Reflections on a golden American day

America's Wednesday winners straight out of central casting

Last Updated: Thursday, February 18, 2010 | 4:46 AM ET

By Malcolm Kelly, CBC Sports

Olympic champion Shaun White celebrates after sailing past the rest of the field in halfpipe snowboarding. (Gerry Broome/Associated Press)

It's easy to imagine American gold-medal snowboarder Shaun White on stage in New York, singing the theme from the musical Hair, probably naked:

"Oh say, can you see ... my eyes — if you can, then my hair's too short!"

He's just so darned natural. So perfect. So much like, well, gold-medal downhiller Lindsey Vonn.

With her beauteous blond locks, that fresh smile and the whole '60s hippie thing the U.S. skier has going for her, it's not a stretch to hear Good Morning Starshine coming from her lips:

"Gliddy glub gloopy, nibby nabby noopy, la la la lo lo."

And as long as we're pushing the idea, how about speedskater Shani Davis?

Now a two-time gold medallist in consecutive Olympics who has gone from playing the role of Judas Iscariot (the Jesus Christ Superstar version) in the last Games because he refused to join the U.S. team pursuit, to more of a guy who has risen above it all this time around.

It was so easy to be hard.

What a day for the Americans. They came out singing and never let up until the often-overweight-but-trying-her-best lady finished the final tune.

Lindsey was lovely

It started with Vonn, on the bumpy, sun-dappled, suddenly dangerous slopes of Whistler Mountain where so many of the women tasted a mouthful of snow, one was helicoptered away and another — Anja Paerson of Sweden — tried to win both the downhill and the ski jump at the same time.

That ended badly with Vonn's closest challenger coming across the line on her rear but otherwise OK.

It was so easy to believe that the American victor — fresh off the cover of Sports Illustrated (jinx, what jinx?) and already anointed as the star of the Games before she kicked herself in the shin with her ski boot on a fall a few weeks out — would be a snotty little brat.

Instead, Vonn was sweet and kind and happy and thrilled and a bunch of other nice things beside.

"A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulder now," she told a press conference after the downhill, still teary. "I got the gold medal that I came here to get.

"And now I'm just going to attack every day, with no regrets and no fear."

She could win two more gold medals before this is all done. Did that leave Vonn swaggering? Nah.

"I'm just happy with one. Anything else from here on out is a bonus."

The only thing Vonn didn't do was throw up her fingers in a peace sign.

Shani and Chad are friends

Down at the Richmond Oval a few hours later, there was Davis — quiet, thoughtful, focused and getting ready to stick his skate across the line to become the first to repeat as men's 1,000- metres champ since it was first offered in 1976.

Two back in the bronze slot was teammate Chad Hedrick who, just four years ago, was ready to throttle Davis for pulling out of that team pursuit when a medal seemed imminent. Davis stormed out of the news conference in Turin because he said Hedrick hadn't shaken his hand for winning gold.

They aren't quite buds now, but they are on speaking terms. Perfect for these Games of Lotus Land, where the Left Coast calms the nerves and brings peace out of everyone.

At the flower ceremony, the two Americans smiled benignly, arm in arm, waving the green mums and hypericum berries at the crowd.

How high is high?

As the sun set over Cypress Mountain on Wednesday evening, snowboarder Shaun White was higher than a kite.

Or certainly way higher than any other athlete in the men's halfpipe (isn't that a perfect name for this sport?) — more than 10 metres up in the air over the hard lip of the snowy shell.

Teammate Kevin Pearce had almost killed himself on one of those hard lips not two months ago and is still on a slow recovery in hospital.

But that didn't keep White from getting higher and higher. Way, way up there.

And while there, for fun, the multimillionaire boarder businessman decided to toss in a full 3½ twists while doing two full rotations in what has become known as a Double McTwist.

What made it so spectacular was he had already won the competition by this time and could have simply boarded down the middle of the pipe toward his coronation, waving arrogantly as he went.

Couldn't do it. After a little chat with his coaches, White did what boarders do — put on a show for the fans and himself.

Reached for nirvana in a star-spangled bandana.

"The Olympics," he said, from under those long, red tresses, "is pretty heavy."

Naw. Not when these three American athletes were dancing the skies on laughter-silvered wings.