Day 14 highlights
Shizuka Arakawa of Japan skated a clean long program and vaulted past Sasha Cohen of the U.S. and Irina Slutskaya of Russia — both of whom fell during their free skates — to win gold in women's figure skating.
Rosey Fletcher broke through in snowboard's parallel giant slalom event, winning a bronze medal for the U.S. after faltering in the last two Olympics.
Anette Norberg, skip of the Swedish women's curling team, knocked away two Swiss stones on the last rock of the 11th end to score a 7-6 gold-medal win for Sweden.
Streak continues
For the 11th straight Winter Games, a U.S. woman figure skater is going home with a medal. Sasha Cohen took silver, despite falling twice during her free skate, carrying on a tradition that dates to Peggy Fleming's gold medal at the 1968 Grenoble Games.
All European semis
Friday's men's hockey semifinals are an all-European affair, filled with teams and players who know each other well from the NHL and numerous international tournaments. Sweden plays the Czech Republic — a team the Swedes' coach said he didn't want to face earlier this week — while Russia and Finland, who ousted North American powers Canada and the U.S. in the quarters, face off for the other gold-medal berth.
Interest is waning
The Olympics have an Olympian problem: slip-sliding interest.
That appears to be the message from TV viewership, which is falling faster than the ice dancers in Torino this week. Winter Games prime-time viewership through Wednesday was down 19 percent from the 1998 Nagano Games and down 33 percent from Salt Lake City in 2002. Sure, consumers are increasingly using alternative media to keep pace with the Games, but not that much.
The real issue: image.
To many Americans — particularly younger people — the Olympics aren't relevant. Put simply: They aren't cool.
Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports, this week made the case that there's no crisis — that the Games' audience isn't declining any faster than for other big TV events: "Are the Olympics off a bit? Yeah. But they are not off one iota from all the other major sports events and certainly not from the major glamour events like the Oscars and Grammys."
Today in Torino
New Jersey's own Pavle Jovanovic is part of the U.S. bobsled team aiming to repeat as a medalist. The team driver, Todd Hayes, hails from Texas.
Chad Hedrick, another Texan, races his fifth and final race of an eventful Olympics, hoping to take home his third Torino medal. D5
It's win and capture a medal or lose and go home empty-handed for the U.S. men's curling team against Britain.
Quote of the day
"I was kind of in shock. It was difficult. I was in a good place and I didn't feel nervous, but physically I just couldn't execute when I needed to." — U.S. figure skater Sasha Cohen after her silver medal performance Thursday night