Day 6

It was a huge day for America because our biggest and brightest stars stepped up to the plate and hit it out of the park on the biggest stage of them all. Lindsey Vonn, Shani Davis and Shaun White all delivered Gold Medal performances and made one thing clear to all those watching. They are considerably better than their competition and, frankly, it's not close. You can throw Apolo Ono into that category as well although he didn't have any Medal events yesterday he did qualify disgustingly easy in his 1000 as well as in the mens 10K relay.

These are 4 of the United States greatest Winter Athletes ever. Look at their resumes. Again, it's not close.

Vonn: 3 time World Cup Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist with 2 more opportunities still to add to that, which she will be favored. The USA Silver Medalist had the run of her life and Vonn smoked her on an injured leg. Her fiercest rivals all collapsed and were obviously intimidated by the rock hard and fast surface. Vonn made it herebitch. She's the best female skier alive. It's not close.

Davis: First Speed Skater ever to win back to back Gold Medals in the 1000 meters. He also hasn't lost the event since 2007. It's not close.

White: The kid is so far ahead of rest of the sport that he has everything that exists mastered to the point that he invents, names and masters new tricks that the rest of the world has never even heard of before let alone attempted. He's just better than everyone else. It's not close.

Apolo Ono: Admitted himself he gets more recognized as being that kid on "Dancing with the Stars" but he is the most decorated Winter Games American athlete ever and he will likely add a couple more these games as he will be the heavy favorite going in. He's style is effortless and like the others it only takes an average viewer about 10 seconds of watching him skate to realize "That guy is way better than everyone else." It's not close.

Speaking of all that... have you ever seen Dan Marino throw a football?

BREAKING NEWS!
Olympic coverage starts with the announcement that Tiger Woods will be making his first public appearance since Penisgate. How convenient Tiger, make this announcement during the Olympics and on a Friday during a PGA Tournament. Calculated. Absolutely. Selfishly poor timing. Absolutely. Smart. Absolutely.

The segment on snowboarding pioneer Jake Burton was awesome! Best spot NBC has done showing the beginning and evolution of the sport. I'd love to see an entire film or documentary on that. Just great stuff. It's still doesn't feel Olympics to me but it's remarkable how far this sport has come in such a short period of time. Really. Think about it. Remarkable.

We actually had some Cross Country drama. The #1 skier in the world takes a corner a little hot and plummets into a revine about 10 feet deep landing on rocks and snow. Apparently the craziest accident to ever happen in the history of the sport according to the commentator that kept belaboring that point for drmatic effect. She returned and won a Bronze Medal. So what you're saying is it's usually consideably more boring than this? Yikes.

The one cool thing about Cross Country is you can advance if you're the "lucky loser" which means you didn't automatically qualify by finishing in the top 2 of your heat but your time was the best among the rest... so you advance as the "lucky loser". Love it.

Why do the Scandinavian countries dominate the Cross Country events? Norway, Sweden and Poland consistently dominate the podium as well as the top 10. Apparently they just care more.

BREAKING NEWS!
Brian Williams reporting that the TSA will now randomly select travellers and swab their hands for bomb residue. Great. I'm sure that won't cause any problems. In theory, great idea. In reality, travel nightmare.

Collinsworth: Shaun White awesome interview Part. 2...
Just to show how rapidly the sport is growing they White discussed how his Gold Medal winning performance 4 years ago would "maybe" be good enough to qualify for the finals. He played it safe just to qaulify for the finals in his first run and went about 60-70% and still stomped the coarse with a 45.8 out of a possible 50, which was far better than anyone else that gave it their all. He's in a class by himself. Period.

Heading into the 1000 meter Speed Skating event the USA has the most Gold Medals with 4 than any other country... make that 5 as World Record Holder Shani Davis easily skated to his 2nd consecutive Gold in the event.

Short Track: Apolo Ono is just fun to watch. He's such a tactician. His style is so chill until he decides to make his move and once he does it's over. It's a tricky even and as long as he can avoid contact he's tough to beat. It's like he plays with the other guys.

His teammate Travis Jayner flat out choked. He had the lead and was well on his way to advancing to the finals until he got sloppy and hit a lane marker on the final turn. The result... 2 skaters passed him leaving him out of the finals and any hopes of bringing home some hardware.

Conversely, teammate J.R. Celski played it cool until the final turn before he exploded to win the heat and advance at the last possible second.

The Vonn interviews after the trial runs prior to her downhill event reeked of dramatic theatrics. I have no idea how badly she is hurt but regardless she milked it for everything it was worth. I just got the sense she was being a drama queen and for selfish reasons making the injury out to be more than it really was. Maybe I'm wrong, I just couldn't help but get that feeling listening to her and watching her theatrics. If you listened to her, what she attempting is attempting to do is superhuman. All of this after posting the fastest time of all the competitors in the trial run.

Vonn may be a drama queen but one thing is certain, she's the best female skier on the planet. So good, in fact, that she is the only woman that can handle skiing at this level using the Men's skis. The ski's are long and faster and generally too much for women. She used them in this event and how did that turn out again? It turned out that she's the only woman to ever ski 1.8 miles in 1:44 on them. Pretty sick.

Cypress Mountain was rock hard, blazing fast, bumpy and apparently intimidating as hell to everyone other than the girls on the podium. 4 of the best skiers in the world and the only ones that had a shot of medaling were eating alive by Cypress Mountain. We saw 3 gnarly spills... one of which was one of Vonn's top rivals and best friends who land coming off that massive final jump where she flew 190 feet in the air before slamming down hard and sliding another 100 plus yards. Two more athletes had terrible falls nearly as bad but none of them were seriously injured. The final skier was a medal hopeful until she snow plowed down the hill because she was scared shitless after seeing the other three eat shit.