The United States of America yet again had a very successful  Winter Olympics. Although the success was from the unexpected, the team still came out triumphant. The USA stood in the leaderboards with nine gold, seven silver, and eleven bronze medals. They stood at second overall with 28 total medals, but fell to fourth place in the points standings to Russia, Norway, and Canada.

Team USA headed into the olympics with high hopes of athletes like Shaun White, who left the games empty handed, as did Shani Davis, and  also the early faults of Jeremy Abbott’s mens figure skating. Despite these mishaps, there were also a lot of great moments that arose from the Olympics. Such as the stunning team USA podium sweep in freestyle skiing slopestyle, and Meryl Davis’ and Charlie White’s first ever ice dancing gold for team USA, that was a perfectly executed performance that rose the standards for ice dancing.

Although some of the highly projected and hyped athletes fell short of their expected results, they left plenty of room for new and upcoming athletes to make a name for themselves. One of the new athletes that stood out in the games was Sage Kotsenburg. The 20 year old started off team USA with a gold in snowboarding slopestyle after Shaun White’s drop out of the event. It left Kotsenburg a moment to shine and he took it.

In the end, the team succeeded overall with only room to improve. Many of the athletes plan to make a return at the next Winter Olympics in 2018, taking place in PyeongChang, and the disappointments will hopefully be turned into new and exciting records at the next games.