Team USA in the 2014 Winter Olympics

Feb. 09

Feb. 11

Feb. 12

Feb. 13

Feb. 15

Feb. 16

Feb. 17

Feb. 18

Jamie Anderson takes gold in debut of slopestyle in the Olympics.

As she so often does, Jaime Anderson made things look beautiful again.

The world’s most consistent rider came through big under a huge amount of pressure — “I was freaking out,” she said — riding clean on the rails and stomping down three high-flying jumps on her second, and make-or-break, trip down the mountain. She scored a 95.25 on that run to make America 2 for 2 in slopestyle’s colorful and treacherous debut on the Olympic stage.

“It’s kind of a big deal,” said the gold medalist, who earlier this winter had conceded she was heading to Russia with some reservations about what the Olympics really stand for. “This is The Event.”

Enni Rukajarvi of Finland won silver and Jenny Jones took bronze to give Britain its first Olympic medal on the snow.

Shaun White a favorite to medal, falls short in halfpipe competition.

Maybe it was all too much. Or maybe just one of those bad nights. That debate will last a long time.

Shaun White stood at the top of the Olympic halfpipe, hunched over, hands resting above his knees. He high-fived his coach, clapped his hands, then jumped in for a ride that would decide if all the calculated choices he had made over a winter full of injuries, distractions and angst would pay off.

One jump, 15 feet above the pipe, was perfect. The second one looked good, too.

Then, the trick they call the “YOLO” — the one a rival invented but White had turned into his own.

His snowboard skittered across the halfpipe on the landing. White finished the run with a flourish and raised his index finger, trying to woo the judges who know as well as anyone what he’s done for his sport.

No sale. No medal, either. He finished fourth.

The world’s best-known, most-successful and best-marketed snowboarder lost to a man they call the “I-Pod,” and now, he may never hear the end of it.

“I would definitely say that tonight was just one of those nights,” White said after falling to Iouri Podladtchikov, the 25-year-old Russian-born inventor of the “YOLO.” “The tricks I learned getting ready for the competition will carry on for a couple years in this sport. It’s a bummer. I had one of those nights.”

The Japanese pair of 15-year-old Ayumu Hirano and 18-year-old Taku Hiraoka won silver and bronze, and the Americans were shut out on the halfpipe for the first time since the sport was introduced to the Olympics in 1998.

U.S. women’s hockey falls to Canada in controversial finish.

The Canadian women’s hockey team beat the United States 3-2 on Feb. 12 in a tense preview of the expected gold medal match, taking the lead on Hayley Wickenheiser’s controversial third-period goal. Meghan Agosta scored in the second period to tie the game 1-1, and then Canada added the go-ahead goal 93 seconds later on a shot that U.S. goalie Jesse Vetter seemed to have stopped, drawing a whistle from referee Anna Eskola of Finland.

But the puck slid through Vetter’s pads and over the goal line. A video — and presumably audio — review confirmed the puck went into the net before the whistle.

“You celebrate when you see the puck cross the line,” said Wickenheiser, who is participating in her fifth Winter Games. “It doesn’t matter how.”

But Vetter said she thought the whistle had blown before the puck came loose. American coach Katey Stone was even more sure of it.

“I did hear a whistle blow before the puck went in,” she said. “But, more importantly, I said to our players, ‘Regardless of what happens, let’s be ready.’”

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U.S. sweeps podium in slopestyle skiing.

A newly minted American medalist was sharing his thoughts — something about making history — when a certain song ringing out from fans in the stands stopped him midstream.

“The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Yes, they were skiing in Russia. But on a warm-and-sunny afternoon that goes down as the greatest in the history of a young sport making its Olympic debut, the slopestyle course was All-American.

Joss Christensen, Gus Kenworthy and Nick Goepper swept the podium for the United States on Thursday in slopestyle skiing, each throwing down versions of their sport’s vaunted triple-cork jump to capture one of the rarest triples of all: gold, silver and bronze.

It was only the third time Americans have swept an event at the Winter Games, and the first since 2002, when a trio of snowboarders in Utah did it in the halfpipe to truly bring their sport into the mainstream. The slopestyle medalists were well aware of what they’d accomplished in matching that feat.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better way to debut this sport to the world,” Goepper said.

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U.S. Freestyle Skier Joss Christensen practices on the slopestyle course Feb. 5 at Rosa Kutor Extreme Park in Sochi, Russia. MCT PHOTO

U.S. men’s hockey defeats Russia in shootout.

T.J. Oshie brainstormed while he skated to center ice, desperately trying to come up with one last move to end an epic shootout. He had already taken five shots at Sergei Bobrovsky, and the Russians were still even.

Yet Oshie was chosen for the U.S. men’s hockey team with just such a situation in mind, and the shootout specialist concocted one last clever goal to silence an arena filled with screaming Russian fans.

Oshie scored four times in the shootout and put the winner between Bobrovsky’s legs in the eighth round, leading the United States past Russia 3-2 on Saturday in the thrilling revival of a classic Olympic hockey rivalry.

“I was just thinking of something else I could do, trying to keep him guessing,” Oshie, a St. Louis Blues forward, said. “Had to go back to the same move a couple times, but I was glad it ended when it did. I was running out of moves there.”

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USA defenseman Brooks Orpik, No. 44, works the puck along the boards against Czech Republic forward Patrik Elias, No. 26, and Czech Republic forward Martin Erat, No. 91, during the first period of a Winter Olympics quarterfinal game Wednesday at Shayba Arena in Sochi, Russia. The USA beat the Czech Republic, 5-2. MCT PHOTO

Bode Miller captures emotional bronze medal in super-G.

This medal mattered to Bode Miller.

Not so much because, at 36, his bronze in Sunday’s super-G — behind winner Kjetil Jansrud and surprise runner-up Andrew Weibrecht — makes Miller the oldest Alpine medalist in Olympic history. Or even because he now owns six medals in all, the second-highest total for a male ski racer and tied for second among U.S. Winter Olympians in any sport.

The guy, who for years and years insisted results don’t mean much to him, declared he actually did care about this one. The last year has been a difficult one for Miller: the death of his younger brother, Chelone, in April 2013; the court fight over custody of his infant son; the work it took to come back from left knee surgery and return to the Alpine apex.

“It’s almost therapeutic for me to be in these situations, where I really had to test myself, so I was happy to have it be on the right side of the hundredths,” said Miller, who grew up in New Hampshire and is now based in California. “Some days … medals don’t matter, and today was one of the ones where it does.”

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U.S. women’s hockey secures spot in gold medal game.

The work began before the U.S. women’s hockey team reached the medal round, before it arrived in Sochi, before the roster was even selected.

Four years ago, the Americans left the Olympics with a silver medal. And Julie Chu was determined to be back.

“When that buzzer goes off and it erupted in the arena and we fell short of our goal of being the best in the world, that hurts,” the four-time Olympian said after the United States beat Sweden 6-1 on Monday to reach the gold medal game in Sochi. “The last four years, that’s been our goal.”

Megan Bozek and Brianna Decker each had a goal and two assists, and the Americans outshot Sweden 70-9 to clinch no worse than a silver medal. The U.S. has medaled in every Winter Games since women’s hockey was added in 1998, and just once — with a loss to Sweden in the 2006 semifinals — failed to reach the Olympic championship game.

Not since the inaugural tournament in Nagano have the Americans beaten Canada, losing in the championship game in 2002 and 2010 and again in the preliminary round of the Sochi Games on Wednesday. They will matchup again today in the final.

There are 11 players on the U.S. roster who played in the final in Vancouver, but Chu is the only one who was also on the team in Salt Lake City or Turin. She has two silver medals and a bronze.

“We’re going for a different color this time,” she said.

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American David Wise captures gold medal in halfpipe skiing.

David Wise considers himself a dad and husband first, a freestyle skier second.

That might be why he also became an Olympic champion.

Soaring through sloppy snow and sleet, Wise won the first gold medal in the young sport of halfpipe skiing Tuesday, outclassing a field in Sochi that had trouble with the slow, waterlogged conditions.

Sightlines were less than perfect on the first true soaker of a night at the action-sports venue, but not so bad that Wise couldn’t look down from the top and see his wife, Lexi, and the rest of his family members cheering at the base of the halfpipe.

Many of them were holding big pop-out pictures of his 2-year-old daughter, Nayeli, stapled to wooden sticks.

“To see that face looking back up at me was cool,” Wise said.

After placing a heart-shaped rock Lexi gave him into one pocket, the 23-year-old from Reno, Nev., dropped into the halfpipe and scored a 92 — a mark that held up to beat Canada’s Mike Riddle by 1.4 points.

Kevin Rolland of France took bronze.

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USA’s David Wise celebrates after winning the men’s ski halfpipe at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park during the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014. (Mark Reis/Colorado Springs Gazette/MCT)