Winter olympics 2010: A summary

After 17 days of crashes and controversy, joy and jubilation, the Winter Olympics 2010 in Vancouver have come to a close. The hosts, Canada, stormed to the top of the medal table, winning 14 gold, 7 silver and 5 bronze medals, and the United States claimed the highest overall medals total with 37. It was a disappointing Games for the Great Britain team however as they came away with only one gold medal. Here is a round-up of the main action:

Freestyle skiing saw Canada win their first ever gold medal on home soil as Alexandre Bilodeau beat Australia's reigning champion Dale Begg-Smith by only 0.17 points. Seven other medals in freestyle skiing followed and started off Canada’s very successful Games.

Canada showed their strength in curling, as their men defeated Norway 6-3 to take gold and their women won silver as they were narrowly beaten 6-7 by the Swiss in a nail-biting game. Despite being a traditionally strong event for the British team, the men just missed a place in the semi-finals after losing 7-6 to Sweden in a tense round-robin play-off.

Germany’s women dominated their slalom events, winning gold medals in all three. American skiing superstar Bode Miller won gold in the men’s super-combined slalom, making it his first gold at a Winter Olympics after missing out four years ago. Unfortunately, the skiing events were not very successful for the Great Britain team and their highest finish was 11th, which was achieved by Chemmy Alcott in the women’s super-combined slalom.

It was the German team who were also strong in the biathlon events, taking a total of five medals, as were France, who clinched six. Norway also won five medals, including gold for Ole Einar Bjorndalen in the 4x7.5km, making it his sixth gold and 11th Olympic medal of his successful career.

The Nordic combined events started with controversy as two skiers were banned from the first events. Tests revealed abnormal levels of haemoglobin in their blood streams but they were allowed to compete later on in the week after further tests. The United States were the most victorious in these events, winning at least a silver medal in each of the four events.

Despite recent campaigns for women to be allowed to compete in ski jumping, only the men competed but this controversy did not distract the athletes. Switzerland’s Simon Ammann won gold in both the individual large hill and normal hill events, repeating the double he achieved in eight years ago in Salt Lake City. This total of four individual gold medals makes him the most successful ski jumper in Olympic history.

The luge events at the Whistler Sliding Centre caused most of the headlines but unfortunately not for positive reasons. The world was shocked by the news that 21-year-old Georgian Kumaritashvili had died after being slammed into a steel support beam after losing control of his sled on the final corner of his last training run. Despite this, the luge events went ahead as scheduled and Germany dominated each one, coming away with five out of nine medals and having at least one athlete in the top three of every event.

The bobsleigh events, which were also held at the Whistler Sliding Centre, were just as disrupted by crashes as the luge was. Both the British men’s and women’s two-man bobsleigh teams crashed out and were disqualified. The second women’s two-man team finished in 11th position and the men’s four-man team could only finish 17th in their event, resulting in a disappointing Games overall for the British bobsleigh team.

Amy Williams going for gold

However, the skeleton bob was much more successful for Great Britain and saw them gain their only medal of the Games. Amy Williams set a new track record of 53.68 seconds on her third run and this, combined with three other fast runs, won her the gold medal. Fellow Brit Shelley Rudman finished sixth and the men were just as successful in their event, as Kristan Bromley and Adam Pengilly finished sixth and eighteenth respectfully.

In the figure skating events, British champions John and Sinead Kerr finished eighth overall in ice-dancing with a total score of 186.01 after scoring a personal high of 92.23 in their free dance. Unfortunately, the other British pair in the event, Penny Coomes and Nicholas Buckland, finished in 20th position. Kim Yu-Na of South Korea claimed gold in the women’s figure skating and the 19-year-old set a new world record score of 228.56 with her spectacular performance.

Kim Yu-Na of South Korea claimed the gold for women's figure skating

Surprisingly for a country that rarely feature in the Winter Olympics, China shone in the short track skating winning four gold medals with four record times. The star of the show was 18-year-old Yang Zhou, who won two gold medals with an Olympic record time of 2.16.993 minutes in the women’s 1500m and a World record of 1.29.049 minutes in the women’s 1000m. Great Britain’s Sarah Lindsay was left frustrated after being disqualified from the women’s 500m quarter-finals following a collision on the first bend but Jon Eley was more successful in the men’s 500m, finishing sixth.

In the snowboarding at Cypress Mountain, Canada’s Maelle Ricker won gold in the women’s snowboard cross event, in which Great Britain’s Zoe Gillings came eighth after injuring her knee in the semi-finals. Another Canadian, Jasey Jay Anderson, battled against the relentless rain and pulled off an astonishing comeback in the men’s parallel giant slalom to beat the World Champion, Benjamin Karl of Austria, to the gold medal.

Both the finals of the women’s and men’s ice hockey events went by the form-book as Canada took on the United States, with Canada coming out victorious in both matches. The women won 2-0 whilst the men required a goal in overtime to win 3-2 to dramatically claim the last gold of the Winter Olympics. It was a fitting end for the successful hosts and an exciting and tense end to what has been a very thrilling Winter Olympics.

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