Olympic Updates

The 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games are hosting their Closing Ceremonies as we take a look back at some of the pros and cons of the Games.

The events started off with tragedy as Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died within hours of the Opening Ceremonies.  The weather did not cooperate and the events were filled with peaks and valleys.

Canada finally won a Gold Medal when hosting the Olympics and led the crowd with 14.

The once dominant Russian teams, however, barely failed to show up on the charts finishing in 6th place with only 15 medals (3 gold).  This is a far cry from the athletic machine of the 80's and 90's and not exactly a positive note heading into the 2014 Sochi Winter Games hosted in southern Russia.  Russia failed to medal in hockey for the first time in over 4 decades.

The following AP report takes an in-depth look at the highs and lows of the 2010 Vancouver Games.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — These Olympics will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

For every golden moment, there was a glitch. Opening day of an electrifying hockey tournament in Vancouver was also the day 20,000 tickets had to be canceled for Cypress Mountain.

Even the games' emotional high point — a figure-skating bronze for Canada's Joannie Rochette, whose mother had died four days earlier — was tinged with sorrow.

And it all began, of course, with the worst news imaginable.

Son of a Soviet-era slider, pride of a spruce-nestled ski town half a world away, member of an almost laughably small Olympic delegation, Nodar Kumaritashvili shot down the luge track at nearly 90 mph.  (....continue reading....)