Olympic Highlights: Historic Silver for USA, Plushenko's Fake Medal

The U.S. Olympic team earned their 26th medal of the games yesterday, for a sport you may not have been watching -- the team Nordic Combined event, a cross-country skiing race that comes from Norway. Our boys -- Brett Camerota, Todd Lodwick, Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane -- took home the silver medal in the sport, which incidentally is the first time an American team has taken home any medal in this event ever. They lost the top spot to an Austrian team but beat the third-place German team.

Other events of the day had more disappointing results -- team USA came up short in the Men's Giant Slalom, in which our top competitor, Ted Ligety, came in ninth. And American golden boy Bode Miller, who was hoping to add to his already-impressive medal collection, didn't even make it through the first run.

In the men's 10,000m speedskating event, America's top ranking competitor was Jonathan Kuck in eighth place, followed by Ryan Bedford in 12th. But Kuck's ok with it -- in a recent interview, he told reporters he's just happy to go to the games at all.

In more bizarre news, Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko, who lost to American Evan Lysacek in the Men's Free Skating event, is licking his wounds and showing that there's no Russian word for 'gracious loser' by making up a fake 'Platinum' medal and awarding it to himself. And, after Russian President Vladimir Putin called Plushenko's skate the "most accomplished program on the Vancouver ice," adding, "your silver is worth gold," it has continued to fuel the debate on who is more deserving of the medal. Although Lysacek didn't land a quad, his defenders claim that he had a more artistic and technical program. Your thoughts?