Two Bronzes Push U.S. Total To 28

Posted by Ralph Routon

Their paths couldn’t have been more different, but two teams of U.S. women still captured bronze medals Wednesday night at the 2010 Winter Olympics, on a day when Canada had much more to cheer than any other nation.

Erin Pac

For the American women, third place came in the short-track speedskating 3,000-meter relay and in the bobsled. Those medals push the U.S. total to 28, with Germany at 24.

Canada took gold-silver in the women’s bobsled and four medals overall, meaning that now the host nation is up to seven gold (same as U.S. and Germany) and 15 overall.

In the bobsled, the U.S. team of Erin Pac and Elana Meyers had troubles in their final run, which they began in second place, and they settled for third behind the Canadian teams.

Bree Schaaf and Emily Azevedo of Colorado Springs and the Olympic Training Center moved up to fifth overall, and the other U.S. team was sixth.

In the short-track relay, the U.S. foursome including Katherine Reutter, Allison Baver, Alyson Dudek and Lana Gehring actually couldn’t keep up with the world-record pace and finished a distant fourth behind Korea, China and Canada.

But the judges reviewed the race and disqualified Korea, igniting a controversy as China took the gold, Canada the silver and the Americans the bronze.

In other speedskating events, Apolo Anton Ohno and Reutter qualified in the men’s 500 and women’s 1,000 short-track races. Their finals will come Friday.