Monday night was a chance for fans to see some of America’s two wilder young super stars score big at the Winter Games.
Seth Wescott won gold in men’s snowboard cross, Bode Miller took bronze in men’s downhill, and China’s Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo won gold in pairs figure skating despite a less than stellar performance in the highlights of Monday’s NBC primetime coverage.
Wecott had a real come from behind ride as he passed three competitors to grab the gold in an awesome snowboard cross action.
NBC analyst Todd Richards on Wescott coming from behind to win: “It was like chess game for him – just waiting for people to make mistakes so he could take advantage.”
Meanwhile his NBC colleague Pat Parnel commented: “Seth Westcott, in a sport where the one thing you can count on is absolutely nothing, controls his moment of gold, capturing America’s second ever.”
Miller put together an outstanding run to snag a bronze medal and his comments were that of a more mature man than participated in the games four years ago. Miller after the race: “I was pretty nervous this morning and that’s not unusual for me when I get in the big races and I’m really pushing hard. I get nervous. That’s the way it goes. I expect a lot out of myself and I’m going to push the limits.”
Olympic correspondent Cris Collinsworth, who joined Bob Costas in the studio, on Miller’s win: “He showed some of the passion we didn’t see in Torino. If you’re at a World Cup or whatever and you don’t want to show passion, who cares? If you’re wearing the red, white and blue, you have to at least care.”
Tom Hammond the host of NBC’s Figure Skating summed up the night’s big event well as China’s medal favorites, Shen and Zhao, were about to take the ice: “A fairy tale 18 years in the making.” While not skating their best they did push through to get the gold and stop the Russian domination of the Pairs Competition.
There was a very moving feature produced by CTV and aired on NBC about the relationship between Canadian men’s freestyle gold medalist Alexandre Bilodeau and his older brother Frederic, who suffers from cerebral palsy. It was followed by the live presentation of the gold to Bilodeau as the crowd sang “Oh Canada.”
