Winter Sports School Post-Olympic Wrap-Up
Now that the winter Olympic flame has gone out in Vancouver, and we’ve had a little while to resume our lives after staying glued to the set for over two weeks, we at The Winter Sports School want to take a moment to recognize and re-cap the performances of our seven alums who competed there. They are, in order of their graduation years:
Steven Holcomb, WSS Class of 1997, Bobsled — sixth place in two-man bobsled, gold medal in four-man bobsled. What a run Steven’s had. He almost gave up bobsledding a few years ago because of a degenerative eye condition, but after a few years of navigating bobsled tracks almost entirely by feel, he recovered from reconstructive eye surgery and came back with a vengeance. We only half-jokingly wonder whether his success story will lead other bobsled coaches to blindfold their athletes for training runs, because Steve’s post-surgery touch as a bobsled pilot has led his four-man team to two consecutive world championships in 2008 and 2009, and now an Olympic gold medal in Vancouver. Oh, and just to put a cap on things, the 2010 four-man bobsled World Cup season won’t end until early April in Lake Placid, but Holcomb already has the points necessary to make him a mathematical certainty for the 2010 championship. That’ll be three in row.
Julia Mancuso, WSS Class of 2000, Alpine Skiing — 8th in Giant Slalom, 9th in Super-G, silver medal in Super Combined, and silver medal in Downhill. That’s two top-ten finishes, and two silver medals. Okay, we think it’s officially safe to say that Julia is back from her recent difficult seasons plagued by health and equipment issues. And, although the most ink has been spilled over her matching silver medals, we think that her gutsiest performance in these games may have been in the giant slalom. For those who missed this story, Julia’s first giant slalom run was interfered with, leading her to finish the first run in 18th position. Julia was obviously disappointed, but she picked herself up and turned in the third fastest second run to move up to 8th place overall. There’s no way to know for sure whether Julia would have picked up a third medal if not for the interference during her first run, but there’s no doubt that her second run performance under the shadow of such a disappointment showed gold medal grit.
Ted Ligety, WSS Class of 2002, Alpine Skiing — DNF in Slalom, 9th in Giant Slalom, 19th in Super-G, and 5th in Super Combined. Ted said in post-Olympics interviews that he was disappointed not to win a medal in Vancouver after he shocked the skiing world with his combined gold medal in Torino four years ago. After all, he was crowned the World Cup giant slalom champion in 2008 and he leads the World Cup standings in that same discipline in 2010 with only one more race to go. So no Olympic medal surely felt like a disappointment to him, but the way we look at it, a top-20, a top-10, and a top-5 series of finishes are nothing to sneeze at. We’re proud of you, Ted!
Elli Ochowicz, WSS Class of 2002, Speed Skating — 17th in 500M, 26th in 1000M. Our veteran athlete. Vancouver was Elli’s third trip to the Olympics, and the experience apparently hasn’t lost its appeal to her, nor has it robbed her of her sense of humor. Her Twitter comment on race day before her 500M effort, was: “Hopefully the zamboni works today.” Ouch. We love it! Elli brings home a top-30 and a top-20 finish from these games, and joins a very small, elite group of athletes worldwide as a three-time Olympian.
Andrew Weibrecht, WSS Class of 2003, Alpine Skiing – Bronze medal in Super-G, 11th in Super Combined, and 21st in Downhill. If Ted shocked the skiing world in 2006, it was Andrew’s turn to shock everyone in 2010. After the race, Andrew said, “My goal this year was just to come to the Olympics, and if anybody had told me how I would have done here, I wouldn’t have believed them… I had strong results in the World Cup all season, but I hadn’t broken through to that podium finish.” That’s all changed now, and Andrew has officially contributed to the United States’s best Olympic medal performance ever in alpine ski racing. Andrew’s summary of it all? “It was a really cool experience.” Andrew has clearly mastered the art of understatement along with his skiing skills. Andrew’s next step after this season is to get back to his books at Dartmouth College.
Megan McJames, WSS Class of 2005, Alpine Skiing — DNF in Slalom, 32nd in Giant Slalom. Megan deserves big kudos for coming up from the U.S. Ski Team’s B team and, not only getting selected to make the trip to the Olympics, but getting selected to compete in two events. The joy she took in the entire experience is obvious — check out her home made video below. She’ll take you backstage, give you a glimpse of the Olympic whirlwind, and even show you what the opening ceremonies looked like from the athlete’s section of the audience. Congratulations on your first Olympic experience, Megan!
Anders Johnson, WSS Class of 2006, Nordic Ski Jumping — 49th in Normal Hill, DNQ in Large Hill, DNQ in Team. Anders is our most recent grad and official youngster, yet Vancouver was his second trip to the Winter Olympic Games. In 2006 he was only 16, the youngest U.S. Olympic ski jumper and the second youngest U.S. Olympic Ski Team member in history. In 2010, at the ripe old age of 20, he faced the even more daunting situation of battling back from major knee surgery just to make the team. In August of 2009, Anders stiff-legged a landing on a training jump and tore his ACL. After an accelerated and grueling four-month rehabilitation, he started the season, as he puts it, “With my knee about 60% of its normal strength and my head about 50%.” But he battled back against the odds and not only resumed competition, but made it to the Olympics again. Well done, Anders!
We are so proud of all our Olympic alums, and they are all winners. At the end of the day, the seven of them brought home 4 of the United States’s total medal haul of 37. To put all of this in perspective: since opening its doors, the Winter Sports School has graduated 230 students. The way we think of it is, if the Winter Sports School was a nation, its 230 “citizens” would have stood 18th among all nations in the Vancouver Olympics medal count, just behind Finland, and ahead of nations such as Australia and Croatia. Way to go, team! On to Sochi in 2014!
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