Reality check time.

Let's recap, shall we?

Through Friday, the U.S. had won 23 medals, eight of them gold. That exceeds the number won at any Olympics other than Salt Lake (where we had a surreal 34) by ten. Even subtracting the events that were added to this Olympics -- team pursuit in long track speed skating, side by side slalom in snowboarding and snowboard cross -- we've won 20 medals, six of them gold.

And yet, the general opinion of sportswriters has been that this Olympics has been a great disappointment for the U.S. team. Ann Killion of the San Jose Mercury News wrote that Sasha Cohen, by winning the silver instead of the gold in women's figure skating, had failed in her opportunity to "redeem" the Winter Games for the USOC.

What the hell is going on here? The answer comes from Yahoo's Ken Murrah. All medals are not created equal, he said. "The problem is, the wrong people won at the wrong times."

On behalf of Hannah Teter, Julia Mancuso, and the men's curling team, I would like to say...

Vaffunculo anche.

If what Murrah says is correct -- and I recognize that he was talking mainly about why the ratings are so dismal -- then we have become a nation that cares more about hype than actual results. It's not enough for an athlete to win one medal -- such as Shaun White, who dominated the men's halfpipe competition -- or even two -- such as Joey Cheek or Shani Davis, both of whom have a gold and silver apiece in long track speed skating. Nor is it enough to win a silver medal in a sport in which the U.S. has been hopeless for so long that there are no expectations of success, such as Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto did in ice dancing (ending a thirty year medal drought with a remarkable performance). No, you have to be annointed a star by the media (and Nike) before the Games begin, and, unless you are a figure skater, you have to succeed by winning multiple gold medals.

Have you noticed who sportswriters are griping about losing? Bode Miller, who was the subject of intense media hype before the Games. Chad Hedricks, likewise. (Hedricks wins my "Olympian I most wish belonged to some other country" award.) It's not enough that Hedricks has won three medals, putting him in an elite group of American athletes who have won multiple medals at one games: he didn't win enough, and only one of them was gold. Then there was the case of Jeremy Bloom, who was hyped because, not only was he a world class freestyle skier, he's a football player! Woo hoo!

They are complaining not because the U.S. isn't doing well, but because they guessed wrong about who the stars were. Big whoop. The football cliche about "any given Sunday" may be a cliche, but it still holds true, which is, as they say, why you play the games.

This is not to say that the U.S. Olympic team doesn't merit some criticism. Someone from the U.S. skating team or the USOC should have taken Davis and Hedricks aside and talked to them before their feud became bitter and public. And Lindsey Jacobellis, what in heaven's name were you thinking, girl?

But by hyping individuals rather than competition, by losing sight of the spirit of the Games themselves, the media have only fed a public perception of the Winter Olympians as losers. And that's unfortunate.

And unfair.

Oh, and Sasha Cohen? Maybe it's me, but being the second best figure skater in the whole freaking world strikes me as pretty damn impressive. So she fell. She didn't fall apart. She showed grace under the most difficult of conditions and came through. I am proud that she represents my country. If she wants to be disappointed, that's her perogative, but everyone else should just shut the hell up.