No drought, but no dominance

American athletes aren’t exactly stealing the medals show

PYEONGCHANG» Ted Ligety is an American skiing legend, winner of a pair of gold medals. Sunday, after the first of his two runs in the giant slalom — a disastrous trip down the hill as the defending Olympic champion — he said the following: “No explanation for that.”

As we enter the final week of the PyeongChang Games, drape those words over the entirety of the United States contingent. The gold medals from Jamie Anderson and Red Gerard and Chloe Kim and Shaun White in snowboarding seem ages ago. The gold from Mikaela Shiffrin in giant slalom was, somehow, tempered by her miss of the medal stand in slalom, an event in which she essentially has lapped the field. Beyond that, we wait. What we have here — so far — is not a full-on American medal drought. But the crops need some coaxing. Through the end of the day Sunday in South Korea, Team USA had accumulated 10 medals in the nine days that hardware has been distributed. The Netherlands (population 17 million) had more. Austria, which has fewer people than New Jersey, had the same.

Enjoyment of the Olympics shouldn’t be defined by American success, and even the slightest bit of pure nationalism seems kind of scary these days. But in an athletic sense — and an athletic sense only — let’s get jingoistic for just a moment. So many of the athletes we have grown accustomed to seeing draped in the U.S. flag instead have been draped in disappointment.

It’s not just the established stars, either. Let’s play a little game: Match the quote with the athlete.

1. “I just don’t know what it takes to make a perfect race.”

2. “Fourth is definitely bittersweet.”

3. “It was rough. Nothing really clicked together.”

4. “My goal was definitely to try to be challenging for a medal here. ... Way out of it now.” A. Freestyle skier Maggie Voisin B. Ligety, between giant slalom runs

C. Speedskater Joey Mantia D. Figure skater Nathan Chen Answers: It doesn’t really matter. There’s enough.

The United States Olympic

AERIALS

Committee doesn’t publicly state a goal for how many medals it hopes to win in a given Games. But this certainly wasn’t its vision.

There’s a week left. There are medals still out there to be earned. There’s reason for optimism, but there’s some work to do.