\n\tThe United States was always going to have a good Winter Games. The country jumped from sixth in the medal count to second between the 1998 Nagano Games and the 2002 Salt Lake Games and has been holding in the top five ever since \u2014 thanks to impressive results in relatively newer disciplines like snowboarding and curling and newfound competitiveness in classic realms like bobsledding and speed skating.<\/p>\n
In Milan Cortina, the United States managed 33 medals, good for second overall and the most ever<\/a> for the country at a Games outside North America. When you\u2019re out-medaling Germany and the Netherlands at winter sports, you\u2019re doing something right.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not just how many you win \u2014 it\u2019s\u00a0how\u00a0you win. And the U.S. had some truly wild and miraculous triumphs, from a figure skater who had been retired just two years go to a cross-country skier who raced with a badly damaged rib to a TikToker who waited at the last possible moment to grab his gold. Here in ascending order are Team USA\u2019s seven most inspirational moments (from among many) as they played out on Peacock\/NBC over the past two weeks. Read it and feel all over again.<\/p>\n \t\t7. The U.S. Women\u2019s Hockey Team Wins Gold By Beating Canada in OT\t<\/p>\n \n\tIn one sense, the U.S. women\u2019s hockey gold was not a surprise: The team had come in a favorite and only got hotter from there, outscoring opponents 31-1 in the six games entering the final. But in another sense, the victory over Canada on Thursday night at\u00a0Santagiulia Arena was a stone-cold shocker.\u00a0The U.S. was down 1-0 to its\u00a0archival with the clock coming up on two minutes and superstar goalie Aerin Frankel heading to the bench. Canada had beaten the U.S. in five of the previous\u00a0seven gold-medal games they played, and it was about to be a sixth.<\/p>\n Then the improbable happened. Veteran captain Hilary Knight tipped in a Laila Edwards shot to tie the score with 2:04 left and send the game into OT. That led to the snapshot moment: Taylor Heise springing Megan Keller with a stretch pass that the streaking defender took before deking a Canadian defender and tucking the puck into the goal on her backhand. Narrative reversed \u2014\u00a0the U.S. now had its third gold medal and a possible sendoff of sendoffs to a possibly retiring Knight.\u00a0It was just a prelude of what was to come between the two hockey powers, but it was plenty gratifying in its own right.<\/p>\n \t\t6. Jessie Diggins Skis 10 Kilometers \u2014 and Medals \u2014 While in Agonizing Rib Pain\t<\/p>\n \n\tRemember that time you had a cold and didn\u2019t go to work? Jessie Diggins may have something to say to you. The decorated U.S. cross-country skier (she previously was a part of the best television Olympics<\/a> moment of the 2010s with\u00a0the stir-to-patriotism\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u201cHere comes Diggins\u201d in PyeongChang) had badly bruised a rib in a nasty crash in skiathlon at the start of this Games. She seemed done, destined to head into retirement with her memories and three previous medals.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s easy to stress and think \u2018this isn\u2019t how it was supposed to happen,\u2019\u201d she posted meditatively on Instagram. \u201cBut there are always so many things that are totally out of our control.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tYet just days later, Diggins skied the 10 km freestyle and somehow ended up finishing in bronze position; at the finish, she collapsed, writhing in more pain than James Caan when Kathy Bates picked up that ax in\u00a0Misery.\u00a0\u201cI thought i was gonna maybe pass or die. it would have been nicer if I could have passed out,\u201d she said later. Fortunately she didn\u2019t, and got to experience the bronze as it happened. Us too.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\t5. Alex Ferreira Wins His First Gold Medal on His Last-Ever Olympic Run\t<\/p>\n \n\tSome Olympic athletes are phenoms. Then there\u2019s Alex Ferreira. At 31, Ferreira had been a professional halfpipe skier for more than a decade, including at three Olympics.\u00a0The ski TikToker landed on plenty of podiums, but he never has won an Olympic gold medal. After two runs at the freestyle halfpipe ski run, that didn\u2019t seem likely to change \u2014 he was in fifth place and ready for the double cork 1260 in the sky (or, like, the exhibition circuit). But the halfpipe just takes your best run, and Ferreira came out for his third and and laid out exactly that \u2014 a beauty \u2014 in the final run of his final Olympics to take a gold.<\/p>\n \n\tHow did he do it? Risk taking and technical skill, of course. But also, a mantra. \u201cI am greatness, and this is my moment,\u2019\u201d he would tell himself at the top of the halfpipe before the runs. \u201cI can feel it in my bone marrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n 4. Elana Meyers Taylor Wins Gold Medal for Her Deaf Toddler Sons\t<\/p>\n \n\tSpeaking of waiting a while for gold, consider Elana Meyers Taylor. The 41-year-old \u00a0bobsled mainstay was entering her fifth Games and, despite five previous medals, had never won a gold. Yet somehow in the new sport of monobob \u2014 one pilot doing everything \u2014 she finished\u00a0four one-hundredths\u00a0of a second faster than the 27-year-old German competitor Laura Nolte to win her first gold and become\u00a0the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Games history.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIf Meyers Taylor\u2019s win along wasn\u2019t enough to tug at the heartstrings, the athlete \u00a0is mom to two deaf toddlers, Noah and Nico (he also has Down syndrome), who come with her and her husband-coach Nic to many of their competitions and were present at the sliding track in Cortina. Meyers Taylor spoke with NBC\u2019s Mike Tirico\u00a0about how all the training and triumphs were for her sons, prompting an \u201cI\u2019m not crying, you\u2019re crying\u201d outpouring on social media. \u201cParenting my two sons with disabilities has done everything for me,\u201d she said, \u201cIf I win medals or lose medals, it doesn\u2019t matter because I\u2019m still mom to them.\u201d Then she added, \u201cHopefully when they\u2019re older they\u2019ll look back and realize what actually happened.\u00a0I was just so happy to be able to hug them and hold them for a brief moment while everything played out.\u201d (We can\u2019t embed this one but check out the interview here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n \t\t3. Corinne Stoddard Posts That She\u2019s \u201cEmbarrassed\u201d By How She Keeps Falling \u2014 Then Goes Out and Grabs a Bronze\t<\/p>\n \n\tCorinne Stoddard is currently ranked third in short track for 500 and 1,000 meters. She became known for something else for much of the Milan Cortina Games \u2014 she fell a shocking four times during races and wrote a self-lacerating Instagram post that \u201cPart of me thinks I haven\u2019t been able to handle the pressure and expectations I put on myself\u201d and said that she feels \u201cembarrassed by how much I\u2019ve choked on the Olympic stage over and over again.\u201d (She also fell in Beijing in 2022.)<\/p>\n \n\tBut on Friday in the 1,500-meter race, her last, she pulled off a third-place finish for bronze after holding off a pair of hometown heroes, including Italian legend Arianna Fontana. Stoddard has has been public about her battles with anxiety and insomnia, and the sight of her battling through to reach the podium gave hope to anyone familiar with mental-health struggles. Stoddard\u2019s tearful parents were mirrored by broadcaster\u00a0Katherine Reutter-Adamek, who choked up with emotion. \u201cForgive us if we all join the parents in shedding a tear,\u201d\u00a0play-by-play man Ted Robinson said.<\/p>\n \n\tIt would be the first\u00a0individual\u00a0medal for a U.S. woman short-track athlete in 16 years.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cEvery person on that ice understands what Stoddard lived through,\u201d\u00a0Robinson said.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not how you start, it\u2019s how you finish,\u201d Reutter-Adamek said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n 2. Alysa Liu Skates Like No One Is Watching and Reminds Us Why We Do This\t<\/p>\n \n\tWe could use words to describe what Alysa Liu \u2014 barely two years ago retired because she didn\u2019t find figure-skating pleasurable anymore \u2014 pulled off with her gold-medal skate on Thursday. But nothing compares to the contact high from just watching her pull off the most joyous figure-skating performance in modern memory.<\/p>\n \n\tOn an Olympics stage where competitors can be uptight, dour and neurotically serious because of the pressure placed on them, Liu reminded us what events should really be all about: fun. Watch the skate here<\/a> and your day will instantly become 37 percent better.<\/p>\n \t\t1.\u00a0The U.S. Men\u2019s Hockey Team Wins Gold By Beating Canada in OT\t<\/p>\n \n\tWhere to start with one of the best hockey games ever played, talent-wise, and also the one with the most TV storylines?<\/p>\n \n\tThe United States\u2019 first-ever gold medal win in hockey over Canada? The fact that it happened on the anniversary<\/a> of the Miracle on Ice, aka the event widely regarded as the best TV moment of the 1980s? The vengeance against Canada from last year\u2019s Four Nations tournament? The sheer wizardry of Matt Boldy<\/a> and Connor Hellebuyck<\/a>?\u00a0The touching tribute<\/a> to the late Gaudreau brothers? The dominance of the ascendant Hughes brothers? The fact that one of said brothers, Jack, poked the puck away from Cale Makar and then sniped the winning shot in OT after having a few teeth knocked out on a high stick near the end of regulation?<\/p>\n \n\tHughes\u2019 goal was the burst of unity and the palliative we need at this moment \u2014 not, with the Miracle on Ice, to heal a country fractured by the Cold War but to heal a country fractured by itself. (\u201cI\u2019m so proud to be an American today,\u201d he said<\/a>.) Plus who doesn\u2019t love a good sports-dentistry story? \u201cWould you trade a couple of broken teeth for a gold medal?\u201d broadcaster Kenny Alert asked. Fortunately for America, Hughes would.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States was always going to have a good Winter Games. The country jumped from sixth in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5311],"tags":[19438,7126,228310,49,978,659,144593,224734],"class_list":["post-782955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-olympic-games","tag-olympics","tag-olympics-2026","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-winter-olympics","tag-winter-olympics-2026"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116118147777180222","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}