. She is still pretty young and I think we could expect to see her at another Olympics 4 years from now where hopefully she'll win gold.

Women's Halfpipe
This is kind of a glass half-empty, half-full thing. We won both silver and bronze but at the same time, gave up our dominance as a world power in snowboarding, to an Australian, no less. However, it is understandable because Torah Bright lives in Utah, so I'm sure most of her training is done on American courses. The two medals are nice, but I definitely would've traded both those in for one of the American girls to have gold. Gretchen Bleiler and Elena Hight fell in both their second turns, which is a shame because at the very least I think Gretchen had a good shot to medal. I'm sure we'll see a very strong field for the United States again four years from now.

So those are the highlights and lowlights in my opinion of the Olympic Games so far, and I'll recap the second half of those at the close of the Olympic Games next Sunday.