What Is Wrong With Team USA?

Feb. 21, 2006 — -- So far, Team USA has not lived up to expectations for this year's Winter Games, especially after it dominated the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics with 34 medals.

"After a game on your home soil, on your home ice, you drop about 40 percent," said USA Today sportswriter Christie Brennan. She said that it was not all "doom and gloom" that the "U.S. is firmly in second place, tied with Austria and Russia."

Infamous skier and former world champion Bode Miller has yet to produce. Five-time world champion figure skater Michelle Kwan has left due to a groin injury. Speed skater Apolo Ohno has not won gold. Some of the United States' biggest stars have made little or no impact on the Torino Olympic Games.

But there was a ray of hope when Ben Agosto and Tanith Belbin won a silver in ice dancing Monday.

"They were terrific and it has been 30 years," Brennan said. "Gerald Ford was president the last time the U.S. won a medal -- it was bronze."

She said that ice dancing had long been dominated by the Eastern Block.

Many are wondering why there have not been more success stories. Some point to injuries, like the ones that plagued Kwan and skier Lindsey Kildow.

A friend of Miller's said the skier had hit a rock in his first run Monday, but that does not explain his three other races. Figure skater Johnny Weir dropped from second to fifth because he said he felt black inside.

There have been no miracles for the U.S. hockey teams either. The women settled for a bronze, and the men's team, filled with NHL professionals, is hanging on by a thread.

"That happens in hockey, sometimes it just doesn't go your way and hopefully we are saving all the right bounces for the next round," U.S. hockey player Scott Gomez said.

Snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis lost the gold when she fell trying a showboat jump just before crossing the finish line.

"I was just having fun and enjoying the moment, and I got a little carried away," Jacobellis said.