Ankle Injury Ends Bode Miller’s Season

By Joanne C. Gerstner
Bode Miller announced his skiing season is over because of an ankle injury.Alain Grosclaude/Getty Images Bode Miller announced his skiing season is over because of an ankle injury.

American skiing star Bode Miller hoped his right ankle, injured in December, would make it through the Vancouver Olympics and the World Cup season.

The ankle held up through the Olympics, as Miller won gold in the super combined, silver in the super-G, and bronze in the downhill to become the most successful American Alpine skier ever. But Miller will not finish the World Cup schedule, announcing Tuesday that he will skip the rest of the season due to the lingering injury. The World Cup Finals, the season’s last event, starts Tuesday in Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany.

Miller, 32, sustained a serious sprain while playing volleyball, and the ankle has not fully healed.

“My ankle is still bothering me, so I am going to stay home and get treatment,” Miller said in a statement. “My goal at the beginning of the season was to get ready for the Olympics and to win races in February. I just focused on that and I did that. If I wasn’t injured, I would have a made a separate decision about going to World Cup Finals, but that’s not the case.

“I feel like I accomplished everything I wanted to this season so it’s nice to just be able to relax.”

Miller is not in contention to win a World Cup points title because of his injury-marred season. Benjamin Raich of Austria leads the overall World Cup standings with 1,019 points. Miller has 361 points.

Miller missed two weeks of the World Cup season after the injury occurred. He came back to the circuit on Jan. 15, winning his World Cup first race in nearly two years by taking the super combined in Wengen, Switzerland.

Miller is still pondering his future beyond the 2010 skiing season.

“The Olympics were a good experience but it’s all been pretty positive in my career,” he said. “I haven’t made any decisions about next season. At some point, I’ll sit down with Sasha (Rearick, U.S. Ski team’s head coach) and see where we’re at and what kind of program we can put together and I’ll make a plan from there.”

Miller has expressed hope of becoming a professional tennis player after his skiing career ends and said he will try to qualify for the United States Open this summer.

Miller, Vonn Donate Equipment For Good Causes

By Joanne C. Gerstner

The stars of the 2010 American Olympic ski team are putting their gear to charitable use.

Lindsey Vonn, who won a gold medal in the downhill at the Vancouver Games as well as a bronze in the super-G, is teaming with comedian/American Idol judge/talk show host Ellen DeGeneres for an eBay auction of customized skis and poles to benefit the Red Cross’s Haitian earthquake relief program.

DeGeneres gave Vonn the Head skis and Leki poles, which featured the comedian’s face on them, as a gift on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show” on March 2 show. Vonn autographed the skis, and show put the package on eBay. The bidding is at $1,575.

The auction will be live until March 9 at 3:12 p.m. Eastern.

Vonn’s American teammate Bode Miller, who won three medals including gold in the super combined, has donated an autographed race helmet used during the Olympic slalom race to another eBay auction for charity.

Former U.S. ski team technician Pam Warman was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, and the proceeds from Miller’s helmet auction will go to her medical fund. The auction is currently at $2,600 for his helmet.
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Vancouver, the Day After

By Ian Austen
A visitor looks at the just-extinguished Olympic cauldron a day after the Vancouver Games came to a close. Andy Clark/Reuters A visitor looks at the just-extinguished Olympic cauldron a day after the Vancouver Games came to a close.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Perhaps employers had stopped tolerating the “Olympic flu” as an excuse for missing work. Or maybe the rowdy, often drunken, crowds who took over the streets after families left during the evenings of the Olympics’ first week had finally exhausted themselves.

But the hockey victory Canada wanted at the Olympics was followed by the kind of celebration that Vancouver wanted in the city’s downtown on Sunday night.

Early Monday morning, the city’s always efficient cleaning crews were picking up garbage and restoring streets to their usual tidy state. Despite crowds estimated at 150,000, the police reported no major incidents.
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And the Winner Is: Dream!

By Lynn Zinser

If you felt your heartstrings tugged just a bit too insistently during the Vancouver Olympics, you were not alone. Broadcasters and advertisers use the Games as an excuse to unload their stockpile of sentimentality, the kind of emotional words and images that don’t go over so well during, say, the Super Bowl.

In a worthy Olympic pursuit, the online magazine Slate set out to actually quantify the shameless tear-jerking. In its Games-long Sap-o-Meter, it sought to find out if Vancouver’s Olympics were the sappiest on record (they were) and to pinpoint the phrases that were designed to touch your heart, open your wallet and perhaps convince you to watch NBC dramas.

It’s a good read, uncovering the sentiment-killers (Apolo Anton Ohno being disqualified in the 500 meters, squelching another sappy moment with his single-parent father) and the tear factories (Canada’s Joannie Rochette skating days after her mother died).

In the end, Slate determined the Sappy Word of the Games was: Dream.

Peaceful Celebration in Vancouver, but Police Take No Chances

By Ian Austen

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The police shut down a major bridge into Vancouver’s downtown, and bus service was temporarily suspended as thousands of hockey fans and Olympic celebrants continued to crowd the city’s downtown on Sunday night.

Unlike some crowds that poured into the city during the first week of the Games, the crowd on Sunday remained peaceful and festive as the evening went on.

Const. Jana McGuinness, a spokeswoman for the Vancouver Police Department, said there were relatively few incidents and a small number of minor injuries.

Liquor stores were closed at 2 p.m. local time in an attempt to quell the widespread drunkenness that had become a late-night feature of the celebrations.

Canadian flags, unsurprisingly, were as prominent as Canada hockey jerseys on the streets.

Blogging the Closing Ceremony

By The New York Times
Closing ceremony.Doug Mills/The New York Times The spectacle of the closing ceremony at B.C. Place.

The New York Times reporters Juliet Macur, Katie Thomas and Ian Austen provided live updates throughout the closing ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympics from the downtown Vancouver arena, B.C. Place. Readers are invited to join the conversation in the comments box below.

11:07 p.m. |That’s All Folks

K-os just took the stage in what felt like the hidden track of these ceremonies. The atmosphere switched from rock concert to dance club. Fluorescent orbs bounced around the stadium and were kept aloft by the crowd. Breakdancers wearing glowing suits did their thing in the center of the stage. We could hear fireworks erupting outside.

An announcer has just informed the crowd that the closing ceremonies have concluded. The audience is filing out, moose antlers and hockey sweaters and all. The exit music is U2 (last I checked, not Canadian): “It’s a Beautiful Day.” — Katie Thomas
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Live Analysis: Canada Beats the U.S. for Gold Medal

By The New York Times

In-game analysis from the New York Times reporters Jeff Z. Klein, Charles McGrath and Greg Bishop at Canada Hockey Place in Vancouver, and insights from The Times’s Slap Shot blog contributor Stu Hackel. Richard Sandomir, who covers sports media and business for The Times, shared thoughts about the broadcast. Post your thoughts about the game in the comment section below.

Canadians with their gold medals.Doug Mills/The New York Times The Canadians showed off their gold medals after their victory Sunday.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia –- In the only gold medal game that really mattered here, in men’s hockey on Sunday afternoon, in front of thousands decked out in red and white, Canada skated with more pressure and more talent.

Against a younger, less experienced, less celebrated team from the United States, the Canadians controlled this game early. They jumped to an early lead and — after a late United States goal forced overtime — avenged their loss to the Americans earlier this tournament with a 3-2 victory at Canada Hockey Place.
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A Look Back: The Defining Performances

By Ian Austen

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Unlike my colleagues who offer their views in the video above about the athlete who will leave the most lasting impression from these Games, I’m no expert. When safely back in my base in Ottawa, I cover Canada generally, not sports specifically, for The Times.

And it’s difficult to challenge the experts. Kim Yu-Na, who was put forward by Jason Stallman had so much public appeal that crowds formed outside any store in Vancouver with a television in its window to watch her perform. Downtown shopping districts resembled newsreel footage from the 1950s when television was still exotic. Shaun White, as John Branch observed, redefined his sport once again at these Olympics.
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What’s In a Name? Great Success (and Confusion) for U.S. Team

By Melissa Hoppert

As General Manager Brian Burke built the United States Olympic roster, he intentionally passed on aging stars for younger, faster players. Coincidently, he managed to compile an impressive group of Ryans.

The seven players who share that name on the American roster have been key contributors to the team in the tournament, which culminates today with the gold-medal game against Canada. Players with the first or last name Ryan have combined for five goals and eight assists, and Ryan Miller of the Buffalo Sabres, leads all goaltenders in the tournament with a .954 save percentage. He has a shutout streak of 111 minutes 38 seconds and has quickly established himself as the most recognizable Ryan on the team.
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30 Years Later, Same Dedication to Gold

By Donna de Varona

Donna de Varona, who won two gold medals in swimming at the 1964 Olympics, is a writer, producer and an Emmy Award-winning broadcaster. She is currently a member of the International Olympic Committee’s Women and Sport Commission.

Sunday’s gold medal men’s hockey matchup between Canada and the United States will bring back memories of the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, when en route to capturing the gold, the United States defeated the favored team from the Soviet Union.

But whatever the outcome it would be an injustice to compare this matchup to the one that so long ago helped lift the spirits of a nation confronted with an oil crisis and a recession while in conflict with the Soviet Union over its presence in Afghanistan. Indeed that 1980 semifinal hockey game represented much more than an athletic contest and gave birth to one of America’s most memorable Olympic moments.
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