Americans did themselves proud at Olympics

Mike Celizic

TURIN, Italy - Yes, the bad news did tend to overwhelm all the good things Team USA did during these Olympics. It wasn’t that there were more disappointments than delights, but that the worst results attached themselves to the biggest stars.

Still, there were plenty of highlights, beginning with the American team’s overall second-place showing in the medal race, equaling its achievement of 2002, when it won its most medals ever, 34, and established itself as a Winter Olympics superpower.

There were fewer medals this year — nine gold and 25 overall — but the competition was deeper than ever, and Germany, which won the medal race with 29, also was down from 2002. The United States may have left medals on the table, and some of the most highly touted stars may have laid eggs, but there was plenty to celebrate.

Here are our choices for America’s top 10 Turin performances.

Halfpipe heroes
The first Sunday of the Games hosted two premier events in which Team USA had high hopes. One turned out to be less than Bode-licious.

The other was one of the biggest American moments of the Olympics.

In Bardonecchia, site of the snowboarding halfpipe competition, a 19-year-old gust of fresh air soared to gold framed by a raucous mop of flaming red hair and lit up with a smile tailor-made for the top step of the Olympic medal podium.

Unlike so many others, Shaun White lived up to his pre-Games hype. He was supposed to win the halfpipe, and he did, blowing away the competition with a brilliant display of talent and verve. Joining him on the medal stand was Danny Kass, who duplicated the silver he had won in Salt Lake City in 2002.

NBC VIDEO Chairmen of the board Feb. 13: NBC's Natalie Morales speaks with snowboarding pioneer Jake Burton and U.S. gold medalist Shaun White. Today Show Olympics

A few days later, it was the women’s turn, and again, highly touted Americans came through. This time it was Hannah Teter of the snowboarding Teter clan spinning and flying to gold with golden girl Gretchen Bleiler bringing home the silver.

Overall, the snowboard team would win seven medals, equaling the men’s long-track speedskating team as the biggest contributors to America’s Olympic success.

Julia Mancuso
Bode came unprepared to compete. Lindsey Kildow couldn’t recover physically from a horrific training crash. Both the men’s and women’s Alpine skiing teams were reeling, with few hopes for recovery.

NBC VIDEO Pimp your Olympic ride! Feb. 15: NBC's Kevin Tibbles reports on U.S. alpine skier Julia Mancuso's bus ride to Torino. Today show

Then, in the last women’s race of the games, in a snowstorm that made it impossible to see more than a few gates of the giant slalom course at a time, Mancuso, who had never won a World Cup race, catapulted herself out of the start house and into history.

Just 21 years old, Mancuso had been coming to the mountain with a tiara, a joke gift her coach had given her to signify she was queen of the slopes.

She forgot the tiara, but remembered to keep it simple. Forgetting about results, she concentrated on her race and shut out the best in the world. It was just the second medal for the Alpine Ski Team, but it was the perfect color and it came at the perfect time to ease the team’s disappointment after two weeks of near perfect futility.

Men’s speedskating

NBC VIDEO Super Shani Feb. 24: "Today" show host Matt Lauer speaks with U.S. speed skater Shani Davis about winning gold and silver medals at this year's Games. Today Show Olympics

So much was made of the feud between Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick, that it was easy to overlook the spectacular results put up by the U.S. male speedskaters, who came away from the competition with seven medals, equaling the production of the snowboarders, including three gold.

There are five individual races in the Olympics at distances ranging from 500 to 10,000 meters, and Americans medaled in every one of them.

NBC VIDEO Hedrick discusses winning bronze Feb. 22: U.S. speedskater Chad Hedrick talks with "Today" show host Matt Lauer about his events and the rivalry between him and Shani Davis Today Show Olympics

Hedrick didn’t get his five gold medals, but he took gold in the 5,000 and backed it up with a gutsy silver-medal performance in the 10K and a bronze in the 1,500. Davis held up his end of things by becoming the first black to win an individual gold medal in the history of the Winter Games. His came in his specialty, the 1,000 meters, and he added silver in the 1,500.

Then there was Joey Cheek, who so inspired the entire team he was chosen to carry the flag into the stadium ahead of the delegation at the Closing Ceremonies. Cheek won the 500, then donated his $25,000 medal bonus to famine relief in the Sudan. When he took silver in the 1,000, he added the $15,000 that came with that medal to his donation. Matching corporate donations took the total to well over a quarter of a million dollars.

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