SPEED RACER
FULL SPEED AHEAD When it comes to sitting down at the dinner table, Jeret Speedy Peterson (Boise, Idaho) says he s a meat and potatoes kind of guy. But when it comes to his sports competition here at the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, Peterson s event is far from the ordinary. Competing in aerials is about as far from meat and potatoes that you can get. On a food menu, it would be listed under the most exotic items on the card. There s nothing ordinary about twisting, turning and backflips high in the air while on skis. It definitely gets the adrenaline flowing, Peterson said when asked if he has to be fearless to compete. He continued that he has been a junkie of the nervy sport right from the beginning. I just feel comfortable in the air. The beginning for Peterson goes back at least 17 years to his pre-teen days and learning to have confidence in maneuvering midair on skis. We start out jumping into a swimming pool, Peterson said. That s how we train in the summer months. My first backflip in water was at Lake Placid. My first in snow was at Utah Olympic Park. I was about 12. He earned the nickname Speedy around this time because he pushed his way into line to get extra training jumps and wore an oversized helmet when he ventured on to the snow. The nickname has become his first name while competing, but when his attention turns to the business world after Vancouver, Peterson s signature will become Jeret Peterson. Speedy doesn t sound very business-like, he said. But before putting Speedy aside, he has some unfinished business on the Olympic stage. I want to win the gold medal and I feel very good about my chances, Peterson said. The Olympic veteran has started in three Games, including his first in 2002 in Salt Lake City, a competition he calls, A great learning experience. While he knows how he wants his third Games to end, Peterson acknowledged that he finished only one of the two previous trips. The 2006 Games didn t end on a happy or rewarding note. I made a couple of mistakes, Peterson said. I ve learned from them and I ve become a better person for it. Peterson is part of an aerials team that is looking for Olympic medal success. Ryan St. Onge (Winter Park, Colo.) on the men s team and Jana Lindsey (Black Hawk, S.D.) and Emily Cook (Belmont, Mass.) on the women s team competed in Torino, but none have yet won an Olympic medal. After Torino, Peterson set his sights on returning to the Olympic Winter Games. I had to take it a day at a time, Peterson said. The time actually has gone by pretty quickly. In a few days, Jeret Peterson will enter a new world. But for the time being, Speedy Peterson wants his last hurrah.
VANCOUVER FORECAST HIGH/LOW Feb. 25 AM Showers 48/42 F Feb. 26 Rain 48/41 F Feb. 27 Partly Cloudy 49/43 F WHISTLER FORECAST HIGH/LOW Feb. 25 Rain/Snow 39/34 F Feb. 26 Rain/Snow 44/34 F Feb. 27 Partly Cloudy 46/36 F QUOTEABLE For me, when everyone is cheering against you, half the time you don t understand what they re saying. it s just a bunch of noise. -- Monique Lamoureux, Ice Hockey The people of Whistler and Vancouver have been so amazing. There are certain things about the Olympics that you think it should be about, and that s one of those things. Everyone is here and the place my family is staying at is amazing. They are having a blast up here, and it s all thanks to this incredible community. -- Steve Mesler, Bobsled THE TWEET SPOT Tweets from the U.S. Olympic Team I can t sleep I m so excited for tomorrow. I keep dreaming of playing in the GMG. U wait so long for this...but I know we r prepared! -- Angela Ruggiero, Ice Hockey (@AngelaRuggiero) We were made fun of on the Colbert Report!!! Woohoo, haha I ve made it!! -- Charlie White, Figure Skating (@charlieawhite) Headed back to So. Cal for a few days before closing ceremonies. Maybe get my surf on! -- Gretchen Bleiler, Snowboarding (@GretchenBleiler) Follow Team USA online at www.teamusa.org and on Twitter and Facebook. Receive breaking news via Twitter. On the Cover: Jeret Speedy Peterson Photos: Getty Images VETERANS TO FACE CANADA IN GOLD MEDAL GAME AGAIN For Angela Ruggiero (Simi Valley, Calif.) and Jenny Potter (Edina, Minn.), winning a gold medal in women s hockey may be familiar territory, but making their third appearance in the matchup and gunning for their second gold remains special. It s like Christmas, Ruggiero said. It s really hard to get there and even harder to win it. To be able to go from being the youngest member of the 98 team, being wideeyed and excited and to be on top of the world then, to come full circle as one of the veterans, one of the oldest players on the team, and to be able to represent your country at this time would be amazing. Jenny Potter & Angela Ruggiero The U.S. will face Canada Thursday in the women s hockey gold medal game, Team USA s third appearance in the gold medal game since women s hockey became a part of the Olympic program at the 1998 Nagano Games. Ruggiero and Potter have played for Team USA in every Winter Games since the inclusion women s hockey. They won gold in Nagano, silver in 2002 at Salt Lake and bronze in 2006 in Torino, and they are eager to add another medal to their collection. Looking back on those memories, it was a wonderful experience, Potter said. I just hope to relive that. What would make this game even more thrilling to the four-time Olympians is defeating Canada at home in the process. The Canadians defeated the U.S. on their own turf at the Salt Lake City Games to take gold, and the U.S. was upset by Sweden in Torino and didn t get to face Canada. The thing about our sport is that it peaks every four years. You re lucky if you get to play Canada, Ruggiero said. The two of us kind of jockey back and forth between one and two in the world, and so in the back of my head I ve always had those Olympic rings but I ve kind of had a maple leaf at the same time. Ruggiero won her 250th game on Monday, Feb. 22 against Sweden, winning more games than any other hockey player, man or woman, on Team USA. During their defeat of China on Feb. 14, Potter became the top American female scorer. The women plan to use their experiences to help their young team. continued...
All of your leadership counts because we have a lot of rookies on our team, Potter said. We have to go out there with the knowledge that we have a great team and put some of the weight on our shoulders and carry the team. Ruggiero said she is confident in their team because of how it closely mimics that 98 team that won gold. Fifteen [teammates] are experiencing the Olympics for the first time, yet we have this great chemistry and this confidence about ourselves, she added. It really feels like a team. It s very special. It s going to be a great game, Potter said. It s going to be super competitive, a fun game to watch. I think we re all excited to play. THE MUSIC PLAYS ON It might get you standing. It might get you dancing. It might get you screaming. Or it might not. It might just keep you interested - mellow and focused. No matter what mood it provokes, the music played at Vancouver Olympic venues during breaks and timeouts, as well as during several events, comes from thought and analysis by venue staffers. Pacific Coliseum hosts the figure skating and short track speedskating events. According to the arena s venue manager, Jake Benson, the music played during breaks in the action of each sport differs. Our sport production team selects the music played at the venue based on music trends and event demographics, Benson said. So different sports command different playlists? The music played between competitions at short track speed skating is typically more upbeat and faster-paced than the music played before and in between figure skating competitions, he said. A very non-scientific survey taken at the venue during each sport confirmed Benson s statement. The DJs themselves are not just volunteers pulled off the street. Sean Bovelsky is the man with his finger on the play button at UBC Thunderbird Arena, one of two Olympic ice hockey venues in Vancouver. A native of Tampa, Fla., Bovelsky is the music director for the NHL s Lightning, the NFL s Buccaneers and the AFL s Storm. He was also the DJ at 2002 s Salt Lake City Olympic hockey games. From 3,000 songs supplied by VANOC, Bovelsky whittles out playlists for each situation a game might present - walk-in playlists, warm-up playlists, injury playlists - while keeping a list of hot songs in his back pocket for getting the crowd into the game. Each game is unique and I try to feed off the energy of the crowd, Bovelsky said. Once the puck drops, I m always looking ahead. I have to pay attention to what s happening and I have to stay one step ahead. At events such as freestyle moguls and aerials, music plays during the athletes runs. Halfpipe snowboarders have authority over song choices during their time in the pipe. U.S. rider Elena Hight (South Lake Tahoe, Calif.) kept her song selections patriotic. Songs played during Saturday s short track competition included Can t Stop by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Britney Spears Toxic and the beat to a Ludacris rap song. The ladies short program competition Tuesday featured a generally less abrasive brand of tunes. (Though several up-beaters such as Lady Gaga and JET did get time). Besides the music played for each skater s program, the night s soundtrack included Neil Diamond s Sweet Caroline, John Mayer s Waiting on the World to Change and Billy Joel s Uptown Girl. Elena Hight
For the Olympics, it was more about the U.S.A., she said of her picks. Lynyrd Skynyrd s Sweet Home Alabama and Springsteen s Born in the U.S.A. were both selected by Hight in Vancouver. On her finals run, she went with the Miley Cyrus pop anthem, Party in the U.S.A. But since she is listening to her ipod during her runs, Hight said the loudspeaker music is meant more for the fans. It lets the athletes express [their] own personality to the crowd. Hight s headphone music helps her take her mind off everything but her competition. It blacks out any distractions. The same effect is had by loudspeaker venue music on an event s audience. It keeps their minds, and sometimes bodies, in the event. Bovelsky, UBC s music man, has a simple goal: keep it about the game. The game is what people are here for. We re here to make their experience even better. FLATT, NAGASU ON THE ICE FOR FREE SKATE Rachael Flatt (Del Mar, Calif.) and Mirai Nagasu (Arcadia, Calif.) will look to pull up onto the podium in the ladies free skate Thursday at Pacific Coliseum. The event begins at 5 p.m. Flatt sits in fifth place after the short program, in which she received a career-best score of 64.64 points. She will perform her free skate to Rachmaninoff s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, for which she earned a personal-best mark of 116.11 points at 2009 Cancer.Net Skate America. Rachael Flatt Korea s Yu-Na Kim leads the competition by almost five points, with Japan s Mao Asada in second and Canada s Joannie Rochette in third. READY TO FLY Three-time Olympian Jeret Speedy Peterson (Boise, Idaho) and two-time Olympian Ryan St. Onge (Winter Park, Colo.) will jump Thursday for Team USA in the men s aerial finals on Cypress Mountain. Weather conditions are expected to be windy for the 6 p.m. start. Peterson is the owner and only jumper in the world to perform the Hurricane, a jump that is considered the world s most complicated and difficult trick. St. Ryan St. Onge Onge is the current World Champion and U.S. national champion and is feeling confident about his chances for the podium after successful training during the past week. GOLD MEDAL GAME The U.S. Women s Olympic Ice Hockey Team will face-off for the gold medal against Canada for the third time in the last four Olympic Winter Games when they meet Thursday at 3:30 p.m. at Canada Hockey Place. The game will be broadcast on MSNBC. The countries split the first two gold-medal matches, with the U.S. winning the inaugural women s ice hockey gold medal in Nagano in 1998 by a 3-1 score. Four years later in Salt Lake City, Canada prevailed, 3-2. The U.S. also captured a bronze medal in 2006. Nagasu is one spot and less than one point behind Flatt after amassing a season-best score of 63.76 points for her Pirates of the Caribbean short program. Her free skate is set to music from the opera Carmen. She will look to better her career-high free skate score of 106.62 points, set at the 2007 World Junior Figure Skating Championships.
After defeating Sweden 9-1 in the semifinals Monday, the U.S. has outscored its four opponents by a combined 40-2 margin and outshot them 183-49. With a 4-0-0-0 record this year, the U.S. has improved its all-time Olympic record to 18 wins and two losses. Forwards Jenny Potter (6 goals, 5 assists; Edina, Minn.) and Natalie Darwitz (4 goals, 7 assists; Eagan, Minn.) have established U.S. records for most points in one Games while netminder Jessie Vetter (Cottage Grove, Wis.) posted shutouts in her first two 2010 Olympic starts and compiled a shutout streak of 149:34 before allowing her first and only goal of the Olympic Winter Games in the semifinal win over Sweden. MEDALISTS BACK ON TRACK Taylor Fletcher (Steamboat Springs, Colo.) gets his first nordic combined Olympic start along with newly crowned silver medalists, Todd Lodwick (Steamboat Springs, Colo.), Johnny Spillane (Steamboat Springs, Colo.) and Billy Demong (Vermontville, N.Y.) when they jump and race for Team USA in the individual long hill event. Jumping action starts at 10 a.m. followed by the 1 p.m. cross country race, both at Whistler Olympic Park. RUGGIERO TO IOC COMMISSION After a three-week long election in the Vancouver and Whistler Athlete Villages, Olympians from around the world elected U.S. Olympic ice hockey player Angela Ruggiero (Simi Valley, Calif.) as one of two individuals selected to represent all Olympic athletes on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Athletes Commission. The other individual elected was skeleton athlete Adam Pengilly from Great Britain. Angela Ruggiero The commission, which meets once or twice a year, serves as a consultative body and is the link between active athletes and the IOC. The commission represents athletes within the Olympic Movement and also upholds the rights and obligations of the athletes. It is a tremendous honor to be voted by my fellow Olympians to become a member of the IOC Athletes Commission. Ruggiero said. I want to thank everyone who has put their faith and trust in me to represent them. I will do all I can to be a good ambassador of the Olympic Movement and represent athlete issues to the IOC - not just from North America - but from around the world. The appointment of Ruggiero and Pengilly will be for eight years and allows them to become full-fledged members of the IOC. RELAY TIME FOR CROSS COUNTRY WOMEN The women s cross country 4x5 relay at Whistler Olympic Park begins at 11 a.m. Thursday with U.S. starters Kikkan Randall (Anchorage, Alaska), Holly Brooks (Anchorage, Alaska), Morgan Arritola (Ketchum, Idaho) and Caitlin Compton (Minneapolis, Minn) racing for a team medal. The format in the 4x5 relay will have each skier go through the same five kilometer track with the first two competitors racing in classic style and the final two skiers racing in freestyle. I am so happy for Angela as this is something she s been passionate about for a long time, said Natalie Darwitz (Eagan, Minn.), captain of the U.S. Olympic Women s Ice Hockey Team. I ve had the privilege of having Angela as a teammate at three Olympics and have seen the leadership qualities she s brought to the sport of women s ice hockey in the United States for many years. I know she ll be a fantastic leader on the IOC Athletes Commission. continued...
BREAKING NEWS As part of the USOC s exclusive coverage of Team USA throughout the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, there are two options to receive Breaking News alerts from the USOC -- via email and/or by following us on Twitter at @USOCbrk. The USOC s Breaking News Bureau keeps the media and the U.S. delegation up to the moment with breaking news about U.S. athletes and team results, advisories and updates. The Bureau editor sends e-mails to members of the media and delegation staff on breaking news and advisories. Visit the USA Media Services office to sign up to receive the Breaking News alerts during the Games. VISITNG USA HOUSE The USA House in Vancouver will have a limited media services operation. Journalists interested in gaining access and/ or setting up interviews at Vancouver USA House should request a media day pass 24 hours in advance by sending an email to: usahousemedia@usoc.org. The facility will have a small workroom and will provide some interview opportunities with U.S. athletes and officials. In addition, USA House will be an evening stop in the Managing Victory tour for U.S. medal-winning athletes. Due to size constraints, USA House in Whistler is not open to the press. We are very proud of Angela for the way she represents herself, her sport and the United States both on and off the ice, said Scott Blackmun, CEO of the United States Olympic Committee. I cannot think of anyone better to represent the athletes at the IOC. Ruggiero is a four-time Olympic medalist and graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor s degree in government. She has been involved in many charitable causes including: ProSports MVP Olympic Heroes Tour, Charles B. Wang Ice Hockey Project Hope, Right to Play and is a board member of the Women s Sports Foundation. In 2004, ESPN.com named her one of the top-16 female athletes in the world. THIS DAY IN OLYMPIC HISTORY February 26, 1960 David Jenkins defeated Karol Divin (CZE) and Don Jackson of Canada for men s figure skating gold in the Squaw Valley Olympic Winter Games. Jenkins was the brother-in-law of that year s women s figure skating champion, Carol Heiss, and the younger brother of the 1956 Cortina Winter Games figure skating champion Hayes Alan Jenkins. Three-time U.S. Olympic bobsledder Bill Schuffenhauer is surprised by fiancé Ruthann and son Corben at the P&G Family Home in Vancouver. Due to financial difficulties, Ruthann and Corben were not going to make the trip to the Olympic Winter Games to see Bill compete, but Team USA sponsor P&G, who offered financial support to the mom of every Team USA mom as part of their Thanks, Mom program, covered the costs for Ruthann and Corben s travel and lodging to Vancouver. USOC PRESSBOX Visit the USOC media website, www. usocpressbox.org, for up-to-date and daily coverage of Team USA. Available on the site: headshots of the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team, releases, media annoucements, press conference transcripts, bios, athlete Tweets and more. DID YOU KNOW? Team USA s 2-0 victory over Switzerland in men s ice hockey Wednesday was the 19th shutout in team Olympic history. Another of those shutouts was also against Switzerland during the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Games in 1936.
2010 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES SCHEDULE THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25 TIME SPORT EVENT VENUE 10:00 Nordic Combined Individual LH/10 km CC - Competition Round Whistler Olympic Park U.S. Athletes: Bill Demong, Taylor Fletcher, Todd Lodwick, Johnny Spillane 11:00 Cross Country Ladies 4x5 km Relay Classic/Free Whistler Olympic Park U.S. Athletes: Morgan Arritola, Holly Brooks, Caitlin Compton, Kikkan Randall 11:00 Ice Hockey Women s Bronze Medal Game - Game 19 Canada Hockey Place Finland vs. Sweden 13:00 Nordic Combined Individual LH/10 km CC - 10 km Whistler Olympic Park U.S. Athletes: Bill Demong, Taylor Fletcher, Todd Lodwick, Johnny Spillane 15:30 Ice Hockey Women s Gold Medal Game - Game 20 Canada Hockey Place Canada vs. United States U.S. Athletes: Kacey Bellamy, Caitlin Cahow, Lisa Chesson, Julie Chu, Natalie Darwitz, Meghan Duggan, Molly Engstrom, Hilary Knight, Jocelyne Lamoureux, Monique Lamoureux, Erika Lawler, Gigi Marvin, Brianne McLaughlin, Jenny Potter, Kelli Stack, Angela Ruggiero, Molly Schaus, Karen Thatcher, Jessie Vetter, Kerry Weiland, Jinelle Zaugg-Siergiej 17:00 Figure Skating Ladies Free Skating Pacific Coliseum U.S. Athletes: Rachael Flatt, Mirai Nagasu 18:00 Freestyle Skiing Men s Aerials Final Cypress Mountain U.S. Athletes: Jeret Peterson, Ryan St. Onge (PPD) - Postponed; bold denotes medal round; *estimated start time VICTORY CEREMONIES SCHEDULE THURSDAY, FEBRRUARY 25 19:00 BC Place Ladies 3000m Short Track Speedskating Ladies Freestyle Skiing Aerials 19:00 Whistler Plaza Nordic Combined Individual LH/10 km CC Ladies Cross Country 4x5km Relay Women s Bobsleigh MEDIA ZONE PRESS CONFERENCE SCHEDULE VANCOUVER Date Sport Time Room February 27 USA Wrap-up 10:00 Gabriola FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26 19:00 BC Place Ladies Snowboarding PGS Men s Freestyle Skiing Aerials 19:00 Whistler Plaza Ladies Alpine Skiing Slalom Men s Biathlon 4x7.5