The US won two medals in Sochi but it was certainly a disappointing Olympics still as the men weren’t in contention for a medal and the team wasn’t close enough to silver to make the end of the team event interesting. There were disappointing performances in a few events but also some bright moments as well with the first gold in ice dancing and a strong showing by some young women in the ladies’ singles.
Men’s Singles
In the men’s competition we didn’t necessarily expect the US to be a strong medal contender but we certainly hoped for a better result than we got. The best finisher for the US was Jason Brown, but he finished just 9th in the competition. It was the first time since 1936(!!) that the US didn’t have a finisher in the top six. Brown is young enough that he may be the leading man in 2018 and hopefully if he is he’ll be able to finish a little higher. The US isn’t used to being out of the medal race like this.
Ladies Singles
The women’s event went a lot better with a young American in Gracie Gold finishing fourth and providing hope for the future, as did 15-year old Polina Edmunds who finished ninth but looked confident and one can only imagine how good she’ll be by 2018. It was the second straight Olympics without a medalist in the ladies’ event, the first time since 1948 and 1936 that the US didn’t medal in consecutive Olympics. Gold’s fourth place made sure the US continues their streak of always having someone finish in the ladies’ top six at the Olympics.
Pairs
The two American teams were definitely off the pace of the winners but Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir did finish ninth and that was an improvement on Vancouver where the best American team was tenth. The US has now gone three straight Olympics without a top six finisher in the pairs event after never having missed out on the top six before. This is one event where the US is definitely hoping to become competitive with the rest of the world again.
Ice Dancing
Meryl Davis and Charlie White’s gold medal performance was the first for the US and shows just how far the US has come in the event. After medaling in the first event in 1976 the US failed to medal in seven straight Olympics before now winning silver or gold in the last three Olympics.
Team Event
It’s clear that the US is still one of the strongest figure skating countries in the world from the team event. Despite only medaling in one of the individual events the US was fairly comfortably the bronze medal winning team in Sochi. They have solid skaters in every one of the four individual events and the future is still very bright for the US, it’s just a question of if they can get to a place where they are competing for medals in all four of the individual events.
