RUSSIANS RULE SOCHI
Cross-country sweep, medals race win take sting out of hockey team’s failure
Not only did Russia hoard all three medals in the closing cross-country skiing event, but its horde clinched a 16-day feat: It would win the medals table, and this would matter to the host country.
POLYANA, KRASNAYA RUSSIA And now the only Russian word some visitors have learned rang out in the Caucasus Mountains, three Russian syllables chanted toward three exhausted and exhilarated Russian men.
Even an Olympic interloper could understand as a crosscountry skiing crowd at the scenic venue finished following all 60 athletes through the 31 inhumane miles of the Olympic sport’s longest event, saw the medalists march out and hollered:
Spa-si-bo! Spa-si-bo! Spa-si-bo!
Translation takes two syllables: “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
A Russian Olympics suspected of Russian athletic failure four nights prior had found a Russian crescendo in an unsuspecting place. Far up and away from where the heavily advertised Russian men’s hockey team careened loudly into a Finnish ditch Wednesday, a 106-minute slog had come to a split-second finish. The first three to cross the line and collapse to the snow had been an Alexander from Krasnoarmeysk, a Maxim from Udmurtia and an Ilia from Novosibirsk.
Not only had Alexander Legkov, Maxim Vylegzhanin and Ilia Chernousov hoarded all three medals in the closing cross-country event, but their hoard had clinched a 16-day feat: Russia would win the medals table, and this would matter to Russia.
“Our home Games,” cheeky Chernousov said.
Tally up the gold medals, and Russia would fend off runner-up Norway (13-11). Count all the medals, and Russia would outdistance the USA (33-28).
That gave reminiscing Russians a choice for the years ahead as the Sochi Olympics closed. Would they bemoan the unthinkable flub of their starry hockey side, or would they note their best overall Winter Olympics to date? As Legkov, Vylegzhanin and Chernousov filed in to take their places at the medal stand, the witnesses at Rosa Khutor had made their choice.
Spa-si-bo! Spa-si-bo!
That choice would be correct
“You probably would not believe the Russians would win the medal table, just like Canada won (in gold medals) in Vancouver. I don’t believe it myself.”
Cross-country skier Alexander Legko
by any reasonable standard.
Spa-si-bo! Spa-si-bo!
Even something as glaring and blaring as the hockey flop had gone subsumed.
Spa-si-bo! Spa-si-bo!
Three Russians had just kicked the last snow upon it.
“You probably would not believe the Russians would win the medal table, just like Canada won (in gold medals) in Vancouver,” Legkov said. “I don’t believe it myself.”
In a furious high-noon drama that saw four men finish 31 miles and 6,415 seconds all within one second of each other, nobody had thought much about a former hockey dynasty’s 21st-century inability to score Olympic goals. Beyond that, Russia had sent the 21st-century Norwegian crosscountry dynasty into a brood, dealing Martin Johnsrud Sundby probably the harshest fourthplace finish in all the Olympics: 0.2 seconds from bronze.
Asked if the Legkov-Vylegzhanin-Chernousov triumvirate had gone out mindful of getting more Russian medals, the bronze medalist with the capacity to wink grinned and cracked, “Yes, we need more and more medals.”
His finish meant Russia had compensated for hockey with gold medals in figure skating, short-track speedskating, snowboarding, bobsled, biathlon, skel- eton and cross-country. His compatriots’ finish had added to the medal tally forged also in skeleton, luge, long-track speedskating and freestyle skiing. And as they finished at the moderately attended, English-language-heavy news conference in the mountains, Alexander from Krasnoarmeysk, Maxim from Udmurtia and Ilia from Novosibirsk looked toward an evening on the coast.
That’s where the Russian hockey team ran into a serious Finnish defense and looked lost. That’s where Russia couldn’t get Alex Ovechkin a goal after the first 77 seconds of four games. And that’s where three far less famous gamers who clinched the compensation for the hockey “catastrophe” would receive their cross-country medals, as part of the closing ceremony.
“Do you think you’ll be rock stars down there?”
“I think so, yes,” Chernousov grinned.
There would be cheers. There would be bedlam.
There would be spasibo.