Bode, Apolo get last chances at gold medals
SAUZE d'OULX, Italy — OK, Bode. It all comes down to this.
You, too, Apolo.
The Winter Olympics are winding down, with Saturday the last chance for the U.S. to beef up its medal count. The top candidates to do it are two guys who were expected to be big winners in Turin, but haven't been so far: skier Bode Miller and short track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno.
Miller will be trying to finally get the "all" out of his all-or-nothing approach, this time in the slalom. Ohno will be competing in the 500 meters and taking part in the 5,000-meter relay.
"I'm just having fun out there," said Ohno, who at least has lived up to his billing by winning one medal, albeit a bronze. "It's the last week of the games. I just want to enjoy every race."
Because Miller and Ohno are so notable, for better or worse, they make for compelling stories, the kind that get played up in prime time. NBC will show all three of those finals, plus the women's 1,000-meter short-track relay, the finals of the four-man bobsled and the men's 15-kilometer biathlon finals.
Hockey will again be live, though this time on NBC. The network will have the bronze medal game as part of its afternoon broadcast, along with the women's 5,000-meter speedskating final and the women's biathlon 12.5km final.
Miller's wild behavior earned him a lot of pre-Olympics buzz for being a bad boy, but he's mostly been just plain bad. In four races, he's finished no higher than fifth. He's also been sixth, disqualified and didn't finish, yet had the audacity to claim he could've won any of them.
He has still provided some memorable moments. They've just been memorable for all the wrong reasons.
The two images that stand out are of him straddling a gate and getting disqualified from the combined when he was leading, and slamming into a gate with a ski slicing into the air during the super-G. Knowing he was done in that race, Miller then veered into the woods to avoid speaking with reporters at the bottom of the slope.
His bumpy Olympics fits the pattern of his 2006 World Cup season, which has included failing to finish five of his seven slalom races.
Despite it all — including twisting his left ankle while playing basketball with teammates this week — Miller can never be counted out. He was the 2005 World Cup all-around champion and his last slalom victory came on the hill he will ski Saturday.
And if he gets a medal of any color, it'll be the third of his career, making him the most decorated Alpine skier the U.S. has ever had at the Olympics.
Ohno's bronze is the only American medal from the short track. The soul-patched one can change that with a big performance Saturday.
The 500 is a short, quick race, an all-out sprint that's fun to watch. It's tricky to compete in, though, because everyone is battling to cover the same circle of ice in well under a minute, which can lead to traffic jams, the kind that lead to medal-ruining bumps and falls.
Ohno knows all about that, having lost his balance in the semifinals of the 1,500.
He also knows the man to beat will be Ahn Hyun-soo of South Korea, who already has won the first two men's gold medals. He'll be the favorite in the 500 and his presence makes South Korea the favorite in the relay.
There will be two U.S. skaters in the women's 1,000: Kimberly Derrick and 17-year-old Kim Hyo-jung.
The bobsled finals could be exciting, too, if Todd Hays is able to steer near the front of the pack during the first two runs Friday. The last two come Saturday, with all four added up for the final score. Hays won a silver medal in the four-man in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
The bronze medal hockey game will pit the losers of Friday's two semifinals, the Czech Republic vs. Sweden and Finland vs. Russia. The winners of those games won't play until Sunday, the final day of the Olympics.
