Sochi Day 9 Wrap-up: Super G & Snowboard Cross Come Up Big for Canada!

Day 9 Recap! WE CRUSHED IT! What a crazy day! 2 quick medals! An unexpected Bronze in the Super G (I had this event as a “medal hopeful” aka not expecting one) and then a Silver in Women’s Snowboard Cross (though I didn’t expect us to win it the way we did)!

Standings: With those 2 medals, we’re now at 14 medals (4G, 6S, 4B) and sit in 6th. “Oh no, 6th!” you say? Don’t fret, all we need is to win another Gold and we’ll vault into 2nd place! We sit behind GER, NED, NOR, SUI and RUS!

Medals!
-Men’s Super G: I was NOT expecting a medal from this event but our boy, Jan Hudec had other things planned. With about 30 skiers to go, he posted the 2nd fastest time! We then had to wait FOREVER until those 30 riders finished to see if his time would hold up. Luckily, only one person passed him and he won Bronze! Hudec’s secret weapon? He had a lucky loonie buried at the finish line!!!! With his win, Canada’s snapped a 20-year drought in Alpine Skiing and he becomes just the 3rd Canadian male medalist in Alpine! Erik Guayunfortunately DNF’d, Manuel Osborne-Paradis finished 24th and Morgan Pridy finished 10th!
-Women’s Snowboard Cross was RIDICULOUS. There was not a run that I can recall that didn’t feature at least one crash/wipeout. Our defending Olympic Champion Maëlle Ricker made it through to the Quarter-finals but crashed halfway through and DNF. However, our 2006 Bronze Medalist and current World Cup standings leader, Dominique Maltais, advanced through her Quarter- and Semi-finals and brought us home the Silver in the Final! What an insane start to the day!

Big (Non-Medal) Events
-Ice Dancing – Short Dance: the defending Gold Medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir VS Silver Medalists Meryl Davis and Charlie Whiteof the US… we put down a 76.33! Gorgeous skate then they scored a 78.99 and broke a World Record. Questionable if you ask me… Figure Skating is full of so much drama & scandal. However, Kaitlyn Weaver & Andrew Poje are in contention, sitting 7th, whileAlexandra Paul & Mitchell Islam qualify in 18th. Free Dance tomorrow! BATTLE FOR GOLD!
-Men’s Hockey vs Finland was a nail biter! Some people may have said it was boring but it was because there were so few mistakes that allowed for so few bounces and lucky chances. Tied 1-1, the game had to go to OT, which means we lost 1st seed to Sweden and 2nd seed to USA. LUCKILY our power “forward”, Drew Doughty came through again, scoring the game winner, 2-1. BOTH goals came from him, his 3rd & 4th of the Olympics! He had 0 goals back in 2010 so he’s definitely stepped his game up! Unfortunately we’re now sitting 3rd seed and will face the winner of SUI-LAT in the Quarterfinals. We’re not in trouble or anything but it would’ve been nice to be 1st seed. WHERE ARE OUR FORWARDS???? Also questionable was the decision to put Carey Price in net instead of Roberto Luongo who had the shutout last game (6-0)… moot point now but we Canadians LOVE and analyze our hockey!

Other Medal Hopefuls
-Men’s Cross-Country Relay: Len Valjas, Jesse Cockney, Ivan Babikov & Graeme Killick finished in 12th, out of 16 teams.
-Women’s 1500m Speed Skating: Kali Christ 16th, Christine Nesbitt, 17th, Brittany Schussler 26th, Brianne Tutt 33rd
-Men’s 15km Mass Start Biathlon: Event had to be postponed due to fog so Nathan Smith, Brendan Green & Jean-Philippe Le Guellec will ski tomorrow at 10pm PST.

Qualifiers
-Our Men’s Curling team improved to 6-2 by beating the USA 8-6, securing a playoff berth. They then faced China and it went the distance and then some! Tied 8-8 at the end of End 10, it went to an 11th End. We won the game 9-8 and finish Round Robin 7-2. Onto the playoffs!
-Our unbeaten Women’s Curling team (7-0) faced the USA, which should’ve been a breeze but ALSO required an extra End to beat them 7-6; improved to 8-0 overall! We’ve already clinched a playoff berth and there’s just one team left to play, Korea. Lets go for 9-0!
-Two-Man Bobsled, Runs 1 & 2 were exciting to watch!
Canada 1 = Lyndon Rush/Lascelles Brown currently are 9th.
Canada 2 = Chris Spring/Jesse Lumsden are 8th.
Canada 3 = Justin Kripps/Bryan Barnett aka #BeardMode are 4th!! All are still medal contenders, just need 2 more clean runs tomorrow!