— Lifestyle, Thoughts —

My Favorite Moments From the Winter Olympics – Week 2

February 28, 2018

Hello again people! Hope you didn’t miss last week’s Olympic post! Are you guys having Winter Olympics withdrawals already? Because I sure am. I definitely cried as Mike Tirico said his final goodbye from Pyeongchang on NBC.

In any case, I thought I would cheer you guys up with some more Olympic moments from the past week, aka Week 2. It’s bittersweet to be writing this article now that everything is over, but I had to because the past week was also full of surprises, touching moments, excitement and joy! So, without further ado, let’s dive into those Olympic moments!

High School Throwback – Nigeria and USA

Photo: NBC Chicago

I’m sure you’ve heard so much already about the Nigeria bobsled team, so I’m not going to go into details and explain just how amazing that is. I won’t talk about how Seun Adigun literally started a federation for a sport that she herself only started practicing with the sole objective of taking a Nigerian team to the Olympics, following the example of those Jamaicans from that one movie. I won’t mention that Seun already went to the Summer Olympics in 2012 for track, and I’m not going to focus on the fact that the team literally had to fundraise to cover the costs of this crazy idea.

What I do want to mention is that Seun Adigun is actually from Chicago, and during her high school days she ran track for Homewood Flossmoor.

I know what you’re thinking, you sporty and well informed Chicagoan: yes, we do have a bobsled athlete that is from Chicago, but that’s Aja Evans, and she’s on Team USA. Well, not so fast. Aja is definitely a bobsled athlete from Chicago who represents the US, but she’s not the only bobsled athlete from Chicago in Pyeongchang, because Seun, who as I’ve said represents Nigeria, also grew up here. Yes, they’re both Chicago girls. And you know what’s crazier? They both ran track in high school (Aja went to Morgan Park High). And you know what’s even crazier?! They were enemies! Back in high school, they would always compete against each other and they never talked, because they were rivals! Then, years later Seun represented Nigeria in London 2012 and Aja, who had switched to bobsled, went to Sochi 2014. You know, casual. When Seun saw her rival Aja race in Sochi, she became inspired and thought of starting her own federation to bring a bobsled team to the next Olympics. And the rest is history.

Basically, the one happening in Pyeongchang is not your average high school reunion. Read more about it here.

Tessa and Scott’s Ice-Melting Ice Dance – Canada

Photo: Getty / Maddie Meyer

Ready to talk about the best ice dance pair there ever was? I am obviously talking about Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the Canadian ice dancers who won the gold last week and became the most decorated skaters in Olympic history.

The two have been skating together for 20 years – yes, two decades – and through all this time, they’ve showed us amazing programs winning gold in Vancouver, silver in Sochi and now another gold in Pyeongchang, most likely their last Olympics. To be honest, as I watched the Ice Dance final, I really only wanted them to win!

Don’t get me wrong, I was obviously rooting for Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte from Italy too – not only because they’re Italian, but also because I went to ice skating camp with them back in the day (I know, you don’t believe me, but I really did! Except they were already amazing and I just plainly sucked).

However, Tessa and Scott are just a special pair. They have a certain chemistry and a certain trust that no other couple has. When they’re on the ice, they’re always in character, and although they surely are nervous, they always end up being technically perfect. On top of that, their program, on the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, is perfect for them and they execute it brilliantly. I cry every time I watch it. Even Baz Luhrmann, the director of Moulin Rouge, endorses the performance.

Basically, they deserved this gold more than anybody else, especially after only winning silver at Sochi 2014.

The internet ships them, and though I can’t say for sure, they do have that special attraction going on. We will see, I guess. In the meantime, watch their incredible performance – and their hilarious reaction to the final score – here.

Vonn and Goggia’s Downhill Tears – USA and Italy

Photo: Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano

The Women’s Downhill was, to me, the most emotional event of these Olympics by far. It was Lindsey Vonn’s last downhill at the Olympics, and that already makes for a historic race. But for us Italians, it was also super important because we had three great skiers in the race that had good chances of placing on the podium. Unfortunately, three of them did not complete in the race, but the one who did, amazing 26-year-old Sofia Goggia, finished in first place managing to beat Lindsey Vonn, whom she’s friends with and who came in third and brought home the bronze. Sofia took home the gold, and for us, it was an extremely emotional win after so many disappointments in alpine skiing these Olympics. Ragnhild Mowinckel of Norway came in second rounding up the podium.

What actually made me tear up – read: sob – was Lindsey Vonn’s interview after the downhill. Through her words, you could really tell how much she loves this sport and how much she wishes she could continue racing. Here it is:

Sofia Goggia’s gold was extremely emotional too, tearing up on the podium as she sang our national anthem. It was overall a series of beautiful moments that make me love sports even more!

Photo: Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano

The End of the Medal Draught – New Zealand

Photo: Getty/Newshub

Prior to these Olympics, New Zealand had only won one Olympic medal, back in 1992, 26 years ago. Since then, nothing really happened as far as big names or medal chances. Until a few days ago.

Last Thursday, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, a 16-year-old big air snowboarder, ended this medal wait by winning the bronze in the newly added women’s Big Air Snowboarding discipline. Two hours later, 16-year-old freeskier Nico Porteous brought home the second bronze of the day in the men’s freestyle skiing halfpipe event. Basically, in two hours, two 16-year-old athletes ended a 26 years long medal draught and rewrote New Zealand’s history. The last (and only) Winter Olympic medal for New Zealand came a full decade before these two were born. They added two more to the count. You know. Casual.

HERE COMES DIGGINS! HERE COMES DIGGINS! – USA

Photo: ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images

Jessica Diggins made history with an epic comeback in the final lap of the cross-country team sprint event. Her and her teammate Kikkan Randall brought home the gold after a strenuous race that saw USA, Sweden and Norway on the podium.

I could describe the last thirty seconds of the race, but I wouldn’t give it justice. Therefore, I’ll let the experts do it:

The dynamic duo Diggins-Randall and their crazy hair just won the first women cross-country skiing medal for the United States ever: and as the guy said in the video, it’s not just a medal, it’s the gold medal. That is extremely impressive since cross-country skiing is a sport that’s heavily dominated by Scandinavian countries. Overall epic. Goosebumps.

Ester Ledecka Makes History (yes, again) – Czech Republic

Photo: REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

Remember last week when I talked about Ester Ledecka, the Czech athlete who made history by competing in both alpine ski and snowboard? Well, she made history again. Not only has she competed in both the events. Not only has she won the gold medal in alpine skiing beating all of the women that specialize in alpine skiing. Ester Ledecka didn’t stop there. She is now the only woman to have won two gold medals in different disciplines in the same Olympics, after winning big in parallel giant slalom snowboarding.

I thought things were already epic enough last week, but Ledecka proved me wrong. She is one crazy character.

Medvedeva vs Zagitova: A Skating Battle – Olympic Athletes from Russia

Photo: Jon Olav Nesvold/Bildbyran via ZUMA

Another one of my favorite moments was the epic ice skating battle in the ladies’ short and free programs. In fact, everyone who follows the sport was waiting to see which one of the two main athletes from the OAR team, Evgenia Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova, would prevail. The two are the two absolute best skaters in the world right now, and from the moment they appeared on the ice during the team event, everyone just knew that the battle for gold would have been between them two.

Evgenia Medvedeva is 18 years old and for the past couple of years, she has won everything. She was the 2016 and 2017 European and world champion, for example. No big deal. Other than obviously skating, she loves dancing, Sailor Moon and K-Pop. Her skating idol is Evgeni Plushenko. Girl, pretty sure he’s everyone’s skating idol.

Anyway, she won everything… until Alina Zagitova, a 15-year-old prodigy, the daughter of a hockey coach, beat her at the 2018 European Championship. At 15 years old, after only having been on the scene for a couple of years. Feel bad about yourself yet? Wait til you check out this graphic:

In the end, with a score of 239.57, Zagitova won by 1.31 points. The student has become the master. Does that really matter to us at this point? No, not really. What matters is that they brought a show that we had never seen before. They brought a “feel” that had not been part of figure skating in many years.

They brought high quality figure skating to the table. They were superb. We all won by watching them.

Find their performances here, here and here.

Curling Crushes and Gold Medals – South Korea and USA

Pic from Tuttosport

Have you been following curling throughout the Olympics? I have, I always do! I find this sport so mesmerizing, and honestly, I would love to try it! I have spotted a few players that I chose as my favorites during these Olympics. One of them, my absolute fave, is Kim EunJung. This Korean curler is officially my Olympic girl crush! (um, along with beautiful Anastasia Bryzgalova from the Olympic Athletes of Russia, actually.)

I love her glasses and her nickname “Annie”.  Annie is the skip of the South Korea women’s team, the team that brought home the silver medal after a great final against Sweden. Winning the gold would’ve been the cherry on top for the team playing at home, but guess who won a gold in curling – on the men’s side? That’s right: the US! Captain Shuster lead our team of curlers to victory, a very unexpected gold medal, the first medal in curling for the US EVER! It’s pretty epic, and I hope this historical win will make curling more popular in the US!

In the words of ice dancer Alex Shibutani:

And that is all for today! If you made it this far – and maybe you even read the first part of this Olympic series, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I love writing about sports from time to time, and while I understand that these posts were a little different from my usual articles, I thank you again for trusting me with this and reading through, or following my Olympic updates on my instagram stories (which you can still find here under my Olympics highlights). With that said, if anyone’s looking for an occasional sports writer (cough cough… Gazzetta dello Sport), I’m definitely your girl!

2 thoughts on “My Favorite Moments From the Winter Olympics – Week 2”

  1. Bellissimo complimenti. Mandalo all nbc mandalo a tara lipinski, mandalo a qualcuno che può carpire quanto sei appassionata di sport, mandalo alla gazzetta a chi vuoi ma fallo girare. Non scherzo

Comments are closed.