Games defined by tragedy as much as triumph

VANCOUVER,  (Reuters) – Shaun White defied gravity,  Joannie Rochette choked back tears of grief and Petra Majdic  ignored medical advice to haul her battered body to the podium.

Inspirational examples of courage, heartache and pain burned  brightly at the Vancouver Olympics.

Yet none of the athletes who lived their dreams on the  biggest sporting stage of all left their mark on the Winter  Games as much as the one who died before the flame was lit.

Georgian Nodar Kumaritashvili, a little-known luger killed  in a training crash at the world’s fastest track on the day of  the opening ceremony, cast a heavy shadow that will linger for  years to come.

“I have no words to describe how we feel,” said  International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge,  voice cracking with emotion and tears welling in his eyes.

More were shed, in a city whose welcome was as warm as the  unseasonal local weather, for the bravery of Canadian figure  skater Rochette who won a bronze medal only four days after her  mother’s sudden death.

“With all that had happened I did not have enough strength  out there,” she said. “I had no more inside me but my mom was  lifting me up.”

Despite a stumbling start, brickbats from foreign media  critics and a daily battle against the elements, with ski races  postponed by fog and snow-starved hills elsewhere, Canadians  rose to the challenge and never stopped believing.

It may have rained a lot, there may have been mud and slush  underfoot, but the hosts celebrated with unrestrained pride once  freestyle skier Alexandre Bilodeau had triggered the gold rush.

In the land of Wayne Gretzky, where ice hockey is almost a  religion, Canada beat southern neighbours the United States to  win the gold that mattered most.

Sure, it was a mighty close run thing in the near lottery of  overtime but Sidney Crosby’s strike for the 3-2 win will surely  take its place among the very finest moments of Canadian sport.

MILLER MEDALS

The hosts’ bid to ‘own the podium’ initially did not go to  plan, but a surge of victories at almost every venue meant they  won more golds, 14, than any country at any Winter Olympics.   They had failed to win a single one in two previous Games on  home soil.

No-one could match Norwegian cross country skier Marit  Bjoergen’s three golds, but sometimes winning is not everything.

Slovenian Majdic, who skied on in agonising pain after  breaking five ribs when she fell into a gully in a training  accident, felt her 1.4km sprint bronze was as good as gold.

“I won a medal just getting to the start line,” she said,  collapsing in a heap at the finish.

American ski maverick Bode Miller was another triple  medallist, the 32-year-old digging deep for gold in the twilight  of his career to redeem the flop of Turin in 2006.

That was more than compatriot Lindsey Vonn, who was tipped  to turn Vancouver into Vonn-couver but had to make do with a  gold and bronze — and a bruised shin and broken finger.

She still dominated the women’s downhill with a show of  power that was — in the parlance of competitors everywhere —  totally awesome. But Vancouver stayed Vancouver.

The transformation came elsewhere. The once-mighty Austrians flopped to their worst showing in  76 years in men’s Alpine skiing. Former sporting behemoth  Russia, the hosts in four years’ time in Sochi, looked weak  shadows of the past.

It was left to Vladimir Putin to flex his muscles, the  Russian prime minister declaring Yevgeny Plushenko’s silver to  be worth gold after the figure skater lost out to American Evan  Lysacek despite performing the highly-demanding quad jump that  his winning rival avoided.

The doping cases that polluted former Olympics were  remarkably absent while countries starved of success seized  their moment in the limelight. Queen of speed Amy Williams gave Britain a first gold in an  individual winter event since 1980 when she won the women’s  skeleton, while the United States won the four-man bobsleigh for  the first time in 62 years with Steve Holcomb’s Night Train.

South Korea had their own ice queen in Kim Yuna, the  country’s dazzling first figure skating champion who dissolved  into tears of joy after obliterating her rivals with a  near-perfect programme.

GOLDEN GAFFE

They also took an unexpected title in the men’s 10,000  metres speedskating after overwhelming Dutch favourite Sven  Kramer, who had hoped for three golds but ended up with just  one, and his confused coach committed the gaffe of the Games.

Heading for certain gold, Kramer was mistakenly instructed  by his coach to change lanes. He did so and was disqualified.

So too was speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno in the 500m short  track but he still ended the Games as the most decorated U.S.  Winter Olympian with eight career medals.

There was more controversy in the ski jumping where  Switzerland’s Simon Ammann flew off with both individual golds  despite Austrian grumblings about his boot bindings.

Nobody could argue with the achievement of Shaun “Animal”  White, the first snowboarder to land back-to-back halfpipe  titles with his gravity-defying Double McTwist 1260.

His reaction summed up the feeling of many winners.

“I felt like I came all the way to Canada, talked about all  my tricks and it took blood, sweat and tears to land it,” he  said.