Valentine's Day here in America, so between that and the fact that I had an all day deposition means I didn't watch a ton of the events today. I did see some, however, and a few athletes stood out.
In the men's double luge, Germany's Tobian Wendl and Tobia Arlt won gold, outdistancing the Austrian duo of Peter Penz and Georg Fischler (silver) and teammates Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken (bronze). Germany has long-dominated the doubles luge event, and continues to do so.
The women's 15KM individual biathlon saw Sweden's Hanna Oeberg take gold, defeating sliver medalist Anastasiya Kuzmina from Slovakia and bronze medalist Laura Dahlmeier from Germany.
I know this is a shocker, but a Dutch athlete won gold in speed skating. This time it was Jorien Ter Mors in the women's 1000m. It is just hard to explain the brilliant dominance of the Netherlands in this sport at these Olympics.
The men's downhill was fascinating as Askel Lund Svindal of Norway narrowly defeating countryman Kjetil Jansrud for gold and Beat Feuz of Switzerlan, who captured the bronze.
But, the story of the day is Mikaela Shiffrin, the 22 year old American slalom specialist, winning the gold medal in the giant slalom. Shiffrin, in second place after the first run, turned in a blistering second run to defeat Norway's Ragnhild Mowinckel - who won silver- and Italy's Frederica Brignone - who won gold. Mikaela is our Athlete of the Day.
As with the rest of the Olympics, there were several American disappointments. Speed Skating (stop me if you have read this before) again failed to medal, this time in the women's 1000m, men's double luge failed to medal, but they were just an outside medal hopeful anyway, and the women's hockey lost 2-1 to Canada. Although Canada and the US are the class of the field and look forward to that gold-medal matchup later in PyeongChang. So, the Disappointment of the Day goes to the U.S. Men's Hockey team, who entered the third period against Slovenia up 2-0, only to lose 3-2 in overtime. With a huge game looming against the OAR, in is likely the men's team doesn't even qualify for the medal round.
Events Watched: Women's Speed Skating; Men's Hockey; Men's Luge; Women's Alpine Skiing; Men's Alpine Skiing
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