Sochi Winter Olympics Medals;Hannah Kearney;Women's Slopestyle Final

Total medals at the Sochi Winter Olympics as of Sunday night:
1.Norway 7
2.Netherlands 4
2.USA 4
2.Canada 4
2.Russia 4
3.Austria 2
4.Germany 1
4.Poland 1
4.Switzerland 1
4.Slovakia 1
Norway also has the most gold medals(2).This does not include the women's slopestyle snowboarding medals for some reason,perhaps becuase they weren't official yet or just hadn't been tallied by presstime.*
This blog does not pick favourites.This is an unhelpful practice,as there is no reliable way to forecast an athlete's performance on just one day or even over an entire Games.Sometimes the favourites win at the Olympics;sometimes they do not.It is a pointless media exercise to speculate like that.
American freestyle skier Hannah Kearney,who won a bronze in Saturday's women's moguls final,felt a lot better about her bronze after the warmth of the medals ceremony,where Canadian sisters Justeine and Chloe Dufour-Lapointe were awarded the gold and silver,respectively.Kearney,who won gold in the event at Vancouver in 2010,had declared she was retiring after her defeat,but on Sunday said she now feels proud of the bronze and seemed open to reconsidering the decision to retire.*
Russia is back:the old Russian dominance of figure skating,in which they had won 51 medals,and which ended at Vancouver when they were shut out of the medals,got a new lease on life as Russia took the first gold in the new team figure skating event.Seasoned veteran Yevgeny Plushenko,31,and newcomer Yulia Lipnitskaya,15,skated without obvious flaws to secure the top spot as President Vladimir Putin looked on,basking in their success.Canada won silver and the US took the bronze.*
Team USA completed its sweep of the first gold medals in the new snowboard slopestyle event as Sage Kotsenburg was joined by Jamie Anderson,23,of South Lake Tahoe,California.Anderson earned her gold as she impressed with big air,soaring above the huge manufactured slopes of the course.
Finland's Enni Rukajarvi garnered silver,and Great Britain's Jenny Jones,33,reached a milestone for her country with her bronze,the first ever medal for GB in a snow sport.

Sochi:Snowboarders Begin Quest For New Gold

Even before the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics,snowboarders began their quest for the first gold medal in the new Olympics event of slopestyle snowboarding,which resembles moguls freestyle skiing.Snowboarders must ride down some metal rails and up some huge slopes in the extreme sports event.No American men scored high enough in the qualifying runs to make it directly to the finals.Canada's Maxence Parrot and Great Britain's Jamie Nicholls did make it.
American Women fared better.Jamie Anderson of Lake Tahoe,California and Karly Shorr go directly to the finals.Also making it straight through were Australia's Torah Bright and Canada's Spencer O'Brien.Northern Europe was the only other region to have qualified for the finals in Thursday's round,being represented by snowboarders from Austria,Switzerland,Norway,Sweden and Finland.*
The semifinals will be on Saturday for those who didn't score high enough for the finals,such as American men Ryan Stassel,Sage Kotsenburg and Charlie Guldemond,along with women Jessika Jenson and Ty Walker;British man Billy Morgan,as well as women Aimee Fuller and Jenny Jones,age 34;New Zealand's Rebecca Torr,Christy Prior,Stefi Luxton and Shelly Gotlieb;and Canadian Jenna Blasman.*
The beautiful Caucasus Mountains peaks of the Mountain Cluster alpine venues seem to have abundant natural snow this winter,but the Russians have stockpiled a vast amount of snow just in case.*
No incidents of any kind marred the opening of competition in the seaside resort of Sochi,Russia.