Wrapping Up the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics: Part 2
Photo by The Japan Times
It has been a crazy two weeks of the 2022 Winter Olympics full of grandeur, big wins, big upsets, and scandals. Let’s get into the final medal standings from February 20th. Norway finished in first with 16 of their 37 medals being gold, and the U.S. finished in 5th with 8 gold medals, 25 overall. The host nation, China, finished 11th in overall medal count, but it received 9 gold medals, which is the third-highest amount for these games.
For interest’s sake, here are some Team USA-specific medal stories. Snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis finally won 2 gold medals in her fifth Olympics, which makes her the oldest American woman to win a gold medal. Nick Baumgartner, her partner for mixed snowboardcross, is the first snowboarder to medal in his 40s. Bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor won two medals, making her total count 5; she is now the most decorated black athlete in Winter Olympics history. In ice dance, the US teams went 3rd, 4th, and 11th with Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue winning the bronze having a final score of 218.02. The women’s hockey team lost to Canada in the gold medal match settling for silver. Since the introduction of women’s hockey in the Winter Olympics, the gold medal has either gone to Canada or the US, so the rivalry is a strong one. The US women won gold in 2018, so this loss stings a bit more than usual.
On a sadder Team USA note, star alpine skier, Mikeala Shiffrin, was a favorite for multiple medals in Beijing, but she has left the games with nothing higher than a 4th place finish. Before these games, she was the winningest slalom skier in the world, having only ever skied out in three races. Here, she skied out in the giant slalom, and slalom and alpine combined races. She finished 9th in the super-G, and 18th in the downhill. Her final event was a first for her, the team slalom, but the US team just missed out on a bronze medal. Shiffrin is not disappointed with 4th place, though, commenting “we were that close to getting a medal today, and that is a testament to the work everybody has done this entire time.”
The 2022 Winter Olympics saw the end of an era for many as this was Shaun White’s fifth and last Olympics. It did not end in a medal, however, as White finished in fourth place, but that finish is still impressive when you take into account the fact that he is 35. The youngest half-pipe snowboarder to compete was 16. He was a baby when White went to his first Olympics in 2006. White being able to keep up with these other snowboarders is something to applaud. After his final run, he was understandably emotional. When saying goodbye to the sport he said, “Snowboarding, thank you. It’s been the love of my life… Sorry, you’re going to get me ugly crying here.”
Some big wins for other countries included Germany’s sled domination. In the three different sliding specializations, Bobsled, Skeleton, and Luge, Germany won 9 golds and 16 total medals which left only 1 gold and 14 total medals for everyone else. American-born Chinese skier, Eileen Gu, was also a superstar of these games where she medaled in three freestyle skiing events. She won gold in both women’s big air and women’s halfpipe. Another big story for China medals was the pairs figure skating event. Sui Wenjing and Han Cong took silver in the 2018 games missing gold by less than a point. Now in 2022, however, they were triumphant, and they were able to win the world title on home ice.
I can’t cover the 2022 Beijing Olympics without covering the (arguably) largest story coming from the games. That is the doping scandal involving ROC figure skater, Kamila Valieva. Valieva is only 15, so when she tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs it was up in the air how she would be held accountable. Her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, advocated for her at her hearing with the International Olympic Committee. The IOC allowed her to continue to skate in the women's event and to keep the ROC’s gold medal from the team event, but there would be no medal ceremony for the team event or the women’s event if she were to medal there as well. Valieva fell in the free skate program of the women’s event finishing 4th overall, so there was a medal ceremony for the women’s event. However, the appeals to have the team event’s medal ceremony has fallen on deaf ears, and the US figure skating team must wait for the full doping investigation to end before they can receive their silver medals. The buzz around Valieva has brought up talks of her coach and how abusive she is to her students, which is a very important conversation. It seemed that all of Russia was riding on the back of a 15-year-old girl who was let down by all of the adults surrounding her, and I hope she faces nothing but healing and support after this scandal and not receiving an individual medal.