My Two Pence: Final Thoughts on PyeongChang
The 23rd Winter Olympiad, held in PyeongChang South Korea, has concluded and now that he dust has settled we can reflect on the games through the scope of national impartiality and hindsight. Below are my final thoughts on this year's games:
How the hell is little Norway so dominant?
Most people have trouble locating Norway on a globe, let alone distinguishing it from its Scandinavian neighbors, yet this tiny nation on the top of the world led all competitors in the final medal count. Norway led in total medals (39), T-1st in Golds (14), Silvers (14), and Bronzes (11). Norway's Nordic geography has lent itself to the country's long and proud winter sporting history, and they are often at, or near the top of the final medal counts, but in this modern era countries need more than just a cold climate to achieve Olympic glory. Sure, 70 years ago Norway had a distinct advantage over competitors in sports like Cross-Country Skiing and Biathlon because most of their tiny population utilized these skills in their daily routines in order to survive. Now, however, Norway is a developed, modern country, with one of the highest per capita GDP and standards of living in the world. Norwegians are no longer braving the elements to hunt for food near the arctic circle (well most aren't), or cross-country skiing to work, but somehow modern Norwegians are still dominating the Winter Olympics. What's even more impressive about Norway's Winter Olympic success is that, while they continue to own the competition in their traditional bread and butter events like Cross-Country Skiing and Biathlon, they have evolved to win gold medals this year in Speed Skating, Aline Skiing, Freestyle Skiing, and Ski Jumping. It's difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons for Norway's Winter Olympic dominance, especially because their Scandinavian step-brothers have not achieved the same level of success, so I guess we'll have to chalk it up to something in the water.
Biathlon is Underrated:
NBC reserved it's prime time TV slots for events that they deemed exciting and popular so it came as no surprise that events like Figure Skating and Snowboarding tended to highlight post dinner docket. That said, it came as no surprise that a sport like Biathlon, with a relatively non-existent following in the U.S, was primarily featured as a mid-day time filler. At face value, Biathlon is a tough sport for people to wrap their heads around; Cross-Country Skiing mixed with intermittent riflery does seem like a bit of a head scratcher, but when you take a deeper dive into what the sport demands, you begin to realize just how grueling and difficult it is. Cross-Country skiing, on its own, more closely resembles cruel and unusual punishment than it does a recreational sport. Anyone who's ever had to ski a catwalk can relate to the extreme suffering that skiing across flat ground and even inclines can inflict. While I personally loathe the idea of Cross-Country Skiing, I have immense respect for the athletes who compete in it at the Olympics. The physical and cardiovascular shape you need to be in to compete at that level is truly extraordinary, but when you add the element of shooting a rifle at targets during the middle of a race makes for an unimaginable testament of physical and mental fortitude. Cross-Country skiing, by itself, is insanely difficult, but to stop during your race, when your heart rate is racing, and then to try to lower your heart rate in a matter of seconds to a resting speed in order to shoot 5 shots at targets at risk of being penalized for missed shots is one of the most underestimated feats of athleticism and physical control in sport. There is no equivalent in sports that combines the physical endurance of a long distance race with the mental resilience to control and slow your heart rate on command and the coordination to still be a decent enough marksman to hit your targets with immense pressure. Bottom line is that Biathlon is one of those uniquely Olympic sports that only seems to rear its head every four years and it's athletes don't receive the recognition they deserve, so instead of lumping it in with Cross-Country Skiing, we should view it more like a winter war game.
Women's Hockey Should Have Hitting
One of the major highlights of this year's Olympics was watching the US Women's Hockey team get the proverbial monkey off their back and finally defeat their northern rivals in an extremely well payed and thrilling Gold medal game settled by a dazzling shootout. The Men's Hockey tournament has always been one of the marquee events at the Winter Olympics, but the NHL's decision to ban it's players from participating in PyeongChang drained a lot of the excitement from this year's tournament. While international Women's hockey is really a two-horse race, the rivalry between the Americans and Canadians is as fierce and heated as any other in sports. The United States has had Canada's number during the inter-year periods between Olympics, taking home Gold in the World Championships in all but 2 tournaments since 2005. However, the US women's Achilles heal has been on the Olympic center stage where they have failed to wing Gold over Canada since the Nagano games in 1998. The Gold medal match up between these two heavyweights was everything any hockey fan could've asked for; high level skill and passing, fluid motion, quality goals, chirping, skirmishes in front of the net, and HATE. However, the one thing that would have made the game that much better is if there was hitting. In women's hockey you can use your body to push your opponent off the puck and even ride (gently) another payer into the boards, but a body check will land you in the penalty box. The body check penalty call is subject to the referee's discretion and is, by definition, a subjective call, but it's a completely foolish and unnecessary one. There were several body checking penalties taken by both sides in he Gold Medal game that would've been no-calls in a men's game, and they were FANTASTIC hits. They were big, lined up, and clean. I can find no rational reasoning as to why body checks are banned in the women's game since these ladies clearly know how to lay the lumber. Is the IIHF (International hockey's governing body) worried about player safety? That seems like a soft excuse since the same standard is not upheld with their male counterparts. I'm forced to wonder if this double standard stems from the misogynistic mentality that perhaps women aren't 'tough enough' to handle body checking in hockey, which is as preposterous as it is ignorant. If you watched that game and saw the hits I'm talking about you would not share this sentiment as these ladies were every bit as tenacious and aggressive as men. After getting their clocks cleaned, these women popped up and chirped the nearest person wearing the other color sweater. Women's sports, particularly hockey, have come a log way over the past few decades, but backwards rules like this are preventing the sport from gaining the truly flourishing and gaining the respect it deserves.
The 'Olympic Athletes from Russia' Fielding a Hockey Team is Lunacy
On December 5th 2017, the International Olympic Committee announced that Russia would be banned from the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang due to widespread, state sponsored, doping charges over the past few decades. The ruling was groundbreaking and unprecedented and led to a flurry of questions concerning the eligibility of 'clean' Russian athletes and team sports. The IOC bent a little bit on their ruing when they conceded to letting Russian athletes who had no previous history of doping to compete under the banner of 'Olympic Athletes from Russia.' However, questions still remained about the status of teams, primarily that of the Russian Men's Hockey team - who were heavy Gold Medal favorites due to the lack of NHLers in the tournament. There were rumors that Vladimir Putin would bar any Russians from competing in PyeongChang to protest the IOC's ruling but that clearly did not come to fruition. In fact, The IOC continued to bend to the Ruskis, allowing the men's hockey team to also compete under the "Olympic Athletes from Russia' flag. The loaded 'Russian' squad, featuring former NHL superstars like Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, and Nikita Nesterov in addition to a bevy of KHL stars. tore through an underwhelming tournament en route to the Gold Medal, albeit in a contested overtime win over upstart Germany in the final. It was 'Russia's' tournament to lose, but they never really should have been in it in the first place. I'm not saying that any of the Russian hockey payers dope, and there is no evidence to suggest that anyone did, but when they IOC bans a country from competing, that ruling needs to hold some weight. Allowing individual athletes to compete is one thing, but an entire team is another. Several refugees competed under a similar 'Refugee' banner at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but would they have been able to compete in the Basketball tournament at those games if they fielded a team? There are obviously qualification tournaments that teams must participate in to earn the right to compete at the Olympics for both sports, but the 'Olympic Athletes from Russia' didn't go through these channels. Does the IIHF recognize 'Olympic Athletes from Russia' as a member federation? Did they earn a spot in the Olympics based on the Russian team's credentials? Based on the IOC's verdict, Russia and the Olympic Athletes from Russia are separate entities so why did this not hold true for the hockey team? The IOC has long been grossly corrupt, rivaling Sepp Blatter's FIFA, so I was shocked when they actually took a monumental stand against Vlad Putin's Russia and their rampant doping, but I suppose it was still too much to ask for consistency across the spectrum. Nothing surprised me in the world of international sports anymore, but the IOC's capitulation on allowing the 'Olympic Athletes from Russia' to compete in PyeongChang devalues their credibility and cheapens their ability to righteously govern themselves and it's member federations going forward
Skeleton is for Psychopaths
Earlier in this post I explained why I thought Biathlon was the most underrated and under appreciated sport in the Winter Olympics, but Skeleton is by far the most psychotic. When I think of the type of person that pursues Skeleton I think of the advertisement that Ernest Shackleton put in the newspaper to recruit a crew for his ill-fated 1914 Trans-Antarctic expedition, which goes as follows:
"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success."
I think that the mentality of the men who read that ad and applied for that journey perfectly encapsulates the type of people I witnessed race down an ice track, head first, at 75+ miles per hour in PyeongChang this February. Skeleton is a niche sport and barriers to entry are extensive, so the sickos who actually participate in this maniacal death wish have to actively seek it out. Skeleton made it's Olympic debut in 1928, which makes me shudder to think of the safety regulations in place at the time, and then was again featured in the 1948 games before going on a long hiatus until it's reintroduction to the Olympics in 2002 at Salt Lake City. But this all means that there were thousands of psychos competing without even the opportunity of going to the Olympics for decades. At least now they can semi-justify themselves by claiming they want the chance at Olympic glory or at least a little international TV face time. Bottom line is that you need to have some screws loose to get into Skeleton, but if psychopaths are channeling their insanity towards sliding head down a frozen track with zero room for error instead of killing puppies or hacking up coeds then I guess I'm all for it.
