— Lifestyle, Thoughts —

My favorite moments from the 2018 Winter Olympics – Week 1

February 18, 2018

Hey guys, welcome back! As you might know (I would hope you do!) the 2018 Olympic Games have started last Friday in Pyeongchang, South Korea. I am OBSESSED with the Olympics, so I’ve decided to share with you all my favorite Olympic moments from the past week!

I understand this is very different kind of post from the past ones I’ve published, but for those who didn’t know, I’m very passionate about sports as well! So bear with me and read up about some fun and touching sports moments! I tried to keep it very international and not entirely Italy&USA focused, so there’s moments from a few different countries. Enjoy!

North and South Korea at the Opening Ceremony

Photo: Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

First of all, a historic moment: North and South Korea marched together during the opening ceremony of the Games. This symbolic gesture meant a lot to both nations and the rest of the world, especially in a moment where tensions were extremely high. What I loved the most about this touching moment was the actual flag, which displayed both North and South Korea. There were two flagbearers as well, one for North and one for South Korea, and the two countries will play in a joint team in women’s hockey. The president of South Korea shook hands with Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un. That’s another reason why I love the Olympics: they always promote moments of peace and hope.

Red Gerard’s Third Run – USA 

Photo: Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post

This is Red Gerard. He won the first gold medal for team USA these Olympics, he’s the first American born in the 21st century to win an Olympic medal and, at 17 years of age, he’s the youngest snowboarding Olympic champion in history! This guy, who won gold in the slopestyle event, had kind of a messy morning before he actually won later in the day on February 11. The night before, this dude was binge watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Netflix, so he woke up late and couldn’t even find his jacket. He borrowed his roommate Kyle Mack’s, and went to hit the slopes. He did not land the first two runs, so on his third, all he wanted was to simply land that run. He did, with a score of 87.16 which put him in the lead. And the rest is history.

In other snowboarding news, Chloe Kim, who’s also 17, scored a gold medal for team USA as well. She shed a tear or two, and I don’t blame her, I almost did too.

They both scored a bunch of burritos.

Good ol’ Shaun White also won gold, as he did in Torino 2006 and Vancouver 2010.

Krueger’s Comeback – Norway

Photo: AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth

I have to say, I have never seen a comeback such as this one by Simen Hegstad Krueger. The 24-year-old athlete won a gold medal in the men’s 30km cross country skiatlon after falling in the first 100 meters of the race. After the fall, where he also broke one of his poles, he was last in the group, so he had to get to work and give it his all in order to catch up to the leaders. He pushed and pushed, and eventually caught up with the rest of the group, then fought for first place. I seriously cannot do justice to this story, so you better watch his miracle in this video here.

Talking about Norway… their Olympic team chefs used Google Translate to order some eggs from a local grocery store. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out so well, as they ended up ordering 15,000 eggs. “There was literally no end to the delivery,” chef Ståle Johansen to a Norwegian newspaper. That honestly sounds like a nightmare.

Mikaël Kingsbury “a gagné” – Canada

Photo: Steve Russell – Toronto Star

Mikaël Kingsbury is the greatest moguls skier ever, but he was still short of an Olympic gold medal. He finally earned it earlier this week, after dreaming about it for years.

In fact, Mikaël had set the Olympic title as his goal since the age of 8. At the time, when he was just a kid, he had printed out the Olympic rings on a piece of paper and wrote “Je vais gagné” – I will win (with a small grammar mistake, cute!) under it, and hung it up so that he could see it everyday. Sixteen years later, his dream came true. Touching.

The piece of paper is still up at his parent’s house. You have to watch their reaction to their son’s victory:

Savchenko’s long-awaited gold – Germany

Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Aljona Savchenko has competed in five Olympic Games – that almost never happens in figure skating, especially for women, who usually hit their prime between age 20-25. However, Aljona, now 34, wanted a gold medal in figure skating pairs more than anything else. She did earn two bronze medals in 2010 and 2014, but that wasn’t enough: she wanted the real thing. That is why she showed up to Pyeongchang with a new partner, French skater Bruno Massot, who had just earned his German citizenship so that they could both compete for Germany.

The two competed in the short program, but Massot made a huge mistake on the side by side jumps, as he only threw a double jump instead of a triple. Therefore, they ended up in fourth place going into the longer program, called free program.

They had to give their best and go all out in order to rack up the points needed to climb up to first place. Did they do it? I think their performance (which you can find in full here) speaks for itself.

The two were crying of joy as their free program score, the highest score ever recorded in pairs free skate, earned them that long awaited gold medal. It was an incredible moment, especially for Savchenko. If that wasn’t epic enough, she even beat the Russian pair trained by her former partner, Robin Szolkowy. The Russians ended up in fourth place, that fourth place that belonged to Savchenko and Massot right after the short program. Epic.

Another great moment in figure skating? Mirai Nagasu was the first female American to land a triple axel at the Olympics. We’ll see if she can do that again later this week, during the ladies’ figure skating competition.

Yun Sung-Bin’s Skeleton Race – South Korea

Photo: Matthias Hangst—Getty Images

Before these Olympic Games, Yun Sung-Bin was a nobody. Yes, he had participated in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games, but he wasn’t famous in his country or anything, because his sport, skeleton, isn’t exactly well-known in South Korea.

Yun Sung-Bin only started practicing skeleton at 18 years old. Five years later, the young talent, now 23, earned the gold medal in the discipline. There are several reasons why this medal is so important to South Korea: for example, it came on the day that marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year, a national holiday. On top of that, it’s the first medal in sliding sports for South Korea. Finally, my favorite stat: Korea has won 56 winter Olympic medals so far: 55 of them were in skating, whether it was figure skating, short track or speed skating. This medal was the 56th, and it was in skeleton: perhaps by the next Olympics in Beijing in 2022, we will see South Koreans do well in other non-skating sports! Yun Sung-Bin marked the beginning of a new era for South Korean winter sports. And he did so while wearing an Iron Man helmet.

Moments of Glory from Two Italian Women – Italy

Photo: Facebook

When we talk about the Winter Olympics in Italy, we usually really mean two sports: alpine skiing and figure skating. We mainly follow those two sports because they’re the ones we’re usually good at. However, we do have Italian athletes in other winter sports who train like crazy, every single day, with the only goal of participating in the Olympics every four years. However, we barely hear about them because they don’t ski or don’t figure skate. That is the case of Arianna Fontana, a short track athlete, and Michela Moioli, a snowboarding athlete. Arianna Fontana, Italy’s flagbearer for this edition of the Games, won the gold in the women’s 500m in short track speed skating in a crazy photo-finish final. This is her sixth Olympic gold medal. If she gains any more, she’s going to set a new record for the most short track medals earned by a woman.

Photo: Eco di Bergamo

Michela Maioli, instead, won the first snowboarding medal for Italy ever, in the snowboard cross discipline; and she didn’t win just a medal, she won a gold medal. Moioli had just won the World Cup a couple of weeks earlier: she was one of the favorites to win the Olympic gold, and she lived up to the expectations. Y’all. This girl is my age! These uncelebrated athletes are often the ones that bring home the gold, and I just love when that happens!

Her reaction during the medal ceremony makes me emotional.

The Snowboarder’s Gold in Skiing – Czech Republic

Photo: REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

Finally, my last favorite Olympic moment of this week came from Ester Ledecka of Czech Republic during the women’s super giant slalom race. Ledecka is a snowboarder, and a good one, with several world titles. However, she refuses to specialize in one sport, which is why she started racing in alpine skiing two years ago. Yesterday, she was ready to set one specific record: being the first athlete to compete in both alpine skiing and snowboarding at the Olympics. However, she ended up winning the gold medal, and she could not believe it. She thought there had been some mistake, especially since it seemed like she had just won first place by .01 seconds; nope, she actually did win, and beat Lindsay Vonn and Sochi 2014 champion Anna Veith, among others.

Ledecka will be competing in snowboarding tomorrow, so stay tuned!

That is all for my favorite moments from the first week of the Olympic Games! I would love to hear about your faves, I just love talking Olympics! And if you liked this post let me know, I might write part two after the end of the Games next week!

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