Team USA was in a little bit of a holding pattern there for a while. After all the X Games events ended, we went like a week between American gold medals. Now, the Winter Games will never be the gold medal factory that the Summer Games are (the USA won more medals at last year's track & field World Championships than at these Olympics), but that mid-Games lull was definitely a little unexpected.
Well, the last few days have more than made up for it. The USA is going to end up leaving PyeongChang with nine gold medals, and going out with a bang. Because there were three memorable (and historic) gold medals over the final few days of the Games that will make people forget about that gap in the middle.
Let's start with the one that's perhaps the most significant. The one that snapped the gold medal drought. Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall's victory in the cross country skiing team sprint.
Coming into these Games, the United State had won a grand total of one cross country skiing medals in its Olympic history, Bill Koch's silver in 1976. That was expected to change here. Jessie Diggins has become one of the best in the world, and she had two fifths and a sixth in her first three individual events. So, the team sprint ended up being her last chance to get that elusive Olympic medal (at least in PyeongChang). And Diggins didn't just win a medal. She won gold!
It wasn't just the second American medal ever in cross country. It was the first cross country medal for a woman. And the first gold!
The best part for me, though, was that Diggins shared it with Kikkan Randall. My sister actually lives in Anchorage and has seen Kikkan Randall around skiing. She's arguably the greatest American cross country skier in history, and she's really the one who first made the US relevant in cross country skiing in the first place. This was her fifth and final Olympics. And it was so fitting that in her final Olympic race, she was given the Michael Strahan/Ray Lewis/Peyton Manning sendoff. Randall deserved to win an Olympic medal. So did Diggins. The fact that they won a gold together makes that much more special.
Speaking of teams that deserved to win a gold...I saw an article about Lindsey Vonn after she won her bronze arguing that she was a disappointment because she didn't win gold. Any Olympic medal is an accomplishment you should be proud of. Anyway, my point is there's only one silver/bronze medal that would've been considered a disappointment. And that would've been one in women's hockey.
They dedicated four years to one game. They were tired of losing to Canada, and gold was the only option. After all, it had been 20 years. And as that incredible game progressed into overtime and then the shootout, it became increasingly clear that yet another silver would be the most painful of them all. So, when Jocelyn Lamoureux scored that ridiculous shootout goal, and Maddie Rooney made that save on the other end, those women were probably running a gamut of emotions. Elation and "We did it!" sure. But probably some relief and "Finally!" too.
Like the 1999 soccer team, that 1998 gold medal hockey team inspired a generation. Most of the players on this team have said that they started playing hockey because of that 1998 team. And much like the current version of the soccer team, they want to pay it forward and inspire a new generation the way they were inspired by Cammi Granato and Co. (How great was it that Angela Ruggerio presented their medals, BTW?)
I'd say this gold medal will go a long way towards achieving that goal. Women's hockey in this country is only going to get better. And names like Lamoureux (both of them) and Knight and Coyne and Duggan will be right up there with Granato and Ruggerio. (And, by the way, NHL, thanks for keeping your players home and giving us even more of a reason to celebrate this team of incredible women. P.S.-the men's tournament went on perfectly fine without you.)
Lastly, we've got America's darlings. And I'm, of course, talking about the men's curling team. Every four years, curling is this fascination that enthralls us during the Olympics (much like water polo in the Summer). But this time, we were more enthralled than ever before. And the reason why was obvious.
Most people didn't jump on the curling bandwagon until later on. But their journey was incredible. John Shuster was the skip of team that finished last in Vancouver and ninth (out of 10) in Sochi. And it looked like it might be the same thing again here. They lost four out of five in the middle of the tournament and were languishing near the bottom of the standings with a matchup against Canada, the dominant power in the sport, looming. And they won! That was the turning point, and they ended up making the semifinals, where they played Canada again. And sure enough, they beat them again.
Suddenly, they were guaranteed a medal. By that point, they had nothing to lose. Shuster had an incredible hit to get five points in the eighth end, which made gold all but a certainty. Once it was official, this Cinderella story was complete. They completely rewrote the story. John Shuster went from an Olympic career (which also included bronze in 2006) known mainly for disappointment to one where he captained his team to a gold medal.
Is this going to lead to some sort of renaissance where curling suddenly becomes more popular? I doubt it. There almost certainly are people who've been introduced to the game and will start to play. But I think this was more a case of national pride overtaking everyone. Which isn't a bad thing.
These guys are easy to root for, too. They have an every man appeal, which may actually inspire some people into thinking they can do it too. They look like the guys you'd hang out and go have a beer with. And the fact that they were winning at a sport people generally find somewhat goofy only added to the fun.
So, for an Olympics that started with a flurry of gold medals (which were all mainly expected), the flourish at the end was much more satisfying. Because those three may be far more transformative. And they'll certainly be much more memorable. We'll remember PyeongChang as the Olympics where the U.S. won gold medals in curling and cross country skiing. And the one where the women's hockey team won for the first time in 20 years.
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