Posted on 02/23/2014 2:13:21 AM PST by cunning_fish
KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia – The American Dream exists for people like the 27-year-old who crossed the finish line, won his second gold medal of the Sochi Games and celebrated like he couldn't believe it. Because, truth is, he couldn't believe it. When the United States failed him – when it didn't give him the one thing it promises, opportunity – Vic Wild went and found his American Dream in Russia.
And here he was, the toast of Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, making the pretty girls holding the winners' bouquets giggle and the fans chant "Roo-see-uh! Roo-see-uh!" and his competitors hail him for his courage. Vic Wild is no traitor, even if his two gold medals might help swing the final medal table in Russia's favor over the United States.
[Photos: Short-track speedskater Victor An wins four medals for Russia]
Actually, the most stereotypically American story of the Olympics might be about an alpine snowboard racer who left for a place that wanted him, made himself a new life and turned into a smashing success.
"Why Vic's a hero," fellow racer Michael Lambert said, "is he's someone that didn't let anything stand in the way."
Wild won the snowboarding parallel slalom race Saturday afternoon, parlaying an incredible come-from-behind win in the semifinals to a gold-medal-winning victory over Zan Kosir by a little more than one-tenth of a second. He became the first snowboarder in Olympic history to win two medals in the same games, his first coming three days earlier in the parallel giant slalom.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
The Winter Olympics should be only the following events:
Skiing - Downhill, Slalom, Cross-Country
Ski Jumping
Speed skating
Bobsledding
Luge
Figure Skating (NO ICE DANCING!)
Biathlon
Luge
Hockey
That’s It!!!
It’s only assault and battery if it’s openly hostile action. No one but my wife knew it wasn’t a clumsy accident.
Too bad he couldn’t help the Russian hockey team :)
Wish you could see me laughing my butt off ;^)
That’s what was bound to happen once the Olympics became open to professionals.
When I spotted him. I walked through the crowd the way he boarded through the skiers. But being a hunter, including birds and water fowl, I used deflection technique. I aimed where he would be rather than where he was.
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