Bob Sledding

We watch the Olympics throughout most of the day, so that you don’t have to.

This is an intriguing twist to the tale of Mikaela Shiffrin at these Olympics.  As has been well-seen, she had a long, emotional response sitting alone after her second failure in two days, though again spoke openly to the press.  Which brings us to this morning.  I don’t usually watch the Today Show, but recorded it and fast-forwarded to see if they’d have any interesting Olympic stories.  There seemed to be one, so I stopped to watch.  It concerned skier Nina O’Brien who got injured at the start of the Games and is in the hospital.  She mentioned how Shiffrin had contacted her after the injury and was so supportive.  The host then asked if she’d heard from Shiffrin after her own troubles at the Games.  And O’Brien answered – yes, that she’d contacted her yet again to check up on how she was doing, and that when O’Brien asked after Shiffrin, she replied basically that the only thing that mattered was O’Brien and that she get better.

For the past couple of days, there’s been a weird thing with the team figure skating event, which the ROC won and the United States finished second, but the medals still haven’t been presented yet.  At first, there was no explanation other than there being a “legal issue.”  Then yesterday, word came that it seemed to be related to one of the Russian may have tested positive for an banned substance before the Games.  And now comes the word that it appears to be Kamila Vasileyev, of all people!  She’s the amazing skater I’ve been writing about whose scores have been blowing all competitors away.  To be clear, she’s clearly a brilliant skater.  But if she’s been using a banned substance (that apparently allows one skate longer without a loss of stamina, or something like that), that certainly would help.  A lot.  But if this is the case, at issue is not just the Gold Medal in the team event, but whether she would be allowed to skate in the individual event where she’s the heavy favorite.  Mind you, given the IOC’s craven caving in to “the ROC,” I’m not holding my breath on them taking any notable action – but we’ll see.

As for the men’s final last night, Nathan Chen was wonderful and took the Gold Medal by a huge margin of 22 points.  But I was almost equally pleased to see Jason Brown finish third.  Totally personal – he’s from Highland Park, Illinois, which is the town that borders Glencoe to the north, and where my dad had his medical office for decades and worked with the Highland Park Hospital.  I know he’s have been thrilled – thrilled – to see someone from Highland Park competing in the Olympics and doing so well.

When analyzing the women’s halfpipe, won for the second year in a row by Chloe Kim, the leading athlete in the sport by far, one of the analysts made the comment about the legendary three-time Gold Medalist Shaun White competing in his last Olympics. The announcer said that all the young halfpipe competitors who grew up becoming inspired by White had now passed him – adding that this was something that would happen to Chloe Kim “soon.”  All I could think was…Say what??!  In theory, he was absolutely right, it will happen.  But “soon”?  Shaun White is 36 years old in his fourth Olympics.  Chloe Kim is 21 years old, in her second Games.  She will get passed – eventually.  It might not take 15 years to match White (or might), but even if it takes half that, eight years and two more Olympics, that is not “soon.”  If it happens to occur earlier than even that, then it will because of how competition works, not because at 25 years old, she became an elder statesman who the young whippersnappers passed her by.

More to come...