ESPN Olympic Sports

LONDON, Ontario -- American pairs skaters are surely tired of being asked when U.S. pairs are going to pull out of their long tailspin on the international scene -- a slide at least partly attributable to the musical-chairs transiency among teams in recent years.

Friday, after making a notably strong statement for a new tandem at the world championships, Alexa Scimeca had an equally strong answer about the staying power she expects of herself and partner Chris Knierim.

"We're in it forever," said Scimeca. "You can quote me on that."

Scimeca and Knierim, together for less than a year, earned a personal best score of 117.78 points for their free skate, set to music from the soundtrack of "Life is Beautiful." Their total score of 173.51 placed them ninth, and that finish, combined with a 13th place from Boston-based Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir, guaranteed the United States two entries in the discipline at next year's Olympic Games. (Combined placement of 28 or better was required.)

Scimeca two-footed her landing on an early throw triple-flip jump, but the pair received high marks for their opening triple-twist lift and other elements, including the dramatic death spiral.

"We got everything we went for," Knierim said. "We felt really good out there -- calm, relaxed, another day at the office."

Scimeca and Knierim are both skilled skaters who are well-matched physically on the ice and exude chemistry that appears to be nourished by their romantic relationship outside the rink. He gently kissed her forehead before releasing her from their program-ending clutch, and she made sure she'd wiped the last trace of lipstick from his cheek before they faced reporters and cameras in the bowels of the Budweiser Gardens arena.

Knierim said they haven't had any problems making sure what happens at home stays at home, and Scimeca added that their open channel of communication complements their training. "We can say to each other, 'I'm not feeling good today, don't take it personally.'"

Their coach Dalilah Sappenfield also works with U.S. pair Caydee Denney and John Coughlin, who are in their second season together and opted out of worlds as Coughlin continues to recover from hip surgery.

"Teams want quick success without [putting in] the time behind it," said Sappenfield, whose training group works in Colorado Springs. "It takes a good team three or four years to jell, and my teams are finally understanding that concept."

Castelli and Shnapir, skating first out of 16 pairs Friday, weren't crazy about their free skate score of 108.32, well under their season's best of 117.04. But they, too, said they're committed to the long haul after nearly breaking up a year ago. Their coach Bobby Martin told icenetwork.com earlier this month it was only the latest of "at least nine times, and maybe more, that one or the other was standing on a cliff, ready to jump."

Shnapir said longevity is going to be the key to any eventual U.S. renaissance in pairs -- "Decades [together], not single digits."

Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman's bronze medal in 2002 was the last podium appearance for a U.S. team at the world championships. Jenni Meno and Todd Sand won a world silver and two bronze medals in the mid-to-late '90s, and Americans have been shut out of Olympic medals in the discipline since 1988, when Jill Watson and Peter Oppegard finished third.

LONDON, Ontario -- The gap that opened up between the world's top two ice dancing teams Thursday night is more like an abyss. Credit near-flawless execution by the U.S. team of Meryl Davis and Charlie White on a night when Canada's favorite son and daughter Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue were not completely in synch.

The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Davis and White whirled through a precise, dynamic short dance that White called "one of those dream skates." They earned a whopping 77.12 points, tops in the short three-year history of the short dance, an amalgam of the former compulsory dance and original dance competitions.

Canada's defending Olympic and world champions Moir and Virtue, performing not only in their home country but also their hometown, were undone by a botched twizzle (side by side traveling spins) and a couple of other missteps and will be 3.25 points behind going into Saturday's free dance -- a margin that is fair to call insurmountable unless something strange happens.

"That was not only our season's best result, we felt it was our season's best skate," said a clearly elated White, half of the tandem paired in childhood that won the 2010 Olympic silver medal and 2011 world title. "We feel different than we did two years ago, in a good way. Our confidence is as high as it's ever been."

Excellence has become routine for both of these teams, so it was interesting to see Davis and White exceed their own high standard and jarring to watch Virtue go badly off course during the twizzle -- prompting an audible gasp from the section of seats where teams from several countries were watching following their own programs. (All of the teams competed to some combination of polka and waltz music, with some, including Davis and White, adding a march segment.)

Moir and Virtue wore brave faces afterwards, but it would have been hard for them to convince anyone they were in the vicinity of satisfied. "We find ourselves in a little bit of a hole, but hopefully it's not over yet," said Moir, who was quick to shoulder some of the responsibility for their score of 73.87. "It wasn't just the twizzle, although that's the easiest thing to point to. The way we do our twizzle, it's tricky. We cover a lot of ice. It takes a millisecond to get out of control."

The Canadians certainly are accustomed to home pressure, having endured the highest form of it at the 2010 Vancouver Games. But the intimate confines of Budweiser Gardens presented a different kind of stress. Both Moir and Virtue were born in London and first trained together in nearby Ilderton. Asked if they could recognize faces in the seats, Moir said, "We try not to. We could recognize a face in every row if we wanted to."

LONDON, Ontario -- Dizzying best describes the past year for U.S. pair Alexa Scimeca and Chris Knierim, whose impressive unison spins helped them keep their equilibrium in the short program at the world figure skating championships Wednesday. They finished 12th out of 18 pairs in their worlds debut with a score of 55.73 points. Fellow Americans Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir are just behind them with 55.68 points.

Scimeca, 21, of Addison, Ill., and Knierim, 25, who grew up in San Diego, are an upstart team who began working together just 11 months ago, matched up by coach Dalilah Sappenfield at the Colorado Springs World Arena. The athletic partnership quickly blossomed into a romantic one, as well.

"I don't really recommend it, but they are [an off-ice couple]," Sappenfield told reporters, laughing. "They're adults, they're not little kids, so I have no problem with it ... what happens in the rink, they don't take it home. They're very good about that."

Their bond may have worked to their advantage in the intense environment of a world championships -- a trip that was far from a sure thing after their second-place finish at nationals in January. "I told them to stay focused and connected with each other, because they find comfort in each other," Sappenfield said.

Boston-based Castelli, 22, and Shnapir, 25 won in Omaha to secure a spot on the world team. 2012 U.S. champions Caydee Denney and John Coughlin, who are also part of Sappenfield's Colorado Springs group, did not compete at nationals as Coughlin was still recovering from hip surgery, but successfully petitioned to be named to the world team based on past results.

However, in mid-February, Denney and Coughlin elected not to go to worlds so Coughlin can "heal correctly," in Sappenfield's words, and focus on an Olympic bid in 2014.

Scimeca and Knierim said they trained all along as if they were sure things rather than first alternates. They've drilled spin technique, a previous weak link, in four sessions with specialty coach Janet Champion over the past few weeks.

"It's paying off really well," Scimeca said. "She's given us both different things that we've never really looked at before. We try really hard to match each other's fly and sit positions. We were both shocked by how different things were."

Scimeca said she has had to "train smart" because of a bone bruise and tendonitis in her right foot that forced the pair to withdraw from last month's Four Continents event, but the condition has largely cleared up in the past two weeks.

Castelli and Shnapir recovered well from Shnapir's fall on side-by-side triple Salchows when he launched her into a huge throw triple Salchow.

"It wasn't our best. I definitely think we can do better and we will do better," Castelli said of the program, also their first at a world championships.

Both stressed they're competing here for experience and trying not to dwell too much on placement. "We know it's worlds, but we do our best to ignore the signs," Shnapir said, gesturing toward the hard-to-miss championship logo-laden backdrop behind him.

USA Hockey on Monday released the names of the 28 players who were invited to next month's U.S. women's national team training camp.

The camp, which will take place March 25-31 at the Olympic Center in Lake Placid, N.Y., will help determine the final U.S. roster for the IIHF Women's World Championship (April 2-9 in Ottawa).

Here is complete training camp roster, which includes 12 Olympians:

Forwards

Kelly Babstock
Alex Carpenter
Julie Chu
Kendall Coyne
Brianna Decker
Meghan Duggan
Sarah Erickson
Lyndsey Fry
Amanda Kessel
Hilary Knight
Jocelyne Lamoureux
Monique Lamoureux
Jen Schoullis
Haley Skarupa
Kelley Steadman

Defensemen

Kacey Bellamy
Megan Bozek
Caitlin Cahow
Lisa Chesson
Jincy Dunne
Alyssa Gagliardi
Gigi Marvin
Michelle Picard
Anne Schleper
Lee Stecklein

Goaltenders

Brianne McLaughlin
Alex Rigsby
Jessie Vetter

Vonetta Flowers became the first African-American bobsledder from any country to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics when she and Jill Bakken topped the podium at the 2002 Salt Lake Games. And the current U.S. women's bobsled team diversity reflects her legacy.

"It's pretty cool we're talking about how diverse the team is," 2010 Olympic bronze medalist Elana Meyers said recently while training at the test event for the 2014 Games outside Sochi. "We all started from Flowers. That's when most women started hearing about it, from Vonetta, with all the hype centered around her incredible accomplishment. Starting out there and following in her footsteps is pretty cool."

The 2012-13 World Cup team has seven black athletes: drivers Meyers and Jazmine Fenlator, plus brakemen Tianna Madison Bartoletta (a London 2012 gold medalist in the 4x100), Lolo Jones (a two-time Olympic hurdler), Aja Evans, Cherrelle Garrett and Maureen Ajoku. Driver Jamie Greubel and brakemen Katie Eberling and Emily Azevedo are white. (There are also two African-Americans on the men's bobsled team.)

"It really was just a matter of looking for the best athletes," Meyers said. "It wasn't something we really even thought about until the media started asking about us about it. As a driver, I'm just trying to get the fastest pusher possible because I know that's going to put me in the best possible position to get a medal.

"It doesn't matter where you come from; there's no concern whether we're diverse or not -- we're just going for the fastest pushers possible."

Meyers played a big part in the recruiting process. She suggested that Jones give bobsled a try several years ago and said she recruited others by sending out Facebook messages to as many athletes as she could find on the National Strength and Conditioning Association's list of All-Americans.

One of those who responded to the Facebook message was Eberling, a former volleyball player who was student-teaching. "It was an unusual way to get into a sport," Eberling said. "The first time I read it, I thought, 'This has got to be a joke.' Then I called my mom and read it to her and we laughed about it, but the more I read through it, and then actually talked to Elana, that's when I took it more seriously and realized this was a huge opportunity."

(Read full post)

While Sochi organizers have promised snow will be on the ground despite warn temps in the coastal town (on Thursday, it was 66 degrees there and 59 in the mountains), one thing we can say for sure: The venues for the 2014 Winter Olympics will be there.

Here's a look at some of the locales you'll see next year:

Shayba Arena

The Shayba Arena will host ice hockey games and is in close proximity to other ice skating venues. Capacity: 7,000.

Fisht Olympic Stadium

The Olympic Stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies, and most medal ceremonies. Capacity: 40,000.

'Ice Cube' Curling Center

You guessed it -- curling competitions will be held here. The venue is in the center of the "Coastal Cluster," where all of the ice-based venues are located. Capacity: 3,000.

Bolshoy Ice Dome

The ice hockey venue is said to be modeled after a "frozen water drop," but spectators may think it resembles a disco dance floor when they see the roof light up in multiple colors at night. Capacity: 12,000.

(Read full post)

Lindsey Vonn made her first comments today since suffering a season-ending knee injury Tuesday at the World Championships:

"First off, I want to say thank you to the amazing medical staff that cared for me," Vonn said in a statement released Wednesday by the U.S. Ski Team. "I plan on returning to Vail as soon as I can to have the necessary surgeries. I am also grateful to my fans for the outpouring of support, which has really helped me stay positive. I can assure you that I will work as hard as humanly possible to be ready to represent my country next year in Sochi."

Vonn was also released today from the hospital in Schladming, Austria, where she was treated and evaluated immediately after Tuesday's crash.

ESPN's Stephania Bell discusses Vonn's knee injury and her chances of recovering in time for the 2014 Winter Olympics here:

The organizers for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games unveiled their Olympic torch on Monday, with a futuristic feel.

"The Olympic torch is one of the key symbols of the Games," 2014 Sochi Olympics Organizing Committee president and chief executive Dmitry Chernyshenko said at a news conference. "In our case, it symbolizes the beauty and diversity of Russia."

Last week, the committee released the torch relay, which is said to be the longest in the history of the Winter Games. The flame will be held by some 14,000 torchbearers over four months and travel through 2,900 towns and settlements, starting Oct. 7, 2013.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said in July that the relay planned to take a trip to the International Space Station, but no details were announced Sunday.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Five years ago, bobsled driver Steven Holcomb was deeply depressed. His U.S. four-man bobsled team was peaking and had a strong chance to win the first American gold medal in the event since 1948 at the 2010 Olympics. But despite devoting a decade of his life to that goal, Holcomb could not focus on it. He held a dark secret not even his teammates or coach knew.

He was going blind.

"I was losing my vision quite rapidly," Holcomb recalled in a phone interview. "I was realizing what my life was about to become. I was at the peak of my career and it was all about to come crashing down. My vision became so bad it was a safety issue. I was withdrawn, I wouldn't come out of my room.

"My coach [Brian Shimer] said, 'These guys are working their butts off for you, and you're just going through the motions.' I told him, 'I'm going blind, I'm going to have to quit.'"

Holcomb had keratoconus, a disease that leaves one out of every four victims blind without a cornea transplant. Holcomb's vision had already declined to 20-600 -- without the strongest corrective lenses, he could not recognize a person sitting across the table. He could get the transplant, but that would end his career due to the constant jarring that comes with driving a bobsled.

But as Holcomb writes in his new book, "But Now I See," he was able to continue his career. After a dozen eye specialists told Holcomb that a cornea transplant was his only hope, Dr. Boxer Wachler provided hope in a revolutionary treatment called C3-R that did not require invasive procedure. The treatment worked so well that not only did Holcomb continue his bobsledding career and win a gold medal at the 2010 Olympics, but the procedure is now known as the Holcomb C3-R, just as ulnar collateral ligament replacement is known as Tommy John surgery.

"Keratoconus is a lot more common than I ever realized going in," Holcomb said. "I thought I had some crazy rare disease. ... I've met so many people who have it. Two other people on the team have it and one had the same procedure. It's very common and this procedure stops it and is a cure.

"It's kind of one of the reasons for putting the book out. I wanted people to know there is a solution. It's not covered by insurance so people don't know about it -- it's not as widespread as it should be."

Blindness wasn't the only issue for Holcomb. He also suffered from depression, but was able to overcome that, as well. It wasn't easy, but he did it.

"There is always hope. Do not give up," he said. "There is always hope and always help. I kept everything a secret. I had depression and I kept it a secret and never let anyone know. When I did, that was when my life changed and it took off from there."

Holcomb is looking for more gold in Sochi at the 2014 Olympics, and he has a good chance. His team recently returned to Whistler, site of their 2010 gold, and won a World Cup race there.

"I would say that's a pretty decent place to hang out," Holcomb said of Whistler. "I love that track for obvious reasons. Winning a gold medal there brings up its value, and there is just a lot of beautiful scenery there."

And now he can see it all.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek still hopes to compete at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships after having surgery to repair a sports hernia.

Lysacek will be off the ice for about six weeks following Tuesday's surgery in Los Angeles. Once he returns, he'll be evaluated on a week-to-week basis. Nationals are nine weeks away, with the men's short program on Jan. 25 in Omaha, Neb.

Lysacek has been struggling with a groin injury since this summer, and the injury forced him out of last month's Skate America, which would have been his first competition since winning gold at the Vancouver Olympics. A recent exam found he'd actually torn an abdominal muscle.

While London rushes furiously to finish preparations for the 2012 Summer Olympics, work continues at perhaps an even more impressive pace in and around Sochi, Russia, host city for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

"About 60,000 people are working 24/7. It's a big job," said Dmitry Chernyshenko, president of the Sochi Organizing Committee for the 2014 Games. "It's the biggest construction site, I suppose, in the world. Previously it was Dubai. Now, Sochi is the largest to deliver this unprecedented project."

Much of that construction has been along the route to the mountains, where a new ski resort held Russia's first World Cup alpine races last winter.

"We're building a new city in the middle of nowhere," Chernyshenko said of all the development. "It was literally nothing there. It was empty and we're lucky we can build a dream project. We started from the scratch from a blank canvas and are painting the dream ideal project."

Sochi is a resort city of more than 300,000 on the Black Sea with a warmer winter climate than Vancouver, host of the 2010 Winter Games. The mountains rise dramatically just 30 kilometers from the sea.

"It sounds strange, but the Winter Games will be held in a sub-tropical city," Chernyshenko said. "That was one of our competitive advantages of our bid. ... The weather is very mild, and during the Olympic Games, the weather is traditionally around 10 degrees Celsius [48 degrees Fahrenheit] in the coastal parts while it's about minus-5 [24 Fahrenheit] in the mountains and with a lot of snow because of the high humidity air from the sea.

"Nobody will be frozen at the opening ceremonies. Generally, it will be very convenient for the athletes and the spectators. Can you imagine the palm trees and the snow-capped mountains?"

Asked to compared Sochi to Vancouver, Chernyshenko said Sochi was a relatively unknown city. "We had a very different starting position. We had to deliver 20 times more infrastructure than was done for Vancouver."

Chernyshenko said Sochi is building 300 kilometers of new roads and 200 kilometers of railway, plus tunnels, bridges, power plants and a new sewer system. And, of course, it is constructing 11 competition venues. There are more than 3,000 heavy trucks and hundreds of cranes in use.

"It's an unprecedented project," he said. "It's a challenge, particularly in managing such a project. Because never in the history of Russia were we developing such a great amount of work continuously. But it also helped us gain confidence that Russia is capable to accomplish such an ambitious project, and it opened the gates for the next big event."

The Summer Olympics in London may be just around the corner, but American skiers recently got a taste of the slopes above Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, when Russia held its first alpine World Cup races this month.

Lindsey Vonn clinched her fifth consecutive World Cup downhill title with a third-place finish there last weekend and Bode Miller finished fourth two weekends ago on what will be the 2014 Olympics downhill course. Miller told reporters at the event that the hill setup and jumps are good, but the course has too many turns.

"The Olympic downhill has to be the real thing and especially when you have such a great venue as this, it would be awesome to showcase it well," he said. "But this is way too turny for a downhill. It's borderline obnoxious for a downhill being that turny. It is tough when they've never run a race before, but I'm sure they're learning as much as we are and I'm sure they'll figure out how to use this terrain and make something special."

Vonn told reporters she liked the race hill.

"It's hard to compare this course to the other courses on the World Cup because it's so unique," she said at a press conference. "The terrain is really cool. It has everything -- side hills, traverses. It has a lot of terrain. It has flats, steeps. It has turns like a super-G, it has big, open turns. It really has everything. I don't think the jumps are too challenging for the women. I think it's good just the way it is."

Sochi is a large resort city of 400,000 on the Black Sea with a very mild winter climate with average temperatures near 50 in February. The Olympic alpine venue is located at the new resort of Rosa Khutor in the mountains above the city.

In an email to reporters, U.S. ski team media representative Doug Haney detailed how arriving there was like landing in a boom of the industrial revolution.

"Sparks flew from all directions as welders blasted train trestles, sky cranes hoisted beams, bus stops were humming. It was 8:30 p.m. Fifty thousand people have been working 'round the clock for the past year and a half building for 2014. Another 25,000 will be added to that number in the next year."

"This is the coolest hill I've ever seen for ski racing -- downhill, super-G -- it doesn't matter,'' Travis Ganong told reporters on the slope. "This hill is just awesome, top to bottom. It has really steep technical sections, really cool rolls and terrain with bank turns, and then big jumps and the mountains around here are gorgeous. The set can probably use some change before the Olympics and they'll work on that in the next couple of years, but in general this is a great hill."

I wasn't surprised when I saw Johnny Weir's comeback announcement. All the planets in his personal universe have aligned to make a return to competition completely logical. If he attacks his mission with all the purposefulness he promises, Weir could have the best of two worlds: Representing his country in a country he loves.

The 27-year-old Weir, long coached by Russians, speaks the language and has immersed himself in Russian culture; earlier this month, he married an Atlanta-based lawyer of Russian heritage. What better place to visualize the skate of his life than his home away from home during the 2014 Sochi Olympics?

There's another intangible. Weir has always been comfortable in his own skin, and he is a thoughtful, witty interview, but there was one area where he stubbornly asserted his right to remain silent. Now that his sexual orientation is a non-issue (as it always should have been), that's one less distraction from his goal. If he's called on to be a spokesman for gay athletes, my guess is he's ready.

I also wasn't surprised to see Weir's news go viral. There may be better jumpers and spinners among the pool of men gunning for Sochi in two years, but there is no better pure performer, and that has won him a huge and loyal fan base.

Limber and elegant, a risk-taker in his costumes and choreography, Weir's artistry is hard to fit within the rigid mathematics that now circumscribe figure skating. I thought Weir's scores in the free skate at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics were too low, and I wasn't alone. He'll have to earn his way into the stony hearts and calculators of the judges again, and that will likely involve full mastery of a quadruple jump.

There are no sure bets two years out from the next Winter Games. But I have no doubt it will be interesting to see Johnny Weir give skating another go.

Will Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan Bylsma lead the USA Hockey team in the 2014 Sochi Olympics?

It seems like the answer would be "yes" if Bylsma got his way.

While there is still no decision about whether NHL players will be allowed to participate in the Games, Bylsma has done some work with USA Hockey this summer and seems interested in being the team's head coach.

"I'd be more than willing to be a part of a staff, but my goal isn't just to be a part of a staff," Bylsma said at the Research, Development and Orientation Camp this week, according to NHL.com. "At least, the written goal is not just to be part of the staff."

Bylsma worked with coaches at the USA Hockey National Junior Evaluation Camp in Lake Placid, N.Y., last week. Pittsburgh general manager Ray Shero told NHL.com that working with USA Hockey has been a goal of Bylsma's since he joined the Penguins' organization.

"For me, there is a great deal of passion and energy and I get jacked up about going to Lake Placid and being with those kids," Bylsma said, according to NHL.com. "And it was the first time for me to wear the USA Hockey on my jacket. I took it home and I'll be wearing it proudly."

Shero added that Bylsma has been on the radar of USA Hockey executive Jim Johansson.

(Read full post)

MOSCOW -- The head of an inspection group from the International Olympic Committee says Russia is making substantial progress in preparations for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

Jean-Claude Killy made the comments Tuesday at the conclusion of a two-day visit by a working group to the Black Sea city. The visit comes before a full inspection tour by the IOC Coordination Commission for Sochi in mid-September.

According to a statement from the Sochi organizing committee, Killy said the inspectors "have seen continued progress in the development of the sporting venues both in the coastal cluster and in the mountains." He said much remained to be done in developing adequate hotel accommodation and operational planning, "but we are confident Sochi 2014 and its partners are on track to deliver their commitments."