Today, monday, february 10th, 2014. Announcer from nbc news, this is a special edition of today at the olympic winter games with matt lauer and Savannah Guthrie, live from olympic park in sochi, russia. And good morning, everyone. Welcome to today at the Olympic Games in sochi, russia. Im matt lauer. Im Savannah Guthrie alongside a dancing al roker, Natalie Morales and, of course, some of our closest friends here in sochi. The Russian Police choir. Many of you know them by now because on friday before the Opening Ceremony, their warmup act went viral. They did a wonderful rendition shed led after the downhill portion and impressive slolam portion. We have speed skating and hockey and the team usa and women in action right now. Now with the competition is any indication, sochi is an olympics for the ages. Julia mancuso won the first medal in Alpine Skiing with bronze and the womens Ice Hockey Team beating switzerland in a 90 preliminary match. A giant day for Jamie Anderson. Claims gold. Her joy apparent on the winners podium. A picture tweeted out. And Sage Kotsenburg uncorking a move on saturday he never tried before. I blacked out in the air. A scary moment during the womens competition. Oh Sarka Pancochova goes down hard. When pancochova, the Czech Republic fell so hard, it split her helmet open. She managed to coast down under her own power. It was a dazzling premiere for another new competition. Team figure skating. Team usa took the bronze, canada the silver, as the russians won gold. The host nations first gold drew hugs are russian president Vladimir Putin. Oh totally sideways in the air. Back on the slopes, a day of disappointment for bode miller. The olympic veteran finished eighth in the downhill. He says he was hampered by a change in the weather. We have this cloud today, the cloud cover. When the visibility gets worse, that can be a disadvantage. Miller shouldnt worry, the 36yearold has another shot at gold in the super combined on friday. We should mention the sn snowboarder is all right. The medal count with norway with seven and canada with five and team usa with five as well. We have two snowboarders here. Weve got two of team usa gold Medal Winners here. Sage kotsenburg and Jamie Anderson, each grabbed gold in the slopestyle event over the weekend. Good morning. Congratulations. Thank you for having us. Jamie, you have 11 family members, is that right, here . Did that make it extra special . It definitely did. And their travel was a little tough to get here . Can you imagine traveling with ten family members . But, i mean, its so special to have them all here. And i couldnt be more stoked. Sage, not only did you win the first medal for the u. S. You won the first medal for a u. S. Athlete ever in the olympics on russian soil. Does that sink in . Youre going to be in the history books. Yeah. Pretty unreal to think about that stuff. I was stoked to be on the first ever snowboard slopestyle team. And to top it off with a medal, it being gold, first ever slopestyle medal, fourth ever american to have first gold in the games and then first one in russia. Its insane. Too much to take in almost. Did i hear right . You actually basically invented a trick you did for the very first time in your goldmedal winning performance . That takes a lot of nerve. Id never done that trick before. A couple of people had done it. But id never even thought about trying it. I just winged it and ended up landing it. It was pretty cool. Youre going to wing it, wing it at the olympics, right . No other place to do it. Jamie, talk to me about the night before the competition. Your level of nerves. I understand you didnt sleep all that well or eat all that well. Yeah, theres a lot of nerves and anticipation leading up to this event for all of us. But i had to take a moment, calm down and just, yeah, get ready for the day. What about you, sage . What did you do the night before . I unfortunately had to skip opening ceremonies because it was late night and we had a really early day. So i just ate a bunch of candy and chips and just got ready. Got in the olympic vibe. Why did i know you were going to say that . Breakfast of champions. Watching fight club 2. There were some onion rings in there. Jamie, some people are not sure about slopestyle. They think its an x games sport. What do you want to tell those people . I would say to embrace it. Its so fun and i feel like bringing a new, fresh energy to the Olympic Games. And its so fun to watch. How could you not . We hear youre reading the power of now. The power of now. Is it helping you get into the game and get your head in the right place . Yeah. Ive read it a few times over the years. But its so easy to get ahead in life or be stuck in the past. And the only thing that really matters is right now. Right here. Well said. Congratulations. By the way, feel these things. These are so heavy. I know. Wow. Your neck tired . Yeah. Im getting huge neck muscles. Hope it helps you out there. Nobodys going to feel sorry for you on that one. Hey, congratulations, folks. Thank you, guys. And coming up, were going to talk to the medalwinning u. S. Figure skating team, as well. Another major story this morning also tied to the world of sports. Its a surprise announcement from an nfl hopeful. Natalie has more on that. Hey, guys. This is a really big deal in the world of sports this morning. A College Football player headed to the nfl has revealed he is gay. Willie geist joins us now with a look at why the announcement is so significant. As we said, this is huge. A big deal. One of the biggest stars the nfl perhaps to make history following on the heels of Jason Collins in the nba. University of missouri defensive end michael sam has now announced and revealed he is gay. The 24yearold expected to be taken early round of the nfl draft come april is now poised to become pro footballs first openly gay player. I came to tell the world im an openly proud gay man. Michael sam from the university of missouri and a highly touted nfl prospect announced sunday that he is gay. I just want to own my truth before anyone breaks the story about me. Sam broke the news publicly in interviews with the New York Times and espns outside the lines. But something he told his fellow players last august before the start of the tigers 122 season. I came out to my teammates and they took it great, rallied around me and supported me. I could not ask for better teammates. The announcement means the lineman has the potential to become the nfls first openly gay player. Late sunday night, the university of missouri tweeted its support saying, quote, we support tigers of all stripes at mizzou. Proud of you, mike sam. He was the defensive player of the year, the best defensive player in the best conference in College Football. Hes expected to be a mid round pick in aprils draft. When the season kicks off in september, sam hopes his future career will be defined by his talent rather than by his sexual orientation. I dont think i should be defined as michael sam, the gay athlete, the gay football player. I want to be defined michael sam for being a great person and have great character. So natalie, the draft comes up in april in a few months. And you already hear anonymous nfl sources say, well, he could be a distraction in the locker room with this new issue. But he wasnt a distraction for a team that played in the ncaa championship this year. And won the cotton bowl. Well, took a lot of courage to do what he did. Thank you, willie. Wrong way crashes are to blame for 11 deaths in florida and california. Five people were killed on a tampa highway sunday morning. Police say an suv was driving south in the northbound lanes when it hit a car head on. And in california, six people were killed by a driver traveling the wrong way in los angeles. The 21yearold driver accused in the crash faces dui and vehicular manslaughter charges. Snow and ice expected to coat part of the south this week. Two weeks ago you recall cities in the region were paralyzed by a couple inches of snow. The city says it will start treating roads tonight. Also in the pacific northwest, several days of snow are causing big problems for drivers from seattle to oregon. Portland city officials send out a cell phone alert telling residents to stay indoors. Al will update ous us on the forecast shortly. And Oklahoma State basketball player who shoved a fan during a game has been suspended for three games. On saturday, sophomore marcus smart got into an argument with a texas tech fan, the two exchanged words and smart shoved the man. Smart later apologized on sunday. Now, as for the fan, he has voluntarily agreed to not attend any more texas tech games this season. Also coming up, a new coffee shop with a familiar name creating quite a stir in los angeles. The coffee shop, get this, is called dumb starbucks not to be confused with starbucks. And it opened on friday. Customers are showing up there in droves. The logo on the store, as you can tell, is exactly the same as starbucks but with the word dumb added to it. The coffee shop claims it can get away with it thanks to the parody law saying they are technically making fun of starbucks. A spokesperson for the real starbucks says theyre now looking into it. Seems that would be some sort of infringement. The logo is identical. I actually saw that story first on the dumb today show. We can get in on a Franchise Deal for stupid mcdonalds. Parody law, were protected. Oh, no theyve got mcdonalds people there. Its a joke. Wow. No big mac for you. No hash brown. If i turn up missing and theres some clown shoes nearby. You know what happened. How about a check of the weather . Lets show you whats going on. Oh, my gosh, another storm system. Our friends at the Weather Channel calling this pac. Look at the winter storm warning advisories and watches stretching from the plains to the southeast. This storm system gets itself together tonight, makes its way through the plains. Cold air comes down from it. Mixing in with the warmer, moister air. Were going to be looking at ice beginning wednesday morning from birmingham, atlanta, on into charlotte, back behind it we look for snow. Anywhere from 1 2 inch to look around augusta, columbia, atlanta, 1 2 inch to over an inch of ice, this could be crippling. And snow on the backside of this as much as 3 to 6 inches to the north and west of atlanta, 1 to 3 inches up into the virginias. Thats whats going on around the country, were going to get to your local forecast in the next 30 seconds. Hey, good monday morning to you. Im meteorologist christina loren. This is a picture of the aftermath in santa rosa. Tanglewood creek, a handrail here where a lot of people like to walk. Yeah, completely flooded. Were going to get a break. This other picture, near the Sonoma County airport. Travel cautiously in the north bay. And areas north of the golden gate bridge. We have light shower activity. At this point were watching for a nice day. And thats your latest weather. Matt . All right, al. Thanks very much. Only five days in the competition, these games have delivered memorable performances and a few disappointing defeats. Scott blackmun is ceo of the u. S. Olympic committee. Always good to see you. How are you doing . Doing great. The athletes are having a blast. And we had great performances, five medals, sage and jamie had gold. Its all good for us. You plot this out. Look at this advance. You know where the u. S. Has a good chance to win medals, when they might come. As we sit here five days into the games, is it going as expected . Its going almost exactly as we expected. We won some medals we werent sure we would win and didnt win some we hoped we might. Overall, were right where we need to be. You mentioned jamie and sage. Did you see sage winning a gold medal . I did not. But i saw jamie. We watched sage on television. Bode miller was skiing great going into the final on the downhill on sunday, then he slipped a little. What do you think his chances are of regrouping now and getting ready for his future events . If anybody can do it, i think bode can. Hes shown himself to be a tough competitor. Hes big, strong, were not worried about bode. We want to talk about injuries. We have 15yearold Maggie Voisin broke her ankle in a practice run. Ty walker has been icing down wounds from the same course, by the way. Heidi kloser touched a lot of people in the Opening Ceremony coming in on crutches and wheelchair, wanting to know if she was still going to be considered an olympian. How do these injuries set back the team . We have a strong team and obviously wed be a Stronger Team if these athletes could compete. But we feel really good about the team we have. And all three of them have done great character and she is an olympian for sure. Let me ask you about some of the courses. Bode miller says the downhill is treacherous. And we had danny davis this morning talking about the halfpipe as garbage. Whats your view on some of these courses theyre talking about . We spent a lot of time talking to the athletes. And overall, the athletes really like the course. They like the snow. Its not the same every course is a little bit different. But we actually have been hearing good feedback on our athletes. Would you prefer if the u. S. Athletes wouldnt make comments like that . You know, i think its easier on us and easier on them if they focus on the competition and not some of the conditions. But at the end of the day, our athletes, i think, have been doing great with the press and have been very, very focused on their own competition as opposed to what the others are doing. In the media, we have a short attention span. Here we are in sochi, and already theres a buzz about 2024 and a potential u. S. Bid to have the summer games back home. Cities being talked about, san diego, los angeles, San Francisco, dallas, philly and boston. What can you tell me about a potential bid . We would love to see a u. S. Bid. Too early to tell if its going to be the right time and place. Who makes that call . Our board of directors at the u. S. Olympic committee. We will decide if the u. S. Will submit a bid. Weve got until late 2015 until we need to make that decision. And we are in discussions with a lot of the cities that you described. Well keep our fingers crossed. Scott, well see you throughout the games. Thank you so much for coming this morning. Back over to the guys. Im just putting a calendar entry for 2025. Meantime, the winter Olympic Games are dominating the conversation online. And Jenna Hager Bush is holding down the which room is it . Via conata. Sochi is the most social Olympic Games ever, of course, without a doubt, there have been nearly 9 million tweets since the olympics have started. We got some of our favorites from the first day of competition. Starting with this picture tweeted by u. S. Bobsledder johnny quinn when he was locked in the bathroom and forced to find a way out. He tweeted, with no phone to call for help, i used my bobsled push training to break out sochijailbreak. And russian snowboarder, Alexey Sobolev he didnt pick up a medal here in sochi, but he did pick up quite a few dates. After putting his telephone number on his helmet during competition, he received over 2,000 texts and dozens of pictures. Some of which are not appropriate for our broadcast, by the way. Thats one way to pick up a girlfriend. And all of you probably remember the mulroney not impressed face. There you go. Some people say it could never be topped. But she may have some competition from figure skater Ashley Wagner who was not impressed when she saw her score in the Short Program the other night. Of course, the Ashley Wagner has become a mean mashable, we put these two together. When you see her reaction to the fifth olympic ring, not impressed. And also if she had the same problem as johnny quinn, not impressed. So i wonder how she feels about being on the today show this morning. Ashley . Youre impressed or not impressed . Shes not impressed. Nobigdeal. Can you do the face . We mastered that face. Al rokers got it. Look at it. We woke you up in the middle of the night face. Not impressed. All right. Jenna, thanks. And as you mentioned, coming up, were going to catch up with ashley and the whole team usa of skaters. We will find out what they think in the team bronze Medal Winners. And Meredith Vieira has the much talked about story of the Russian Police choir. Star command, im detecting increof happiness. And the speed readings are off the chart Paradise Found luscious locks great glittering galaxies the happiest place on earth keeps getting happier explore more and save up to 25 on select nights at a Disneyland Resort hotel. Theres no end in sight im going to need more time. Coming up on trending, did you forget something . Youve got to see this. The medal winner who delivered one of the most amusing moments of the sochi olympics so far. And living the good life. What its like to be a woman in modern russia. But first, your local news and weather. Iamonds in her favorite color . Diamonds that capture her look, her style perfectly. Kay jewelers presents the artistry diamonds collection. 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