The
2018 Olympics #Olympics2018 #recap #review
All pictures courtesy of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or NBC unless otherwise stated
I'll
try to make this post as short as I can, but I had a few gripes and a
few cheers for this years Olympics. With the 2018 Olympics finally
come to an end, it is important to highlight the achievement of all
the athletes that worked extremely hard for four years (far longer,
actually but you get the point) in order to come to these games and
make a household name of themselves. Whether American or otherwise,
your efforts in both wins and losses should be commended and I hail
you for them. Congratulations to all who medal-ed, and a special
congrats to all the Team USA athletes that managed to get on the
podium. Ultimately, there were many winners but really only one big
loser here: the die-hard fans like me. Let's go through some
highlights first, shall we?
America
started with a fairly strong showing both in the figure skating (love
it!) team program, and on the slopes and halfpipe in snowboarding.
Beginning with Red Gerard, we secured our first gold of the games
with his fantastic rail work and jumps in slopestyle. The
17-year-old, even after not scoring high or even landing his first
two jumps, completely stomped his third and final run to catapult
himself from the teens all the way to first place. Oddly enough,
while he may not have had the meme-worthy face that McKayla Maroney
did, Red didn't seem very impressed with his Olympics gold.
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| Chloe Kim |
The
snowboard domination continued with Chloe Kim. Yet another
17-year-old, Chloe shredded the halfpipe with a score of over 92 out
of 100, only to top herself in her final run with a 95 (or it might
have been a 96 or 97)--as close to a perfect score as any woman has
ever come in the Olympics. She did that by not only ripping the
highest air but pulling off some new tricks that only she has been
able to cleanly stomp in any of the previous world competitions or
X-games. And with Kim being a first-generation American Korean (her
parents migrated from Korea in the 80s), these 2018 PyeongChang
Olympics seemed poised for her coronation.
We
switched back to the slopestyle to see Jamie Anderson repeat as an
Olympic champion and defend the gold she won in 2014 by being one of
the only women to safely land all of her big tricks on a severely
windy day. However, the weather conditions led to some controversy;
ultimately, even she fell on her third and final run (she had secured
gold by then). Nevertheless, she would have enough time to relax,
recover and regroup for her second event, the newly added Big Air
snowboarding event which made its inaugural debut nearly a week
later. An event where the boarders are given a few runs down one big
ski slope in order to hit their biggest trick, Anderson took home a
silver medal to add to her two golds.
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| Shaun White |
But
the biggest and most talked about medal performance probably of these
2018 Olympics came from the old Flying Tomato himself, Shaun White.
After a disappointing showing in Sochi in 2014 where he, as a
favorite to get his third gold medal, failed to medal at all and
finished in fourth place, White showed up healthy, determined and
ready for redemption. And boy did he ever earn it. In what was some
of the biggest air ever seen in the history of the Winter Olympics
competition, Shaun White flew into the air at more than 16 feet out
of the halfpipe, landing every single trick with authority on his
final run after splashing out on his second run. With the scores
close and in the record-breaking territory, Shaun needed over a 96
out of 100 to get the gold. He'd get a 98, two points off of his
perfect score back at the American qualifying competition over a
month ago. And with that, he'd cement not only a legacy of brilliance
on the halfpipe but would get the USA's 100th gold medal
in the history of the Winter Olympics, securing him a new nickname
White Gold (#WhiteGold).
Unfortunately,
while the fun for the USA Olympics team didn't stop there, it's
dominance took a tumble and seemed to become weaker with each day
passed in the games. The figure skating team event, a new addition to
the games' most watched competition that only made its second
appearance at an Olympics, supplied the USA with a rocky start to
their on-ice aspirations. While we had a few potential challengers
for the gold medal in their own discipline, many didn't get to the
level needed either in individual competition nor in the team.
Beginning with the much hyped Nathan Chen who was pre-coronated the
next king of international figure skating and the first US male to
potentially win gold in near 20 years, audiences were quickly let
down. Chen was exalted by commentators as being the only young man at
18 who had the gall, the audacity, the bravery and gumption to put
not one, not two but five quad twists into his program—an unheard
of accomplishment especially when some men still had yet to achieve a
single quad. While I fully support that he simply had a bad Olympics
where the pressure got to the young kid, he failed to complete a
clean short program in both the team and individual events, missing
practically every one of his quad-jumps in both programs. While he
didn't skate the freeskate/long program for the team, he managed to
get through a fairly clean freeskate for the individual event, which
saw him nearly complete a historic comeback from 17th
place to third before three big-hitters came in at the last minute
and knocked him off the podium.
Gay
Olympic stand out Adam Rippon made the most of his Olympics debut by
bringing home the long program in the team event and doing his
absolute best in the men's individual. He was never going to be
anywhere near the podium but after being left off the team in 2014,
he made his mark on this PyeongChang games.
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| Sister Maia and Brother Alex Shibutani |
Next
we had the Shib Sibs #ShibSibs Maia and Alex Shibutani, the
20-something brother-sister duo who ice dance. They've had a large
social media following for a number of years now and made their
voices known this Olympics. These Shib-lings twizzled their way into
American hearts and threw down two great programs in the team event,
and two great programs in the individual event, earning them a Bronze
for the USA in the Ice Dance event. I will stop here and say that I
don't know if it was strange or just a sign of the cultural times but
this year's US entrants in figure skating were dominated by Asian
Americans; in fact, the only category that wasn't Asian-heavy was the
pairs skating. I wonder if this is an effect from Michelle Kwan and
Kristi Yamaguchi for having skated for so long or if this was due to
the love of figure skating throughout all of Asia. Hm?
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| Pairs Figure Skaters The Knierims |
And
finally we had the crown jewel of the Olympics, the women's figure
skating. The two crown jewels of the US team were Bradie Tennell, the
20-year-old skater that came out of nowhere within the last five
months to earn herself a spot on the team, and the veteran Mirai
Nagasu who, like her best friend Rippon, was passed over in 2014.
Mirai Nagasu became the first American woman ever to land a triple
axel on Olympic ice. With clean skates both from her and Bradie, the
team was propelled to win a Bronze medal in the opening team event.
Unfortunately, neither woman would fair well in the individual event
which saw all three American women bunched in ninth, tenth and
eleventh place after disastrous short programs. The
technically-gifted but performance-bland Bradie Tennell actually fell
on one of her first jumps, an occurrence that commentators Tara
Lipinski and Johnny Weir were keen to point out never happens. Mirai
also turned in a lackluster performance in which she singled many of
her triple jumps and was unable to pull off the same triple axel feat
as before. Not that it would've mattered for either of them. The
women's individual figure skating event was all about the two Russian
princesses.
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| Russian Skater (Y)Evgenia Medvedeva |
In
a games in which Russia as a national contingent was banned due to
doping, the OAR or Olympians from Russia still showed in droves,
hoping to claim precious Olympic medal for their country. But as luck
would have it, they hadn't earned a single gold in any event through
two weeks of competition. And then, on the final night of the women's
individual figure skating freeskate, their chance at gold went from
fantasy to reality.
The
intense competition between the near-perfect Alina Zagitova and her
rival Evgenia Medvedeva made the two young Russians skate beyond
their hearts, pushing artistry and technical brilliance to their
limits. Alina, the 15-year-old skater who had only gone from juniors
to adult competitions in the last year, had a razor-thin one point
lead after the short. Evgenia, the 18-year-old with a love of Sailor
Moon and K-pop, thought this Olympics would serve as her coronation.
The girls not only have the same coach, but train together throughout
the year, leaving their friendship off the ice just that: off the
competitive ice. After skating her everything to close the freeskate
and seeing Canadian Katelyn Osmond skate brilliance to earn her the
silver spot, Evgenia watched as she finished just one point behind
Alina once again, earning her the silver and bumping Osmond to a
bronze. For long-time figure skating fans (and those older than the
two Russian teammates) the results bore a familiar ring to the 1998
Olympics when Tara Lipinski snuck in from seemingly nowhere and won
Olympic Gold out from Michelle Kwan's more seasoned grasp. Kwan,
while hailed as an American sweetheart during her career, would never
attain that gold. Lipinski would retire very soon after and now
commentates every Olympics.
But
the joyous highs and bleak lows would not stop at the Olympics Ice
Pavilion in Gangnueng. In what has to have been the most
roller-coaster-y Olympics I can remember in the last 24 years, each
day of competition was met with someone who was triumphant in
securing a medal while another US team member in a different sport
caved beneath expectations and barely finished the event. Mikaela
Shiffrin, the 22-year-old gold medalist slalom and alpine skiing
specialist from 2014's Sochi, was scheduled to race three (actually,
maybe five) events, but had to back out of one due to event
re-scheduling because of windy weather. She'd eventually race in
Giant Slalom and Alpine Combined where she'd win Gold and Silver
respectively. But elder stateswoman Lindsey Vonn, in her third
Olympics and seeking redemption after missing Sochi due to an ACL
injury, was bumped from Gold to Bronze in her specialty the Downhill
after drawing a terrible start at first. Even worse, she failed to
even complete her slalom run in the Alpine Combined, earning
disqualification in the event within a few gates from start. The
most-likely final Olympic showing for the 33-year-old past Gold
medalist came to a disappointing end. But on the bright side, she got
to ski in memory of her grandfather, a Korean war vet who helped
inspire her love of skiing.
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| Vonn |
David
Wise, the defending gold medalist in free skiing halfpipe
competition, suffered through equipment malfunctions his first two
final runs, escaping unharmed in what shaped up to be a very
dangerous halfpipe for skiers. With crash after crash from skiers,
multiple men were never able to complete their final runs out of
three. But a quick tightening with a screwdriver and some
determination to stomp his last run propelled Wise into the gold
spot, allowing him to properly defend his Olympic title and put a
proud smile on his two children's faces. The same couldn't be said
for his female counterpart Maddie Bowman. The defending gold medalist
ranked high in her qualifying runs while holding back her best
tricks. However, when it came to the final runs, she not only crashed
on the halfpipe during the warm-ups, but she crashed on her final
trick every single time in the exact same place (at the end of the
run) in every one of her three final runs, earning her no greater
than a score of 30 out of 100.
One
of the most high-octane sports on the slopes, snowboard cross handed
yet another defeat to world-class snowboard racer Lindsey Jacobellis.
The 32-year-old who, in 2006, foolishly tried to do a trick at the
end of her winning snowboard run only to fall on the trick and go
from gold to silver, tried for redemption in her fourth Olympics. And
while she didn't fall like she has in every other Olympics snowboard
cross race, she finished a heart-breaking fourth and off of the
podium. Virtually the same results happened in the men's snowboard
cross with the two Americans in the final run wiping each other out
halfway through the race and ultimately getting up and finishing off
the podium.
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| Team Pursuit Bronze Medalist Team, Far Right: Heather Bergsma |
Speaking
of speedy sports, America didn't fare much better on the ice than
they did on the slopes. In speed-skating, on both long and short
track most of the USA was out-skated either by the Dutch/Netherlands
or by Norway, both of which dominated even over the South Koreans
that love and revere speed skating so much. Young speed skater Maame
Biney failed to even get to a single finals race, though the light
hasn't dimmed on a potentially very bright future. I look forward to
seeing her in 2022. Long-tracker Heather Bergsma, while her love
story with her husband and fellow speed skater Jorrit was touching on
Valentine's Day, failed to get on the podium in any other event save
for the team pursuit in which the women made history by winning a
Bronze medal. And even the short track speed skaters wouldn't fare
very well. We failed to podium save for in one men's event.
John-Henry Krueger managed to eke out a 1000m silver medal in a sport
that routinely sees its competitors go down and into the safety walls
surrounding the rink. And though Elise Christie was not on Team USA,
skating for her homeland of Great Britain instead, I felt bad for her
for not being able to properly complete a single race, repeating
virtually her same performance from Sochi four long years ago. At the
same time, I also couldn't help but laugh when she began the one race
that she did ultimately complete by falling within two steps,
tripping over her own blades. She would later be disqualified and
yellow carded for disrupting and improperly touching two of her
fellow racers.
Oddly
enough, many of this year's gold (or medals for that matter) came in
sports that were previously either uninteresting or simply low-rated
in viewership. The cross-country ski team saw their first medal in
over 20 years and first ever for women when Jessie Diggins (a
much-hyped young skier who hadn't quite lived up to medal
aspirations) and her much older partner Kikkan Randall won gold in
the Women's Team Sprint Free. Yeah, I watched it live at 5 o'clock in
the morning. The US's Elana Meyers-Taylor and her brakewoman Lauren
Gibbs claimed silver in Elana's third Olympics which seemed ripe for
a gold medal (the upstart Germans shocked everyone and took the top
spot). US Men's Hockey, after giving us an all-time great game versus
Canada eight years ago in Vancouver suffered through the first
Olympics without NHL players, getting bounced early in the
quarterfinals. However, it was the less popular women's hockey team
that took the golden crown from Canada, demanding that you watch them
because the boys weren't the only ones on the ice. Still, some fans
of the sport scoffed at the fact that the match was decided by a
shootout, which I also watched live. And after flunking out of the
medal bracket in the debut of mixed doubles curling, Matt Hamilton
and team leader John Schuster propelled the men's US team to curling
gold on the nearest to final night of the competition. I say that
these were the rarely watched sports because most of them came on
early morning hours (3-7am) and on NBCSN, which leads me to my
biggest gripes of these games.
Speaking
of South Korea, NBC played it overly safe in their coverage. I don't
know if it was some programming idiot's decision to move cultural
fluff pieces of the past to the network's plethora of morning shows
or if they annexed them completely, but I missed out on all the
Korean culture that I thought I'd be getting. I've been watching the
Olympics for a long time, summer and winter, and in the past they've
been great not just because they featured rarely-watched sports with
athletes performing at the top of their field to prove after a
lifetime of training that they were the best in the world, but
because they were also immersive experiences. Maybe some people don't
like it or are still snobs about TV but I've always viewed the medium
as another tool for learning. You could learn just as much as you can
be entertained by TV. The Olympics were often the epitome of that
clash of infotainment. You not only got to root for “your people,
your country,” you also got to learn a great deal about how other
cultures get along on this little blue rock. With Beijing, I remember
the exploration of the temples and how they incorporated the number
eight/infinity symbol into their culture because it's such a huge
part of their belief that everything continues on forever. With
Sochi, I remember Mary's reports on how the Soviet Union broke up to
become Russia, it's suffering through a bleak economy after that, the
rise of Putin, it's love of ballet and how that translated into
figure skating, their particular traditional style of architecture,
and even stuff about the propaganda trains used in World War 1 and 2.
London was an exploration of how this small island with, technically
three nations on it managed to create such strange games that became
part of the Olympics, whether it was golf or the modern version of
shot put. Not to mention it explored the effects that WWII had on the
people there and told harrowing stories about how people felt and
survived while bombs rained down on their cities. Rio took us on a
journey of art and easy living in not-so-easy conditions, having us
explore the culinary arts and eats with Ryan Seacrest and Adriana
Lima, or helping us understand why nearly half of the city of Rio and
Sao Paolo is painted in vibrant street art commissioned by the
cities, or even going back to talk to the inspiration for the song
“...and when she passes, every time she passes...” (you know the
one. Yeah, I can't think of the title either, hence, the lyric).
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| One Good Memory: First Ever Olympic Drone Show |
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| So Many Wrecks, So Many Missed Opportunities |
Frankly,
I think the complainers of yesteryear who wanted everything LIVE
shouldn't have been heeded so unabashedly. Is it a different type of
feeling to experience everything in the same moment as it happens,
yes. But there's something to be said about maintaining adrenaline
throughout these long sports events. Unlike, say any of the major
three professional sports in the US (I guess you can throw in Hockey
as it is growing in viewership each year), the Olympics is quite a
different animal, though that shouldn't need to be said. It's,
essentially, the run-up, the playoffs and the championship all in
one. It's a condensed season of our longer sports and it is where
everyone is laying it all on the line for one chance at something
that comes around once every four years. The drama should be there,
yet it's not fully built in. Unlike in the “ball” sports, where
fans care just as much about the off-the-field/court drama as the on
(die-hards will tell you they don't, but they do) and are subjected
to months of rumors, speculation and analyst talk about who is the
best team/coach/player/management and filtered information about
little quirks in these people's lives, the Olympics doesn't get the
long build-up. Tons of football fans now know that, like me, Tom
Brady is a water fiend who drinks multiple gallons a day. Does that
have anything to do with how he throws a football? No, but sports
analysts have twisted, bent and manipulated the story to find an
angle they can use to somehow make it relevant to his career.
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| Nathan Chen Failed To Medal |
In
fact, the pacing of the entire coverage felt strange. Too many
commercials? Hell yeah! That, coupled with the lack of good stories,
fed the overall malaise of this year's games. A lot of the fluff
pieces that made me care about athletes either came on NBCSN in the
middle of the night, and during events where they had no business
being, or on Olympic Zone. For instance, our female long-tracker Heather Bergsma had a piece on her about how she fell in love and met her
husband Jorrit, and even moved to the Netherlands to train in the
speed-skating culture over there. It was a romantic story in which
she asked to kiss him on the first date after she also paid for
nearly everything. And then he proposed to her by fingering the words
into the sand on a beach in which her family has a home in the states
and waiting for her to awake that morning to see it from her
beach-facing balcony. Cool story, right? You know they showed that at
3:30am eastern time on NBCSN and not even during a long track speed
skating event? It was a break between a curling game and
cross-country skiing. Her race took place two hours later. Then, a
day later when in primetime coverage they could replay her earlier
race ON VALENTINE'S DAY, you know what they showed? No, not that
sweet story of how they fell in love, instead they showed a secondary
shorter puff piece about how she and her husband competed on a show
in his country called Battle of the Sexes, and she lost the race and
got pretty ticked about it. The love story was about three minutes
longer and would've cut into LIVE coverage—that's the only reason I
can think of why they'd not show it.
Cultural
servings, as said before, were nearly left out completely or pushed
down to the Olympic Zone—the half-hour pre-show that was supposed
to air every night (except Sundays) before primetime coverage. Not a
national show, the O.Z. was run by your local news affiliates and
tried to feature at least one story that was given to them by the
national HQ but then filled it with stuff that you were supposed to
find interesting to your region. Eh! Did I really need a full
seven-minute segment on the growth of curling in Northeast Ohio? No.
Did I want to see more about America's effect on Korean culture or
how vastly different the north and south are? Yes. But with all of
those duties shirked off to the half hour local team, I barely got
anything, and didn't even start watching O.Z. until halfway through
the games.
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| Not Americans |
My
point is that focusing more on the stories of the American athletes
or of the expected champions/greatest competition to those athletes
during primetime would've served us as viewers far better than
sitting through a slew of also-rans in any of the competitions. Sure,
snowboard was a favorite of mine and I enjoyed watching all 30
competitors do their qualifying runs... Once! There were often two
qualifying runs for each event, then three final runs. In the hour
and a half of time that each event took, I couldn't have been the
only viewer sitting there and wondering, “Do I really need to see
15 skiers who supposedly have no chance of medalling ski down a hill
only to end two seconds off from the leader and wind up in 13th
place?” Where is the drama? Where is the adrenaline in that?Show
me the Americans regardless, because I'm here for that, and also show
me the top five best in the world, but don't give me the chick skiing
for Hungary (I think that was the country) who is going down the
halfpipe pulling no tricks and is only there because she shortcutted
the system. It makes for funny social media fodder, sure, but I
hardly want to watch her go through twice and listen to the
commentators struggle to say anything worth a damn. I'm hardly ADD
and ably sat through all of this, but for the love of god switch away
from these events and show something else so that viewers' minds
don't wander. There was other junk on and other stuff to do.
Ultimately, this is the problem with most sports but got highlighted during the Olympics because of the nature of the Olympics: most sports are legitimately only interesting for about seven minutes of playing time. Think about it, the first two quarters of football are nothing worth seeing unless one team immediately starts to run the score, or when one team pushes their downs to within 20 yards of the end zone. Only about the last quarter of basketball is even worth watching and you can catch that crazy dunk or pass highlight from the second quarter on Sportscenter later. Soccer only gets truly interesting when the ball gets to within 20 feet of the goal, which actually rarely happens. Baseball is only interesting if someone steals some bases, hits a homer or the field team flubs the ball, allowing a run. Hell, even a pitcher's no-hitter can leave you feeling like you wasted your three hours if, in the final inning he lets someone hit a homer. Don't misunderstand my complaint, they definitely should still have LIVE events, but they need to jump around more in order to keep the ADD attentions of tech-distracted viewers these days.
Ultimately, this is the problem with most sports but got highlighted during the Olympics because of the nature of the Olympics: most sports are legitimately only interesting for about seven minutes of playing time. Think about it, the first two quarters of football are nothing worth seeing unless one team immediately starts to run the score, or when one team pushes their downs to within 20 yards of the end zone. Only about the last quarter of basketball is even worth watching and you can catch that crazy dunk or pass highlight from the second quarter on Sportscenter later. Soccer only gets truly interesting when the ball gets to within 20 feet of the goal, which actually rarely happens. Baseball is only interesting if someone steals some bases, hits a homer or the field team flubs the ball, allowing a run. Hell, even a pitcher's no-hitter can leave you feeling like you wasted your three hours if, in the final inning he lets someone hit a homer. Don't misunderstand my complaint, they definitely should still have LIVE events, but they need to jump around more in order to keep the ADD attentions of tech-distracted viewers these days.
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| Left to Right: Kikkan Randall, Jessie Diggins |
Seemingly
in an effort to make up for their lack of good programming, NBC and
its affiliated networks stuffed in a few good things in the last two
days of coverage, after most events had concluded. First was the
micro-documentary on the figure skating competition of 1988 in
Calgary, Canada that played on NBCSN in the dead of night on
Saturday-Sunday. Following the four expected champions, the film
angled itself as two sets of rivals finally going at it for the
golden prize. On the women's side you had American Debi Thomas versus
East Germany's Katarina Witt. Thomas, the first black female to skate
into the international spotlight during a time in which the black
community was suffering through the crack epidemic, became an instant
beacon of hope and adoration for young AA girls. Katarina was the
Olympics darling that needed to win Gold a second time after winning
in 1984 simply to remain a figure skater in her country. In a strange
political barring, Germany was not going to allow her the privilege
of becoming a professional figure skater (it was somehow outlawed)
unless she beat the black girl.
Debi
hadn't the same fire under her that Katarina did, distracted more
with her boyfriend and academic studies (medicine) than with what her
coach had to say. They would skate to the same opera, each choosing
Carmen for their final free skate. But where Katarina oozed
the sex appeal of a grown woman confident and sure in her allure,
Debi stumbled through her program and let her “Just Do It”
attitude (a phrase she is seen uttering to herself before her short
program and takes credit for coining months before Nike adopted the
saying) sink into an aura of doubt and self-defeat. She'd finish with
bronze while Katarina earned gold.
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| I Own No Rights to this Pic; Left: Katarina; Right: Thomas |
Katarina
would return to her country and go on to not only become a pro skater
but do TV, film, movies and become an all-around darling of her
people. Debi would go on to marry her boyfriend at the time and
become a surgeon, only to later get divorced, be declared bipolar,
get into another abusive relationship, and end up broke, nearly a
million dollars in debt and living in a trailer with her newest
husband. She appeared on Iyanla Fix My Life a few years ago,
trying to reclaim her peace, yet doesn't regret anything that
happened because skating wasn't that important to her.
On
the other side, we had the Battle of the Brians. In a story that
directly connected to 2018's figure skating competition, Canada's
Brian Orser would skate in his home country against America's Brian
Boitano. In '84 Orser was the would-be champ that loss gold to Scott
Hamilton due to a part of the competition that is little known to
fans of today's sport: compulsory figures. Figure skating got its
name from the first part of the three-pronged competition, compulsory
figures or just figures. Figures preceded the short and freeskate and
consisted of skaters having to draw complex figures on the ice with
their blades, often only using one foot at a time. The skaters would
have to go forward and backwards carving their blades into the
pristine ice to draw shapes and pictures determined by the
judges—think figure eights but more complex. This showed body
control and superior technique. Shockingly, it accounted for 60% of
the overall score. Orser, an amazing showman with both jumps and
emotive connectivity in both his short and freeskate programs, scored
terribly on the figures in '84, costing him what would've easily been
a gold then. He worked harder than he ever had before on his figures
between then and Calgary. Feeling the weight of a country upon his
shoulders he sought only to finish in the top 3, then he'd have a
chance at the gold. He succeeded. But Brian Boitano, the ten-year
rival that Orser couldn't shake, had arrived. With Hamilton now out
of each of the boys' way, it was between the two of them, each
matching the other during the world cup skating season. Boitano knew
he'd have to be perfect to defeat Orser. He finished just one spot
ahead of Orser in the figures competition, so it would all come down
to the programs. In the short he slightly faltered, leaving room for
Orser to sneak into gold's spot. But it was in his long freeskate
that he connected the most perfect performance ever, propelling him
to gold over Orser and forcing the Canadian to take silver once
again.
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| Left to Right: Brian Orser in red, Brian Boitano in blue |
After
that Boitano went on to become a hugely popular skater throughout the
90s in the US and would eventually appear on an ambassador delegation
of gay past athletes sent to Russia under Obama's direction for the
2014 Sochi Olympics. Brian Orser went on to become a highly
sought-after coach and has coached current two-time gold medalist
Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan for the last couple of years.
The
2018 coverage also had another documentary on the 1968 Olympics.
While it was good, this Serena Williams-narrated film felt slightly
disjointed and jumped around trying to cover everything that happened
during the lead up to and playing of the Olympics. Focusing on the
“summer” (that's in quotes because two reasons: the winter and
summer games used to take place in the same year, and though these
were the summer sports like track and field, they held the games in
October) games, the film became an amalgam of four different stories
that all intersected around the games.
The
second story followed high jumper Dick Fosbury. A young white man who
wanted to do the high-jump but could never quite clear the bar with
his gangly limbs, he pioneered the most commonly used technique today
by leaping over the bar back first. Up until this gold-medal-winning
technique, people laughed at him for his inability to complete proper
jumps. It also briefly touch on another athlete who set a record in
the long jump, jumping so far that they had to go to a local store to
get a tape measure because the device they had wasn't long enough.
Finally,
the biggest storyline of the film focused on the iconic symbol of
black power, oppression and the struggle for blacks and minorities to
be heard: the two fists raised in the air. Months before that
peaceful protest, college student athletes who were black were
gathering up to plan a boycott of the Olympics completely as a
protest against what they considered to be unfair collegiate
treatment of blacks. Outside of the overarching civil rights
movement, blacks were recruited by colleges to play various sports
but after graduation they were essentially sent packing back to
wherever the hell they came from and told not to show their faces
again. One past athlete who went on to very quickly earn a doctorate
after his undergrad education, saw the problem in the white or
integrated colleges having no pipeline for past black students to
become coaches or even faculty members at their alma maters, whereas
whites were routinely invited back to become part of their college's
sports legacy. Not only that, he, having lived it, realized that many
of the athletes came from poor upbringings and remained poor during
and after their collegiate experience. Scholarships would cover their
rent, leaving barely enough money for food for an entire week, let
alone a full month. And with tough schedules put on athletes finding
a job was near impossible. Even if they were able to handle their
schedule, few people hired negroes. Essentially, it was the same
argument then as it is today, except with racial politics playing an
even stronger role. Something had to give.
If
that weren't bad enough, the Olympics were to permit a country like
South Africa to participate, which at the time was still battling its
way through apartheid. Blacks were looked at the world-over as race
horses, animals that could do the work to entertain or win sports
events but hardly useful outside of that. And the topping on it all
was the current IOC president Avery Brundage whose history with
racial prejudice made many black athletes bristle with rage. In the
1936 Germany Olympics it was Brundage himself who told Jewish
athletes from all countries that they would not be allowed to
participate in the Olympics because it would make Hitler very
unhappy. The athletes wanted him gone. They wouldn't get Brundage to
step down in time for the Olympics, but they would get some
concessions from the USOC who allowed them a certain bit of leeway in
living accommodations, promised to look at the college system of
black athletes treatment and even allowed for black and other
minorities to coach the Olympic teams. They even got South Africa and
another country uninvited to the games. Still, a great bit of work
was left to be done.
In
a move that would not only backfire but crush the inspiring image of
a past hero that some of the black athletes still held, the USOC and
IOC contacted Jesse Owens to play their house negro. As one of the
interviewed athletes said (paraphrased), “They dug Jesse out from
somewhere, dusted him off, put him in a suit, stuffed a wad of cash
in his pocket and gave him a script to read.” He warned them about
protesting, guaranteeing them that they'd have a near impossible time
finding a job if they were to visibly protest in any way during these
games. They booed him out of the room, recognizing that he had
appeared during those German Olympics, then disappeared from the
American conscience for near 30 years until that day. He was never
truly allowed to make money as a racer after his Germany golds.
Instead, he was relegated to a bit of a negro sideshow, often taking
clownish races that pitted him against fast animals like horses or
dogs in order to make ends meet. Strangely, it now seems as if he was
speaking the truth to them rather than a script, which is precisely
what they were fighting against happening to them, but in fighting
against it, it would be the exact thing to happen to them. This, in
no way, says that they shouldn't have protested. To the contrary,
they should have made their protests more known.
While
the raised, black-gloved fists of gold medalist Tommie Smith and
bronze medalist John Carlos during the playing of America's national
anthem has become iconic and is commemorated in two statues (one on
their alma mater's college campus and another in the national black
history museum in DC), they were far from the only ones to try
protesting. In what was still to this date the most decorated track
and field US team, many of the black athletes that won medals
protested by wearing all black, taking off their shoes to symbolize
the poverty of black collegiate athletes, wearing tall black socks,
blocking out the American flags on their uniforms with protest
buttons and the like. Many went unrecognized or passed with little
fanfare. Some even earned the ire of both white and black people. One
athlete's wearing of a black beret to identify with the Black Panther
Party was first seen as distasteful by the whites, but then when he
took it off and held it over his heart while saluting the flag as it
raised, that was seen as treacherous to the cause by blacks.
 |
| Black Bobsledders Lauren Gibbs and Elana Meyers-Taylor |
In
the end, this 2018 Olympics felt lacking and somewhat bland and
boring in comparison to past Olympics. In fact, that feeling was only
highlighted by the dive into the pasts of 30 and 50 years ago when
the world sat on edge to witness great competition between Americans
and foreigners, or when athletes from all walks of life made subtle,
yet powerful statements about social and political issues that would
ripple through time. With the lack of medal ceremonies shown in
primetime (I don't care that Shaun White's medal ceremony would've
not played LIVE and would've played a full day after he won the gold.
You can “spoil” the sporting event, you can't spoil a medal
ceremony) NBC tried to somewhat make up for this on the back end by
showing a one-hour showcase of Olympic Gold, but even that fell
supremely flat because it focused more on snowboarding's impact in
the Olympics in the last 20 years rather than focusing fully on the
stories behind each medal we won in this Olympics, gold or otherwise.
And it still didn't fully show a medal ceremony. I wanted to see that
anticipation on an athlete's face when they see the tray with the
medals come out, and they see their fellow competitors get the bronze
and the silver, and they tear up a little before the gold is even
placed around their neck. This Olympics, unlike in the past, tried to
tell stories but failed to build an initial connective draw to these
narratives, then not dragging us all the way to the end by showing
the athletes on the podium. And don't blame the IOC for this, NBC
knew the schedule well beforehand.
The
closing ceremony was far superior to the opening, which is all upon
the host country. For whatever reason, whenever I watch the Olympics
with someone now, they always have to compare it to Beijing's opening
and closing in 2008. Look, I know that it was great and that it will
most likely go down as one of the greatest openings of all time
(frankly, the entire Olympics was one of the best Olympics I've ever
seen) but we can't keep comparing that opening to every Olympics
ceremony in perpetuity or else we'll never appreciate another
ceremony again. With that said, Korea's opening was rather weak. In
what was certainly a try-hard ceremony, all I got from it were that
they liked white tigers, among other animals, and that they like
digital stuff. While you can say virtually the same thing about the
closing ceremony, it simply felt different, more artistic and more
intriguing. I loved the blend of K-pop with traditional cultural
sounds and music, the guitar kid was absolutely shredding to life,
the snowflakes extinguishing the fire was uniquely brilliant, I liked
the extravagance of EXO's stadium-filling performance and I even
enjoyed China's presentation with the skating pandas. In all, it felt
like a spectacle, which is precisely the way I want the opening and
closing to feel.
With
everything that has taken place in the world in the last 18 days both
inside and outside of the games, I still couldn't look away from them
but for two and a half brief hours on a Saturday night. For me, they
are the epitome of a quote by a woman whose name I simply can't
recall. She stated the quote on a show while sitting on a panel and
talking about sex and about it being good. Well, the Olympics are
like sex: even when it's not that good, it's still pretty good.
What
do you think? Did you watch the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Winter
Games? If so, did you enjoy it? What was your favorite event? Who did
you root for most to get a gold? Were you enticed to try out any of
the featured sports? And what are you looking forward to from the
next Olympic games, summer or winter? Let me know in the comments
below.
If
you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel
#AFuriousWind, the
NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or
the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen.
For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult,
check out #TheWriter.
Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected
here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast
action/crime check out #ADangerousLow.
The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the
mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary
on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the
mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the
Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone
Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us
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my blog with that Google+ button to the right.
Until next time, “Whoa! Hey,
snowboarder dude, you just cut me off while I was skiing quite
modestly down this mountain.”
'Dude, it's like they say there's no
friends on a fresh powder day!'
P.S.
Yeah, I don't know. I heard that second line from one of the
commentators during one of the snowboard cross races and thought it
was kinda cool, and totally sounded like something a boarder would
say, though I've never boarded in my life. Anyway, I'll try to think
of a better, more original sign-off next time.
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