We all know that, after ice dance, everyone’s second favourite Olympic sport is talking about the Olympics.
Every two years we must consume it all, chew on it a bit and then decide what is still golden and what’s gotta go. So let’s get into it. In proper South Korean tradition, the things we like can take a bow. And in proper North Korean tradition, the things we don’t like we can blow up. With only a few days left, here are the winners and losers of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games.
Take a bow: Ice dance
Old me: Ice dancing is odd. It’s like pairs figure skating for people who aren’t as good at figure skating. Plus the results are decided by France and Russia a month before the Olympics begin.
New me: Ice dance is the greatest sport in the world and Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are amazing and their performance was amazing and I can’t believe they’re just friends and can’t they just get married and can’t we all get married together and I want to have another baby so I can name it TessScott Moirtue and I’m not crying you’re crying!!!!
Blow it up: Russia
So, the Russian Olympians were on double secret probation because of massive and systematic doping, and then the first athlete caught doping at these Games was … a Russian. In curling. Bruh.
Take a bow: Luge
I hereby offer my sincerest and heartfelt apology to luge, all lugers, and the entire feet-first sliding community. In my Olympic preview column I said luge was weird. Part of that sentiment came because Germany wins every luge event and Canada had been luging for the past 50 years without ever luging onto the podium. But then 2018 comes along and we win two medals, including the wacky team relay luge. Sure it’s still a bit weird when they stack a couple of lugers together on that little sled like some Bavarian frat house initiation gone wrong, but we won medals! Let it slide!
Blow it up: Moguls
The moguls format is dumb. You make the “final,” which is actually three “finals,” with scores thrown out after the first two “finals.” So you could score a billion points each in the first and second “finals” but stumble in the third “final” while some totally clean Russian squeaks into the third “final” and then does a safety dance not nearly as dynamic as your first two “finals.” You get nothing, while Yelena Steroidova wins gold.
Take a bow: Moguls
On the other hand, Canada continues to kill it on the moguls, this time with dominant Mikael Kingsbury winning in dominant fashion, following other greats to gold like Alexandre Bilodeau, Justine Dufour-Lapointe, Jenn Heil and Jean-Luc Brassard. Great work, everyone! Hope your knees are OK!
Take a bow/blow it up: Slopestyle
Slopestyle is a great new-ish sport that sees skiers or snowboarders doing amazing tricks and flips over a series of cool obstacles and jumps. The slopestyle snowboard women, however, got massively screwed in Pyeongchang, forced to compete in a swirling windstorm that was wreaking havoc on jumps that were already touched with the threat of instant death even in the best of conditions. North Van resident Spencer O’Brien was forced to stop her final run because on her approach to one of her big jumps she was basically hit in the face by a full-on blizzard. C’mon. Add some slope-substance to that slopestyle. Spencer deserved better.
Take a bow: Mixed curling
It was everything we wanted it to be: fast, athletic, dramatic, fast, exciting, fast. You may not remember it now, but pre-Virtue and Moir, John Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes were Canada’s sweethearts at these Games. Each perfect shot was like an ice dancing trick, or whatever you call the things ice dancers do. Mixed curling and Morris and Lawes – perfect draw weight to our hearts.
Blow it up: Steve Simmons
The curmudgeonly Canadian sports columnist declared that we should not celebrate the mixed curling gold medal because it’s a new event and Morris and Lawes had not spent much time playing together before coming to the Games. The response from curling fans was swift and furious. In fact, both my mother and father took the time to write the first online comments of their lives. You know you’ve written a bad take when all the grandpas across the country are more progressive than you. Don’t worry though Steve – John Morris forgives you.
Blow it up: Regular curling?
OK, settle down grandmas. We still love regular curling too. But was anyone else just a little bummed out when mixed curling ended and we went back to regular curling, with its teams of four taking forever to play a 10-end game? Yak yak yak! Do we need to hold a royal commission before every big shot? Sorry, grandmas!
Take a bow: Own the Podium
Do you remember when Canada used to win, like, seven medals total at the Winter Olympic Games? I do. It sucked. This is wayyyyyy better. As of this writing we’re at 19 total medals with half a week left to go. Sure some are in “new sports” like mixed curling and halfpipe skiing (not that that matters), but we’re winning old classics like figure skating, bobsleigh and speed skating as well. I say kudos to all those who saw that our high-level sports system was broken and took real measures to fix it. We invested the time and, more importantly, the money to make it work. And guess what – it’s fun to win things! Hooray for us!
Now all that’s left to do is plan this wedding. Scott? Tessa? We’re all here for you!
Andy Prest is the sports editor for the North Shore News and writes a biweekly humour/lifestyle column. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
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