Gerard’s hometown has new, golden name
SILVERTHORNE, Colo. — The hometown of Olympic gold medalist Red Gerard has unofficially upgraded its name in his honor.
A sign welcoming visitors to the Colorado mountain town of Silverthorne was changed over the weekend to “Goldthorne” after the 17-year-old snowboarder captured the United States’ first gold medal at the Winter Games.
The Summit Daily News reported that someone put up a white banner with red letters spelling out “Gold” that covered up “Silver” in the city name sometime Saturday night or Sunday. The Alpine skiing schedule has been blown away by high winds, causing postponements and delays. On Tuesday in prime time, Mikaela Shiffrin of the U.S. is scheduled to begin her gold medal defense in the women’s slalom with the first of two runs. The final run will be aired after midnight on NBC.
GANGNEUNG, South Korea — Three events into the Olympic speedskating competition, the Americans have yet to reach podium.
The latest setback came Monday when world champion Heather Bergsma finished eighth in the 1,500 meters. Brittany Bowe had the best U.S. finish, fifth, while Mia Manganello was 22nd out of 26 skaters.
The Americans’ results recall four years ago in Sochi when the U.S. team was blanked, a stunning result for a sport that has earned America’s most Winter Olympic medals.
Bergsma faded badly on her last lap, when her time was 3 seconds slower than her previous lap.
“It was just a hard last lap,” she said in a flat voice. “It wasn’t my best race, so I can’t be super happy about it.”
Bergsma’s final time of 1 minute, 56.74 seconds was well off her world record of 1:50.85, set two years ago. She finished 2.39 seconds behind gold medalist Ireen Wust of the Netherlands.
The Dutch have won five of six women’s long-track medals.
“It was hard to skate last (after the Dutch), but that’s the drill,” said Bergsma, who is married to Dutch men’s speedskater Jorrit Bergsma and lives in the Netherlands.
If there was a bright spot, it was Bowe. She had the best result since Sochi, where no American finished higher than seventh in an individual — rather than team — race.
Bowe has lost valuable training time since suffering a concussion in July 2016 when she collided with a teammate during practice. The recovery limited her to one World Cup event before the Olympics.
“Felt great,” she said. “Best 1,500 I’ve had in a couple of years. It gives me great momentum going into my favorite race, which is the 1,000, so super happy about it.”
Bowe’s time of 1:55.54 had her in first place before she dropped to third with two pairs remaining. She got bumped off the podium by two Dutch skaters and one from Japan. Bowe’s best time is 1:51.31.
Manganello, an Olympic rookie, had a cold in recent days, which kept her off the ice until Monday. She was confined to her room at the athletes village, and her roommates moved to avoid getting sick.
“Leading into this weekend, I felt awesome, been skating really well technically,” she said. “Obviously today didn’t go as planned. I hoped for a lot better, and I know I can do a lot better.”
In the women’s 3,000 on Saturday, Carlijn Schoutens finished 22nd.
Emery Lehman was nextto-last in the men’s 5,000 on Sunday.
“We still have a long Olympics left,” Manganello said. “We have the TP (team pursuit) to plan for, we have high expectations there, as well as the mass start.”
At the short-track venue, 17-year-old Olympic rookie Maame Biney will try to advance through the qualifying rounds to the 500meter final on Tuesday.
The U.S. came up empty on the first night of competition: Three-time Olympian J.R. Celski and John-Henry Krueger were eliminated in the semifinals of the 1,500. Aaron Tran was last in the B final.
Wust, meanwhile, set the record for most Olympic medals in speedskating (10 overall, five gold) with her win in the 1,500, spurred on by a bitter loss on the opening day of competition.
“Only gold is the one that counts for me,” Wust said, reflecting on the medal that eluded her by only 0.08 seconds in the 3,000.
She finished ahead of Miho Takagi of Japan on Monday, and Marrit Leenstra of the Netherlands took bronze.