2014 Sochi Winter Olympics results: Do you believe in exciting games? Yes!
The United States prevails over Russia in a thrilling men’s hockey match in preliminary action, plus some other stuff happened, we guess.
Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
If you were up early enough to watch the United States and Russia square off in men’s hockey, congratulations: you saw an all-time classic. The Americans rallied from a 1-0 deficit, then held on for dear life until the shootout before dispatching the Russians in an eight-shot marathon, winning 3-2.
T.J. Oshie of the St. Louis Blues was the American hero in the shootout, pushing three goals past Russian goalie (and Columbus Blue Jacket) Sergei Bobrovsky. For more on the epic game, check out our full recap here.
The Americans’ day was otherwise mostly quiet, unfortunately. Matthew Antoine had a remarkable run in the skeleton to finish in third place after teammate John Daly (no, not that John Daly) slipped at the start of his final run. Julia Mancuso was far out of the medals in the Super-G, finishing eighth at more than 1.50 seconds behind surprise gold medalist Anna Fenninger of Austria, and the American cross-country relay team could only muster ninth place in the 4 x 5 km; Sweden took gold there.
Russia put together another solid medaling performance on Saturday, and it was enough to vault the Russians into a precarious lead in the overall medal count. With two golds and a silver medal on the day, Russia moves to sole possession of first place with 15 (including four golds). The Netherlands and United States are in hot pursuit with 14 medals apiece; both countries have four golds of their own as well.
And oh, that Daly mishap. His sled came out of the groove right as he was launching for the final run, something that he told NBC later had happened only “a handful of times in my career,” and which effectively ended any shot he had at medaling. Daly’s final run came in at 58.54 seconds, dead last for the fourth heat.
In speed skating, Poland’s Zbigniew Brodka took gold by an astonishing three-thousandths of a second, which is about a tenth as much time as it took you to read a single letter of this sentence. Brodka beat out Norwegian Koen Verweij for the win there, and all three of Poland’s medals thus far are golds.
More on the Winter Olympics:
• Hockey: Men’s schedule | All 12 men’s rosters | USA roster analysis
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