I love the Winter Olympics. For all its whacky events, high-drama moments and side-gig athletes.
USA and Latvia are tied at 1-1 in the first period of the first round of Olympic hockey. Two American goals disallowed, two pucks off posts, a goal saved by an American player who wasn’t the goalie. So far. The Tkachuk brothers living their driveway dreams.
US cross-country skier Jessie Diggins earned the hardest earned bronze of any games, powering through bruised ribs from a Saturday crash to finish third in the 10-kilometer interval freestyle. It took 23 minutes, 38.9 seconds. Skiers slide over the line and then collapse. Literally collapse in lung-busting gasps. They look like they’ve been tasered. Diggins’ teammate helped her unhook her skis and rise to her feet. You’ve never seen tired like that tired.
Nick Baumgartner, 44 years young, finished seventh in the snowboard cross. And smiled through it all. His fifth Olympics. A gold medalist, with Lindsey Jacobellis, in Beijing in 2020, Baumgartner plows forward, competing against athletes who are younger than his son. A man chasing childhood dreams.
Ben Ogden broke a 50-year medal drought in cross-country sprint. The 25-year-old finished .8 second behind a pulling-up Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, a seven-time gold medal winner and a story in itself. Ogden became the first American to win a medal since Bill Koch in 1976. That’s a long time. The silver medalist did a backflip off the podium. It’s the Frankie Dettori dismount of cross-country skiing.
And then there’s luge, curling and skeleton…
Just some of the sports, some of the stars, some of the stories.
