Bernard Lagat added a notch to his resume on Friday night when he established a new national record for the 5,000 meters at the prestigious Bislett Games in Oslo, Norway. Lagat finished third in 12 minutes, 54.12 seconds, breaking the mark of 12:56.27 set by Dathan Ritzenhein last season. Ethiopia's Imane Merga won the race in 12:53.81, followed by his countryman, Tariku Bekele, in 12:53.97.
Vonn crashes out
updated: Sun Feb 28 2010 02:49:00
Lindsey Vonn's Olympics come to an end. Alex Thomas wraps up Friday's competition.
WHISTLER, British Columbia -- Here was a familiar scene: Bode Miller standing benignly on skis at the side of race course, poles dragging in the snow, a look of vague disappointment on his face. He is wearing a racing helmet and speed suit, but he is as still as the pine trees behind him and the plastic gates that line the mountainside, all dressed up with no place to go.
WHISTLER, British Columbia -- As massive, wet snowflakes fell on the Creekside alpine racing stadium Friday afternoon, Lindsey Vonn worked an adoring crowd. Autographs here, photos there, always a smile. The hood was pulled up on her white, U.S. Ski team jacket and a hat was yanked down to the top of her eyebrows, but there was no mistaking who was beneath the down and wool. You cannot cover up stardom.
WHISTLER, British Columbia -- Running downhill through the Olympic Alpine Games, with two events left to ski (women's slalom Friday and men's slalom Saturday):
Bode Miller wins his first Olympic gold medal. CNN's Alex Thomas wraps up Sunday's competition.
Winning gold could mean even more money for the Winter Olympics' superstar athletes. Of the top earners, experts say Lindsey Vonn, Shaun White and Bode Miller stand to gain the most.
The alpine skier took the gold in Sunday's Super Combined in Vancouver
WHISTLER, British Columbia -- Bode Miller woke up on Sunday morning feeling "pretty whipped," as he put it. His crash a few days earlier, during a downhill training run for the men's super combined, had left him not so much sore as out of alignment. "I flew 35 feet through the air and landed on my hip," he said. "I'm fine, but it kind of feels like I'm crooked."
Bode Miller and Seth Wescott collect medals for the U.S. CNN's Alex Thomas reports.
WHISTLER, British Columbia -- Bode Miller's record-breaking bronze medal in Wednesday's Olympic downhill was even more impressive than it initially appeared. Hours after the race, Miller's uncle, Mike Kenney, who is also a coach with the U.S. Ski Team, told SI.com that Miller had undergone arthroscopic knee surgery shortly after Christmas, barely seven weeks before Monday's race. Miller's agent, Lowell Taub, confirmed the surgery in an email exchange on Tuesday.
Skier Lindsey Vonn is using an Austrian cheese to help heal the shin injury she suffered while at the Winter Games.
Neda Agha-Soltan: The night before she was killed on the streets of Tehran, the woman the world would come to know simply as Neda had a dream. "There was a war going on," she told her mother, Hajar Rostami, the next morning, "and I was in the front."
SI.com's writers will preview each event from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Here's Tim Layden's look ahead to Alpine skiing.
The machinery is fully cranked. Cameras are aimed, stories are in process (including one in Sports Illustrated), video packages have been assembled. In just over two months, the 2010 Winter Olympic Games will unfold in Vancouver and one U.S. skier will play the role of Michael Phelps, the athlete who can win multiple gold medals over the course of the Games, while delivering eyeballs to televisions and page views to Web sites. One athlete will be charged with monetizing the Olympic entertainment enterprise.
From the very first words out of Bode Miller's mouth, it was apparent that this day would be different. "First of all, thank you guys for coming here,'' Miller said, opening his portion of a press conference in Los Angeles, at which he announced that he would be rejoining the U.S. Ski Team, and attempt to qualify for his fourth Olympic Games five months from now in Vancouver.
March gets noisy around now, here in the States. Tickets to the Big Dance are punched daily, brackets are busted, NFL free agents are signing, and veterans are being released or given new life. (Good luck David Carr, and if Eli Manning goes down, I don't want to be you even for one minute). In Florida and Arizona, the regulars are playing deeper into every exhibition game as Opening Day draws near.
SI.com: Bode's bumpy trail updated: Tue May 15 2007 13:32:00
The first news of last weekend was not shocking at all. After a meeting with officials of the U.S. ski team in Park City, Utah, Bode Miller had elected to separate from the team with the intention of competing independently on the World Cup Circuit. Team officials had offered Miller his customary position on the alpine team, befitting for one of the most accomplished racers in the history of the sport.
1. Steffi Graf needed three stitches Sunday after husband Andre Agassi accidentally hit her in the face with his racket at a fundraiser. Agassi's first move was to comfort his wife. His second was to call the housekeeper so she could open up the sofa bed.
SI.com: The grades are inupdated: Fri Mar 16 2007 17:00:00
During one December stretch, the U.S. Ski Team scored an unprecedented nine (top-three) podium finishes in seven races over a six-day period. It was a stunning display of high-level racing by five skiers, and coming one year after a disappointing performance at the Turin Olympic Games, lent some credibility to the team's marketing slogan (or "goal," depending on who you ask): Best In the World.
Many U.S. athletes have not only been frustrated in their quest for Olympic gold, they could find themselves out of the running for advertisers' gold as well.
Michelle Kwan is gone. Bode Miller failed to win even a bronze in his first event. What's a U.S. advertiser at the Winter Olympics to do?
Normally an advertiser is thrilled if one of its contracted athletes is dominating pre-Olympic news coverage.
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