Vancouver Blogger Sriseth

When it came to the second run of the mens' halfpipe final round, American snowboarder Shaun White had already guaranteed the gold medal. But that didn't prevent him putting up a blinder of a show that earned him even better score (48.4 out of 50) than the previous round. When most of other snowboarders failed to show their best and collapsed under pressure, Shaun was confident, daring and perfect. He showed the world once again that he is the undisputed champion in his sport. His performance summed up the 6th day of the Olympics that belonged to three American superstars. Sure, they all started as favourites in their events. But how many favourites have we seen so far who failed to deliver under pressure. Under non-ideal conditions where many other athletes failed to deliver, American trio not only defended their status as superstars, they did it in very convincing fashion.
Lindsay Vonn came into Alpine skiing womens' downhill event with a shin injury caused during training. In an extremely challenging and dangerous course, where many skiers ended up crashing, Lindsay had a nerveless near perfect run and showed the World that she is not just a media stardom.
Shani Davis, who became the first black Olympic champion (solo) four year ago at Turin,  came to mens' 1000m speed skating event as the overwhelming favourite to defend his gold medal. He was super calm under an unexpected fierce challenge from South Korean Mo Tae-Bum and won convincingly at the end.

Shaun White's gold rounded up one of the best days for USA in an Olympics with 3 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze medals. Although we would have preferred our own athletes to win these events, we should not hesitate to applaud the great showmanship of the Americans.