Owning the Podium in Sochi
It’s been another exciting Winter Games for the Canadian Olympic team in Sochi. Highs and lows, surprises and expectations, it’s everything we as fans and as Canadians look forward to every four years. After an extremely successful showing in Vancouver at the last Olympics, the Canadian team is looking for a repeat performance, albeit not on home turf. The Benchwarmer has been keeping a close eye on all of our Olympic stories, and in this issue has highlighted key Canadian performances throughout the Games!
Freestyle Skiing: Moguls
Of the four Canadian women competing in this event, three of whom were sisters, two won medals. Justine and Chloé Dufour-Lapointe took gold and silver respectively, edging defending Olympic champion, American Hannah Kearney, who won bronze. Kearney made a small mistake in her third run, opening the door for both Canadians, who each nailed down flawless third runs.
On the men’s side, Alex Bilodeau became the first Moguls athlete to ever win gold in back-to-back Olympics. 21-year-old first time Olympian Mikaël Kingsbury brought home silver helping the Canadians dominate the podium in this freestyle skiing event.
Figure Skating Round-Up:
Reigning Ice Dance Olympic Champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir put down a fantastic performance again this year in both the short program and the free dance. In spite of this, American training partners Meryl Davis and Charlie White took the gold this time around by a significant margin (4.53 points). Many figure skating experts felt that this was biased and faulty judging, trying to ensure that the Canadians did not win gold. Nevertheless, these silver-medalists deserve the same recognition they got in Vancouver.
Virtue and Moir also lead the Canadian Figure Skating team to a second-place finish in the inaugural team event. The rest of the team featured would-be men’s singles silver-medalist Patrick Chan, Kevin Reynolds (men’s singles), Kaetlyn Osmond (women’s singles), Meagan Duhamel, and Eric Radford along with Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch (pairs).
Freestyle Skiing: Women’s Slopestyle & Men’s Halfpipe
With slopestyle and halfpipe making their Olympic debuts in Sochi, Canada’s athletes were up to the challenge of making Olympic history: Canadians Dara Howell and Kim Lamarre won gold and bronze respectively in the inaugural appearance of this event. Howell won by a wide margin, with a best score of 94.20. American Devin Logan squeezed past Kim Lamarre by a mere 0.4 points to take the silver. In Men’s Halfpipe, Canadian Mike Riddle rode his way to a silver medal with a score of 90.60, 1.4 points behind gold medal winner David Wise of the United States. These performances cap an incredible Olympics in Freestyle Skiing for the Canadians this year in Sochi.
On a side note, Canadian Mark McMorris defied expectations and won the bronze medal in the Men’s Freestyle Snowboarding Slopestyle, bringing home one of Canada’s first medals of these Olympics.
Short Track Speed Skating: Round-Up
Canadian short track superstar Charles Hamelin was not only looking to defend his gold medal in the 500 m and 5000 m relay, but also to bring home a few more medals in the 1000 m and 1500 m distances after a slight disappointment in Vancouver. Though Hamelin fell out of his specialty 500 m and crashed out of the 1000 m, he took the gold in the 1500 m. His technique of gaining and then keeping the lead helped him win his heat and semifinal before winning gold. In the 500 m distance, 22-year-old Charle Cournoyer defied expectations, winning bronze in his first Olympics, and also his first-ever final. As for the 5000 m relay, Canada’s men’s team (Charles Hamelin, Olivier Jean, Micheal Gilday, Charle Cournoyer) came up short, finishing fourth in their semifinal in a very tight field, though they did finish first in the B Final.
On the Women’s side, the 3000 m relay team (Marie-Ève Drolet, Jessica Hewitt, Valérie Maltais, Marianne St-Gelais) took silver in an exciting A Final contest. Defending 500 m silver-medalist Marianne St-Gelais finished fourth in the B Final after a close third place finish in the semis. Despite the disappointment this time around, look for her to bounce back in future international contests—including the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
Men’s Super G & Ladies’ Downhill Skiing
On what was quite an experienced Canadian Men’s Downhill Ski team, featuring Erik Guay and Manuel Osborne-Paradis, it was Czech-borne Jan Hudec who broke through for the Canadians, tying for bronze with American Bode Miller in the Men’s Super-G. This was the second skiing event in which there was a tie for a medal—in the Women’s downhill, Tina Maze (Slovenia) and Gisin Dominique (Switzerland) shockingly tied for gold, with no silver handed out at all. The bronze went to Switzerland’s Lara Gut.
Men’s Long Track Speed Skating: 1000 m and 1500 m
28-year-old Denny Morrison was never supposed to take part in the Men’s 1000 m… until teammate Gilmore Junio gave up his spot in the event claiming that it was “in best interest of the team” to have Morrison skate in his place. It seems that Junio could not have been more right: Morrison went on to win the silver medal in the 1000 m, giving himself a huge confidence boost to take the bronze in the 1500 m a few days later.
Women’s Bobsleigh
Canadians Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse won gold for the second straight Olympics in Women’s bobsleigh, becoming the first Canadian bobsledders to repeat as Olympic champions. They edged out the Americans by 0.1 seconds, who went on to take silver and bronze respectively. In spite of starting the third trailing the Americans in second, the Canadians were able to regain the top spot after a nearly flawless third run by driver Kaillie Humphries. They waited with baited breath for the other teams to finish up their third runs before finally becoming Olympic Champions once again.
Women’s Ski Cross
Ski Cross is a relatively new event at the Olympics, making its debut back in Vancouver four years ago. Canadian Ashleigh McIvor won gold in Whistler, although not competing in these Games, the Canadian women certainly did not disappoint: Canadians Marielle Thompson and Kelsey Serwa finished first and second, respectively. After a tight start to the final, veteran French skier Ophelie David crashed a few jumps later, leaving only Anna Holmlund of Sweden to try and catch the Canadians down this rocket of a course.
Curling
Canada swept the gold medals in both Men’s and Women’s Curling events. Men’s skip Brad Jacobs lead his team (Brad Jacobs, EJ Harnden, Ryan Fry, Ryan Harnden, Caleb Flaxely) to a 9-3 victory over an experienced British squad one day after the undefeated women’s team (Jennifer Jones, Dawn Askin, Jill Officer, Kaitlyn Lawes, Kristen Wall) led by skip Jennifer Jones won 6-3 in a tense gold-medal match against the Swedes. Jones’ team was the only one not to lose a single game at the Sochi Olympics.
Last but most certainly not least: Women’s Ice Hockey
Of all the Olympic events thus far, there was nothing more exciting to watch than the Women’s gold medal game between bitter archrivals Canada and the United States. It’s a great game every time these teams play, and these Olympics were absolutely no exception.
Canada won their round-robin match against the US 3-2, in what was considered an upset given that they had not won a single game against the Americans under new head coach Kevin Dineen. But that was only the warm-up. Be that as it may, the Canadians were not cocky or over-confident going into the gold medal game.
The first period featuring phenomenal saves by Canadian goaltender Shannon Szabados, keeping the Americans at bay as Canada was outshot 11-9 in the period. The Americans had three power plays in the period but were unable to capitalize as the Canadians (and the rest of the country) breathed a sigh of relief heading into the first intermission.
In the second, American captain Meghan Duggan scored on a screenshot to put the Americans ahead 1-0. The Americans were forechecking and defending very well, keeping the Canadians in check. It seemed like the US would win for sure when Alex Carpenter added a power-play goal for insurance in the third, making it 2-0 for the US.
But it’s never over until it’s over: Canada’s Brianne Jenner fired a knuckler at the net, and with a lucky bounce off the knee of American defender Kacey Bellamy, Canada had new life. With about two minutes left to go, Dineen pulled Szabados for the extra attacker. Now 6 on 5, the Americans fired the puck down the ice in what looked like would be the game-ending empty netter, but it went off the post! The Canadians quickly retrieved the puck in their end, and with the entire country on the edge of their seats, Vancouver Olympic hero Marie-Philip Poulin scored with 55 seconds left in regulation to tie it 2-2, sending the game into a 20-minute 4-on-4 overtime period.
Szabados was again superb in the first few minutes of overtime, making some incredible saves for the Canadians. After one of these fantastic stops, American forward Jocelyne Lamoureaux jammed at the Szabados’s pads in a goal-mouth scramble, giving the Canadians a 4-on-3 power play. Team Canada returned the favour, when Poulin promptly put her second of the night past American goaltender Jessie Vetter to claim the fourth straight Olympic gold for Canada.
And there you have it—for those of you who missed any of these stories because of hell week, be sure to check out olympics.cbc.ca for all the updates and all the action surrounding the Canadian Olympic team. It only happens every four years—so show your support for our Olympic athletes!
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