Day by day: U.S. Olympic medal haul so far

The U.S. has won 26 medals through Tuesday, Feb. 23, with seven gold, nine silver and 10 bronze.

Jon Montgomery of Canada wins men's skeleton

Jon Montgomery of Canada gave the host country its fourth gold of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games with a time of 3:29.73 in men's skeleton.

Zach Lund (Salt Lake City, Utah) placed fifth.

Lund posted a total time of 3:31.27 over the four heats, leaving him 1.54 behind the winner.

Latvia’s Martins Dukurs claimed the silver medal with a 3:29.80, while Alexander Tretyakov of Russia won the bronze medal in 3:30.75.

Eric Bernotas (Avondale, Pa.) finished 14th with a time of 3:33.27, while John Daly (Smithtown, N.Y.) was 17th in 3:34.01.

-- Houston Mitchell in Vancouver, Canada

Amy Williams of Great Britain wins gold in women's skeleton; Noelle Pikus-Pace of U.S. finishes fourth

Amy Williams won the gold medal in women's skeleton, becoming Britain's first individual Winter Olympics champion since figure skater Robin Cousins 30 years ago.
   

Williams finished four runs at the Whistler Sliding Center in 3 minutes, 35.64 seconds. Germany's Kerstin Szymkowiak won the silver in 3:36.20, and another German, Anja Huber, won the bronze in 3:36.36.

Noelle Pikus-Pace of the U.S. just missed a medal, finishing fourth with a time of 3:36.46.   

Williams raced with a helmet that had ridges along the top, something that the United States argued was aerodynamically illegal.
   

Race officials denied a protest filed after Thursday's first two runs of the two-day competition.

-- Houston Mitchell in Vancouver, Canada

Photo: Amy Williams. Credit: CJ Gunther, EPA.

Amy Williams of Great Britain leads women's skeleton

Noelle Pikus-Pace (Orem, Utah) is in fifth place midway through the women’s skeleton competition at Vancouver Winter Olympics. With a total time of 1:48.51, she is 0.55 seconds behind the pace set by the leader, Amy Williams of Great Britain, who has a 1:47.96.

Pikus-Pace is only 0.16 off the bronze medal, as Canada’s Mellisa Hollingsworth has a 1:48.35.

Katie Uhlaender (Breckenridge, Colo.) is ninth after two runs with a 1:49.04.

Women's skeleton will conclude with the final two runs on Friday.

-- Houston Mitchell in Vancouver, Canada

Photo: Fans line curve sixteen as Mellisa Hollingsworth of Canada finishes her second skeleton run. Credit: CJ Gunter, EPA.  

Controversy in, you guessed it, skeleton

What would an Olympics be without a controversy in the sliding sports?

For such relatively tiny sports that joined the Winter Games fairly recently, luge, a 1964 arrival, and skeleton, a 2002 addition, always manage to gin up a good headline or two. For some reason, bobsled -- in all three of its configurations -- has managed to keep a low profile in recent years, the exception being the messy and public breakup of the U.S. women’s team and best friends forever Jean Racine and Jen Davidson two months before the 2002 Winter Games.

This Olympics is no different, as Canadian slider Jeff Pain raised eyebrows Wednesday when he claimed that Germany’s skeleton team was cheating by using “a magnetic component” on its sleds. Pain, the 2006 silver medalist who is ranked 10th in the world, could not explain what the component was or where it was, but he insisted it made the Germans faster.

During this season’s eight-race World Cup circuit, the German men scored two wins, five second-place finishes and two thirds. FIBT, the international federation with “supreme authority” over skeleton and bobsled, has not found anything amiss with the German sleds but said it would look into Pain’s claim.

Also in the run-up to the Games, the Canadians caused a minor scene when they seemingly reneged on a handshake deal with USA Luge that would have allowed the American sliders the same access at the Whistler track that the Canadians had in 2002 at the Park City, Utah, track.

Whistler Sliding Centre: Whistling down the mountain

The Whistler Sliding Centre will host bobsled, luge and skeleton. It’s the only outdoor ice surface at the Games. One of only 15 sliding tracks in the world that host international competition, it has been described as an elevator shaft with ice.

Interactive map: Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games

Our interactive map of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games covers the sporting venues and sightseeing spots in the host city, the Whistler skiing village and the scenic Sea to Sky highway connecting the two towns.

Uhlaender now has time to grieve

Katie Uhlaender of Breckenridge, Colo., ended the women's World Cup skeleton standings third overall, a terrific achievement under any circumstances and one that marks her as a medal contender in the Vancouver Olympics.

Her placement is especially praiseworthy because she competed much of the season knowing that her father, former Major League outfielder Ted Uhlaender, was seriously ill. He died Feb. 12 of multiple myeloma just before she won a silver medal in the final World Cup race of the season.

On Friday she finished seventh in the skeleton World Championships at Lake Placid, N.Y., and hugged her brothers immediately after the race.

"This season was probably one of the hardest seasons I've had to deal with, and this race was the first reality that my father is gone because he never would have missed this race," Uhlaender told officials of the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation.

"I screwed up the first heat yesterday because I felt like he was going to show up and I looked up and he wasn't there. Then I broke down."

Two of her brothers, Scott and Will, stood by her side as she spoke to the media.

"It helped to have my brothers here," she said. "I think I'm more excited for next season because I know that's what my dad was focused on."

She said she will return to the family's farm in Atwood, Kan., to help sort through her father's belongings.

"I'd like to go home to rest and mourn," she said. "It's only been two weeks, and it's hard knowing that he's not going to be back."

Germany's Marion Trott won the women's world title at the Lake Placid track with a combined time of 3 minutes, 47.97 seconds. Trott also was the World Cup champion.

--Helene Elliott

Now it's on to Vancouver

Welcome back to the LAT Olympics blog as it shifts from the Beijing Summer Games of last August to the Vancouver Winter Games, set for Feb. 12-28 of next year. Instead of Ticket to Beijing, it now is Ticket to Vancouver.

We will be posting throughout the year on Olympic news, but particularly as it relates to the Vancouver Games.  All of the Beijing posts can be accessed through the "Beijing Games" category link in the right rail of the blog.

Many of our Summer Games bloggers will be back for the Winter Games, including LAT columnist Helene Elliott and Philip Hersh, a veteran of Olympics coverage who writes for the LAT and the Chicago Tribune.

Many of the features created for Beijing will still be accessible, including photo galleries and videos.

Though we will be updating the look of this blog as we go, you can catch Olympic news right here. That will include blogging from the World Figure Skating Championships next month by LAT staff from Staples Center.

-- Debbie Goffa

Photo: Last week the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic Games cauldron burned brightly at Canada Olympic Park,  marking the one-year countdown to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Credit: Jeff McIntosh / Associated Press