"The new face of Russia"

ADLER, Russia — The Sochi 2014 Winter Games drew Sunday night to a close, an Olympics intent on projecting the image of a strong and confident new Russia across this vast country and to the world beyond, with a mighty Russian team awakening the echoes of the mighty Soviet sport system to prideful spectator cheers of “Ro-ssi-ya! Ro-ssi-ya!” Albeit, over 17 days, to the beat of “Get Lucky” by a Russian police choir. And cheerful volunteers yelling, “Good morning!” while dancing to the Black Eyed Peas.

“This is the new face of Russia, our Russia,” Dmitry Chernyshenko, the head of the Sochi 2014 organizing committee, said Sunday night at the closing ceremony to more cheers. “And for us, these Games are the best-ever.”

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U.S. alpine: five is plenty fine

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — There were a couple hours Saturday evening when it seemed possible the U.S. alpine ski team — already with a performance here at the Sochi 2014 Olympics that history will judge as fine, indeed— might, just might, sneak away with what would amount to a bonus medal. After Run 1 of the men’s slalom, Ted Ligety, winner three days ago of the giant slalom, had put himself in position for a medal. He was only 11-hundredths back of third.

The U.S. alpine team went into Saturday night with five medals, tied for its second-best performance ever at a Winter Games, with the Sarajevo 1984 team. Only the Vancouver 2010 team, which racked up eight, had done better.

Tantalizingly, six suddenly seemed within reach. Because he already had the GS gold, Ligety was skiing the slalom with no expectation, no pressure. The buzz started building — remember those two killer slalom runs Ligety put down to win his first Olympic gold, the combined, in Torino in 2006?

And then came the buzzkill.

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Shiffrin's 'sure as heck' gold

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — The first Olympics he went to, in his very first race, 15-year-old Michael Phelps took fifth place. He got right back in the pool and, soon enough, he set his first world record. In his next Olympic race — which, because of the calendar, had to wait four years — he won gold. In her first Olympic race, the women’s giant slalom here Tuesday, 18-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin took fifth. She said, “I think this is supposed to happen,” adding, “The next Olympics I go to, I sure as heck am not getting fifth.”

There are moments, even at the Olympics, that are genuinely special. These moments make memories that last through the years. They also make cross-over stars, the ones who can make it big outside the confines of a niche like alpine skiing.

Mikaela Shiffrin didn’t have to wait four full years. She sure as heck gave it the full Friday Night Lights treatment here at Rosa Khutor, throwing down two incredible — and very different — runs to win gold in the women’s slalom.

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The contradictory essence of Bode

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — It has been 12 years since Bode Miller won his first Olympic medals, in Salt Lake City. He is 36 now and these are surely his last Olympic Games.  He is at once one of the most accomplished and one of the most complex figures ever to make his way across the American and international sports landscape.

No question he is the best ski racer the United States has ever produced. He has six Olympic medals, including a bronze in the super-G here. He has two overall World Cup titles, 33 World Cup wins, 78 World Cup podium finishes. He is is also one of only five skiers to win World Cup races in five disciplines.

As Miller has often maintained, he doesn’t ski for the medals.

And it is here that the contradictions of Bode Miller clash, often visibly, sometimes — as in Torino in 2006, when he wasn’t feeling it — to his great detriment. This can be no surprise. Great artists come layered with rippled currents of contradiction that play out to powerful effect and in different directions.

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Ted Ligety's 'awesome' GS gold

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — A couple years ago, they made a rules change in the giant slalom. Citing the interest of athlete safety, they made the skiers change to longer, straighter skis. Those skis are way harder to turn. Ted Ligety, the American who had ruled the giant slalom, complained bitterly.

And then he figured out a way to ski on those new skis, lower and longer in the turns, that further separated himself from everyone else in the world. He could now win races by astonishing margins.

At Wednesday’s men’s super-G at Rosa Khutor, Ted Ligety put on a clinic to win the first American alpine skiing gold of these Olympics. Indeed, he won big. It was one of the great moments of the 2014 Games. Here, for the entire world to bear witness, was sheer excellence — the excellence the sport demands as well as the excellence the man demands of himself.

It was, in a word, awesome.

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Tina Maze's GS poetry slam

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — Slovenia’s Tina Maze calls slalom her favorite discipline, which perhaps is a surprise given that it is, of the five alpine ski events, her weakest. It is giant slalom that brings out her soulful side. “GS,” she says, “is like poetry for me.”

In that spirit, after a wild and wet day Tuesday at Rosa Khutor that saw Maze fight through snow, rain, sleet and fog to win her second gold medal of the 2014 Winter Games and indisputably re-establish that she is, no question, the No. 1 female skier on Planet Earth, here is a haiku to commemorate not just the moment but the ski poetry Maze slammed down in winning the GS:

Tina Maze wins

One more Sochi gold medal

What now, Lindsey Vonn?

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Shiffrin's 5th hints at greatness

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — When Michael Phelps would stand on the blocks in an Olympic final and do that thing he did, wrapping his arms around and around and making that whap-whap-whap sound, was there really any doubt in his mind — or anyone’s watching — what was going to happen? In the chaos of an Olympic short-track speed skating race, when Apolo Ohno toed the line, his bandana tucked under his helmet, his gaze locked like steel on the first few meters of ice ahead, he was all purposeful calm. He knew what was what, and everyone else — on the line around him — and the thousands in the arena did, too.

It takes great physical talent to become an Olympic athlete. A select few have something more. They have an extra level of mental awareness, purposefulness, toughness.

Even on a day when there is no medal — there are those in whom the signs are there of greatness assuredly to come.

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Bode: skiing for a higher purpose

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — It has been manifest since he strapped his boots into into skis here at the Rosa Khutor complex that Bode Miller was racing with a higher sense of purpose at these Olympic Games. He has wanted it bad, perhaps too badly, sought in the expression of sport and art that has always been his calling, in the rush of a minute or maybe two in the joinder of man and mountain, to find that moment of clarity and, indeed, of transcendence.

At the bottom of the hill Sunday, when the big scoreboard said he was on his way to winning an Olympic medal for the sixth time in his storied career, Bode Miller cried. His wife, Morgan, cried. They hugged each other. Holding an American flag, she helped him regain his composure amid television interviews. Later, on the podium, the flag draped over his right shoulder, before congratulating the others — because Bode Miller has always believed in sportsmanship — he appeared to be alone with his thoughts.

And then it all became clear.

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The War Horse rides, again

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — When you check in to the Mirror Lake Inn in Lake Placid, N.Y., owned and operated by Ed and Lisa Weibrecht, there proudly on display is the bronze medal their son, Andrew, won skiing the super-G in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. Of all the medals the U.S. Ski Team won in Vancouver, that bronze seems perhaps the most incredible. Andrew Weibrecht? Who?

Now there’s only thing more incredible than the bronze he won four years ago. It’s the silver he won Sunday in the 2014 Sochi super-G.

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A super-G to test the best

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — The Olympics are supposed to test the best of the best. What conclusions to draw about Saturday’s women’s super-G, in which eight of the first 11 racers went skidding out and 18 of 49 ultimately did not make it to the finish line? What meaning to infer from a course set by an Austrian coach in which Austrian skiers won gold and bronze?

Lara Gut of Switzerland — and for context it should be understood that Ms. Gut is both a tremendous racer but had the distinction Saturday to take fourth place in the super-G — the floor is yours:

“There is no snow at the bottom. It’s not funny anymore. This is a disaster. It was a shame for everybody. If I have another chance, I could have gotten another result. I tried but did not work.”

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