By Jesse Liebman --
February 18, 2010
The U.S. Olympic team managed to surpass its expectations Wednesday by marking its best day in Winter Games history by walking away with six medals; three of them gold.
The six medals were the most earned in one day by the Americans at the Winter Olympics since the U.S. won five on February 20, 2002, in Salt Lake City.
Lindsey Vonn won the women's downhill despite concerns that a painful shin injury sustained during a training run Feb. 2 might prevent her from competing at all and teammate Julia Mancuso won silver.
"This is everything I've worked my whole life for and I knew that in the starting gate," said Vonn, a two-time World Cup overall champion. "I knew that I had to take it, I had to ski aggressively or else somebody else was going to win that gold. It wasn't a perfect run but it was a good run, and that was all I needed."
Vonn, starting 16th, grabbed and held onto the lead after the first timing interval, finishing in 1:44:19.
In speedskating, Shani Davis became the first skater to win the men's 1,000 meter twice. Chad Hedrick, who took home three medals at the 2006 games, earned an unlikely bronze in an event he doesn't consider his strength.
And in snowboarding, Shaun White continued his domination of the sport. Having already clinched victory with a big score in his first run, White entertained the crowd by ending his second run with his signature trick, the risky 3 1/2 twists and two flips of the Double McTwist 1260. Scotty Lago took bronze to give the United States multiple medals on the halfpipe for the last three Olympics.
