News Flash: USA captures its first gold of the 2006 Winter Games as Chad Hedrick wins the 5,000 meter men’s speed skating event.
News Flash: Gold Medal favorite and former Hanover (NH) High School standout, Hannah Kearney, fails to qualify for the finals in Women’s Moguls.
Teddy’s Take: It didn’t take long for the thrill of victory and agony of defeat to play out for a couple of Americans. Hedrick has a chance to equal the great Eric Heiden’s Winter Games record of 5 Golds. Kearney on the other hand, stumbled through her qualifying run and could only watch helplessly as competitor after competitor knocked her out of the finals, a bitter disappointment for one of New England’s top medal hopes.
I’ll repeat what I said yesterday. This is what makes the Olympics such a great sporting event. You get one shot, and one shot only, to make all those years of hard work pay off. The margin between winning and losing is razor thin. Sure Hedrick can make history, but all it takes is a slight slip or an awkward turn to go from immortality to anonymity.
That said, let me ask you this; with so many incredible athletes on display, why is it that Americans don’t get riled up about the Winter Olympics unless some fragile figure skater is the victim of a crooked judge or a knee-whacking whacko?
