U.S. Olympic Team Brings Home Some Golds

Kami Bussmann, Staff Writer

Every two years, athletes from around the world gather in one spot to prove who’s the best at their event. This year, 2018, happened to be for the winter games of the Olympics. The United States of America has attended 40 out of the 41 Olympic Games that have been held. The US typically receives a fair amount of medals during the one month event. While this years medal count was a little low there was still medal winning and outstanding performances by the US Olympians.

The team events for the United States came out with some big wins and the ladies of the U.S dominated the games. One of the most memorable and maybe even the sweetest victory for the US in this years’ games came from the women’s Ice hockey team. This was the first time that the US has beat Canada in hockey since 1998. This may be one of the greatest rivalries in sports history and finally for the first time in 20 years the US has come out on top. The US Ladies’ Cross-Country Skiing team also won a gold medal during the Team Sprint. Ladies’ Speed Skating came home with the bronze medal in the Team Pursuit. The Figure Skaters took a bronze medal back to the US in their team event as well. The sibling duo Maia and Alex Shibutani got gold for Figure Skating, during their Ice Dance.

Women overall dominated the medal count for the US, they came away from the Olympics with 12 out of the 23 medals. Chloe Kim, a 17 year old from the United States, is a face and name you’ll probably see in commercials for a long time. This year was the first time she has ever attended the Winter Olympics and she ended up winning a gold medal in her event of the Snowboard Halfpipe.

Another name is Mikaela Shiffrin, she is coming home with not one but two Olympic medals. She obtained a silver medal for Ladies’ Alpine Combined and a gold for Ladies’ Giant Slalom Alpine Skiing.

Jamie Anderson also brought home her own collection of a silver and gold medal this year. She got both medals in her event of snowboarding the first being a silver medal in Big Air and a gold medal for Slopestyle.

While these women took extraordinary steps towards US success there were many more who contributed to the medal count.

Bronze

  • Lindsey Vonn got a bronze medal in the Ladies’ Downhill in Alpine Skiing
  • Brita Sigourney got a bronze medal in the Halfpipe for Ladies’ Skiing  
  • Arielle Gold got a bronze medal in the Halfpipe for Snowboarding

While the woman of the U.S. brought home a lot of medals, the men made their fair share of contributions too.

Shaun White, a very well known Olympian, has been back to the Olympics multiple times. This year he came back in hopes of winning another medal. Which is exactly what he did, he ended up winning the gold medal in snowboarding for men’s halfpipe event. He and many other men helped boost the confidence of the US especially in the snow events.

 

Gold

  • Redman Gerard got gold for the Men’s Slopestyle in Snowboarding
  • David Wise got gold for Halfpipe in Men’s Skiing

Silver

  • Kyle Mack got silver for Men’s Big Air in Snowboarding
  • Nick Goepper got silver for Slopestyle in Men’s Skiing
  • Alex Ferreira got silver for Halfpipe in Men’s Skiing
  • John-Henry Krueger got silver in Men’s 1,000 meter during Short Track Speed Skating
  • Chris Mazdzer got silver for Men’s Singles in Luge

 

Overall, the U.S did a solid job bringing Home medals for this years Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, China. Through all the years of training and putting their life into their sport and specific event turned out to help the team bc successful in the games.