PRECIOUS MEDALS
U.S. men go 1-2 in halfpipe skiing
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — They give their bodies for this sport. Sometimes little pieces of their hearts and souls, too.
Maybe that’s why David Wise decided there was nothing left to lose at the Winter Olympics on Thursday, when he stood atop a halfpipe that had sent one-third of the 12 skiers limping off with injuries, facing an all-or-nothing run after his ski bindings had failed him in his two previous trips down.
“We cranked my bindings up as high as they would go,” Wise said. “We’re like, ‘You know what, my leg’s coming off before the ski does.’”
The skis stayed on. Wise put down the most difficult, technically precise run ever seen in the sport of halfpipe skiing. He scored a 97.2 to edge fellow American Alex Ferreira by 0.8 point and repeat as the gold medal winner. He and Ferreira, his roommate at these Olympics, gave the United States its fifth and sixth medals on the halfpipe, producing a glimmer of good news for a team that has struggled in South Korea.
A few weeks ago in Seoul, the buddies decided to get matching tattoos of the logo for the Pyeongchang Games on their arms. They were fitting tributes to all the work they put in and the suffering they endured on the way.
“I certainly felt like I needed to do something epic to commemorate this journey, because it’s been a really hard struggle the last couple years,” Wise said. “I’ve been through a lot, and making the team for me was a lifetime accomplishment.”
Although he won gold at the Sochi Games four years ago, Wise wanted to do more than simply repeat. His goal was to become the first halfpipe freeskier to put down double corks — two head-over-heels flips — in all four directions on the same run: forward spinning right; forward spinning left; backward spinning right; backward spinning left.
He did it last month at the Winter X Games, then again in his final run of the Olympics. He made it look effortless, but it isn’t. Spinning in an unnatural direction in the halfpipe, as U.S. coach Mike Jankowski put it, “is like throwing a baseball with your left hand if you’re right-handed.”
That’s a lot to handle even when other parts of life aren’t getting in the way.
While Wise was training for those tricks, his father-in-law died. His sister, Christy, lost her right leg when a hit-and-run boater sideswiped her. Wise endured concussions that left him wobbly and sidelined for months. He hurt his back so badly, he could barely turn around.
“We’re defined as warriors,” Wise said. “We ski the halfpipe. Halfpipe is definitely the most dangerous version of freeskiiing, by a fair bit.”
Ferreira went through his own version of heartbreak. He barely missed making the Olympic team last time, and though his list of injuries isn’t as extreme — he broke his collarbone to start this season — he has watched his good friends in the sport get ravaged over the past four years, both on the halfpipe and off.
Most notably, his buddy Torin Yater-Wallace came down with an illness that landed him in the hospital and almost took his life. On Thursday, Yater-Wallace was on the last jump of what could have been a medal-winning run when he crashed hard before walking gingerly off the halfpipe.
“I would not be where I am today without Torin Yater-Wallace,” Ferreira said. “He’s one of my best friends. I respect him, bar none, over anybody.”
JEONGSEON, South Korea — Mikaela Shiffrin already was assured of earning her third career medal, each in a different event, when Lindsey Vonn prepared to propel herself out of the starting gate as the final starter in the final race of her Olympic career.
This slalom portion of the two-leg Alpine combined would be the first — and only — time Vonn, 33, and U.S. teammate Shiffrin, 22, would compete against each other at any Winter Games. Could Vonn possibly summon a “miracle,” as she called it, a slalom performance from somewhere in her past to make a lead from the downhill portion stand up? Could Shiffrin hold on to her silver?
The drama dimmed quickly. Vonn’s slalom lasted about 10 seconds before she went off course, leaving Shiffrin in second place between two women from Switzerland: Michelle Gisin (gold) and Wendy Holdener (bronze).
Gisin produced a total time of 2 minutes, 20.90 seconds that was 0.97 second better than Shiffrin’s. Holdener was nearly 1.5 seconds off Gisin’s pace, turning in the fastest slalom after standing 10th after the downhill.
Shiffrin ranked sixth in the downhill, 1.21 seconds slower than Gisin, and wasn’t able to make up that large a deficit in her forte, the slalom, which had a much shorter track. The downhill took about 100 seconds; the slalom about 40.
Still, Shiffrin added the combined silver to her giant slalom gold from a week earlier, giving her two medals — plus a surprisingly low fourth-place finish in the slalom — in three races. She arrived in South Korea amid chatter about entering five events, but after a series of weather-related schedule changes, she wound up dropping two.
“It’s really nice to be at the end of it,” she said, “and know that I do have two medals.”
With her slalom gold from the 2014 Games, Shiffrin joins Bode Miller and Julia Mancuso as the only Americans with a medal in each of at least three Alpine disciplines.
Shiffrin silver; Vonn done
U.S. curlers reach final
GANGNEUNG, South Korea — John Shuster and his U.S. team will play for a gold medal against Sweden after a 5-3 semifinal upset of Canada, which has struggled at the Pyeongchang Olympics despite dominating the world of curling for years.
The Americans’ victory was a remarkable comeback story for a team that had never beaten its northern rival at the Olympics and hadn’t made the podium since the 2006 Turin Games, when the United States won bronze.
Just as remarkable was the loss for Canada, which has won the gold in men’s curling at the past three Winter Games.
The Canadian women’s team, meanwhile, didn’t even make the semifinals, despite being the reigning world champion.