United States’ Talented Young Ladies

During the summer Olympics of 2012 in London, athletes like Missy Franklin and Gabby Douglas were remembered for winning medals for the United States team.  Three young ladies who will be joining the United States team this year in Sochi are Gracie Gold, Mikaela Shiffrin, and Arielle Gold.

Gracie Gold: Singles Figure Skating

Figure skating was first contested in the Olympic Games at the 1908 Summer Olympics, but in 1924, figure skating has been a part of the Winter Olympic Games.  From 1992 to 2006, the red, white, and blue dominated figure skating, winning three gold medals and three silver medals.  Unfortunately, in Vancouver in 2010, no American took home a medal, marking the first such instance since 1968.  Hopefully, 18 year old Gracie Gold can be like her namesake and win gold for the United States.  Kathryn M. stated, “She’s like a graceful ballerina on ice.”  Gold has taken home gold at the US Championships in Boston and won a silver medal at the World Junior Championships in 2012.

Mikaela Shiffrin: Slalom, Giant Slalom

Giant slalom is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline which involves skiing between sets of poles spaced at a greater distance to each other than in slalom but less than in super-G.  Slalom skating is a highly technical field of skating that involves performing tricks around a straight line of equally spaced cones.  At only 18 years old, Mikaela Shiffrin is known as one of the best slalom skiers.  At the World Championships last year, she beat Michaela Kirchgasser and Frida Hansdotter for a gold medal in the slalom.  Shiffrin is the youngest American to win a World Cup title and is the first slalom champion since Tamara McKinney in 1983-84.  Additionally, she is the youngest slalom World Champion in U.S. history.

Arielle Gold: Halfpipe

Snowboarding made its first appeared at the 1998 Nagano Games and is still a work in progress as events are changed and added.  Each run is scored on a scale of 0.1 to 10.0 by a panel of five judges.  Arielle Gold came into the snowboarding spotlight as a sophomore in high school when she showed her unbelievable ability on the snowboard. She won a gold medal in halfpipe at the 2013 World Championships and a bronze medal in SuperPipe at the 2013 X Games.  Her stellar results also earned her a spot on the U.S. Snowboarding pro team.  Gold will be joined by her older brother Taylor on her journey to Sochi.  After an amazing  2013, the 17-year-old is a strong bet to gain many fans in Sochi.