Russia Tops Medal Table
With an unprecedented sweep of the 50km cross-country event on the final day of the Winter Olympics, Russia assures its standing as the top medal winter in Sochi. Russia will end the Games with 32 medals, the most it’s ever won.
"The goal was to be in the top three," Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov tells Around the Rings.
"The hometown crowd made a difference," he said.
In Vancouver four years ago, Russia finished in sixth place overall with 15 medals. As in Vancouver, Russia failed to medal in men’s hockey in Sochi, a disappointment that has been assuaged by success in other sports, sometimes unexpected.
"We are trying to forget about hockey," Zhukov said. "Yesterday’s biathlon relay was fantastic, totally unexpected," he said referring to the gold medal in the men’s biathlon relay.
Dismay over the results in Vancouver led to changes in Russian sport leadership four years ago. Zhukov took over at the Russian NOC and a new sports minister was named.
The United States is next in the medals table with 27 overall followed by Norway with 26. With only the men’s hockey championship match left on the program between Canada and Sweden, Russia’s standing at top of the table should remain when the cauldron goes out in the Olympic Stadium Sunday night.
IOC Ends Sochi Session
As is customary on the final day of the Olympics, the IOC held a closing meeting to wrap up its business from the Games.
The only item requiring a vote of the membership was the formal ratification of two new members selected by vote of athletes competing at the Sochi Olympics.
Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, the Norwegian biathlete who claimed his record 13th medal at these Games, took 55 of 57 IOC votes cast by secret ballot to secure his seat. Canadian women’s hockey great Hayley Wickenheiser, who helped her team to a gold medal in Sochi, was the other athlete elected to the IOC. She took 52 out of the 57 votes cast by IOC members.
Speaking to Around the Rings, Wickenheiser said she hoped to spend her eight-year tenure on the IOC helping to increase the interest of young people in the Olympics. And at age 35, she is not ruling out another Winter Olympics in 2018. Also a member of the Canadian team in softball in 2000, she is the only current IOC member to have participated in both Summer and Winter Games.
Farewell to Felli
The IOC session bid farewell to outgoing Olympic Games executive director Gilbert Felli.
After 24 years at the IOC, first as sports director, he is retiring from full-time service. He will remain in a consulting role with the IOC, assisting with the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing in August and with the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro for 2016.
Felli was presented with a torch from the Sochi relay and noted that not once in his IOC career had he ever carried a torch in a relay.
Written by Ed Hula.
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