That's when people start to get more desperate and are more willing to throw an elbow here or there.

It's tough to say we had a 100 percent chance (at a medal), but with countries moving in and out of the bronze medal place, we definitely had a chance at one of the bronze or silvers. It just didn't happen, unfortunately. But I don't think we can be too upset. We skated good. There weren't any huge mistakes where someone fell down or we totally blew an exchange. With China and Canada, it's tough.

We were doing really well. We had a good start. We were with the teams from the beginning, which was our goal. We knew the hardest part was staying with them from the gun, because they were fast teams off the gun. We managed to do that, but we fell apart at the end. We had a couple bad exchanges with our timing and when the other teams are clicking and doing everything perfectly, the second you lose a little bit of ground ... it's hard to make it up, especially at the end.

You can't be a passive skater and expect to get to the finals, and have a chance at winning a medal. The passive skater does get lucky in our sport occasionally. But for the most part, you need the aggression in our sport. You need to want to win. You need to want to pass. You need to want to move up.

You want to get off the line and get in your position in the 1,000, but it's not like you only have 4 1/2 laps to get it done like in the 500.

Maybe we'll take a walk or grab lunch, but mainly, we're both really stressed out. Seems kind of a waste to be in Italy and not have a romantic dinner on Valentine's Day, but that's the way it goes. We're not even rooming together. The guys' team rooms together and we [women] room together.