February 16th, 2010

Olympic medal counts: America 8 medals, and Switzerland leads for gold at 2010 winter games.  Americans are leading with overall medal wins, with 2 gold, 2 silver, and 2 bronze medals.  This is up from yesterday’s tally of 6 overall awards.  You can read about these six athletes and details of their competitions by clicking here.

Switzerland has the most gold medals of all the countries at the Olympics, which comes really with no surprise. The Swiss have always been great at winter sports, and there are many of the sports that are featured in the Winter Olympics that have their origins in Switzerland.  The three gold medal winners from this country are all men who won cross country skiing, ski jumping, and Alpine skiing events.

Perhaps the most talked about gold medal win so far (besides that of Hannah Kearney – you can read more about that here) is that of Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao of China.  These two won the figure skating pairs competition.  Qing Pang and Jian Tong won the silver medal in the same event.

Shen and Zhao are actually married, and retired in 2007 after winning two bronze medals in the last two Olympics.  They came out of retirement to try once again for the gold, and their efforts worked.

Added to the previous six American medal wins are Seth Wescott for Men’s Snowboard Cross (Gold) and Bode Miller for Men’s downhill Alpine skiing with a bronze.

Today’s events include Men’s and Women’s curling round robin sessions, Women’s snowboarding, women’s luge singles run, and more.

Source:

NBC Olympics

Vancouver 2010 Official Web site