RATHER PERFECT OLYMPICS IN AN IMPERFECT PLACE
BUT SOUTH KOREA GAMES NEVER CREATED BUZZ
There is usually a distinct impression left at the end of every Olympic Games. You either love it or you hate it. It grabs you and pulls you in or it leaves you cold and somewhat indifferent.
I was mesmerized by Sydney in the summer of 2000 and by Lillehammer in the winter of 1994, cities and countries that came to life as Olympic hosts, made you want to be one of them: Even tired as we are at the end of every Games, you didn’t want to go home. You weren’t ready to say goodbye.
I couldn’t wait to leave Albertville in 1992 or Atlanta in 1996 — disorganized games run by disinterested people.
And now we are here, as the Games of Pyeongchang come to an end, and there is neither one extreme nor the other to feel. It’s not ambivalence but it’s not the giddy excitement of Vancouver on the final Olympic Sunday of the 2010 Games.
In fairness, these have been a rather perfect Olympics in a most imperfect place. The infrastructure worked, which on own is often miraculous. The Athlete’s Village got high marks. The buses ran when the buses were supposed to run. The venues were of reasonable calibre and easily accessed and the controversy was mostly minimal or Russian or both.
But Olympics aren’t just about buildings and buses and technology and television. They’re about people. They’re about an event with its own pulse. They’re about creating buzz. And this is where Pyeongchang never found its way.
There were too many empty seats at too many events, some of that attributed to the cost of tickets, some to the scheduled time of events, a lot to the lack of interest in Winter sports here.
When Canada played the U. S. in the women’s hockey gold medal game, with an historical ending and a shootout for the ages, the building was two- thirds full with Americans and the Canadians. The Koreans just didn’t seem to care.
They didn’t care for a lot of the winter disciplines but curling and the unlikely story of the Garlic Girls pulled in the whole country here. This became the hot ticket in Gangneung, the coastal half of these games. That and short track speedskating were the only hot tickets of the Games.
The Garlic Girls, four curlers with Spice Girl-like nicknames and cat-like clothing, were called Pancake and Sunny and Yogurt Annie and Steak. When they advanced to the gold medal game, the country exploded in excitement, one of the few memorable moments for the host country, which won its largest gold medal in friendly volunteers and enthusiasm.
The other Korean moment to cherish: the first hockey game for Korea’s women’s team, in a rink full of North Korean cheerleaders, with the players from the north and south politically forced to play together for the very first time. Maybe it was just for one night, and one tournament, but it brought two enemies together in the name of sport. And the crowd, not knowing hockey at all, cheered everything from faceoffs to broken sticks, the movement of the puck in any direction.
“This wasn’ t j ust a hockey game,” IOC president Thomas Bach told the players, who lost 8- 0 to Switzerland. “It was more than that.”
Entering the Games there was a certain fear about the geographi cal closeness between North and South Korea and the political problems that existed. If there were political problems here, no one was aware of them. “The players here,” said South Korean coach Sarah Murray, “were the real heroes of the Games.”
The historical notion of the Olympics is the Games bring people together but the reality normally is quite the opposite. What matters in one place, doesn’t resonate somewhere else. The gold medal wins in women’s hockey and men’s curling by the United States were considered historical and triumphant in the U. S. and somewhat disastrous by Canadian standards. That’s how the world views sports: Through its own prism and its own circumstances.
And always, there are breakthrough stars.
The biggest star of these Games should be Ester Ledecka of Czech Republic, who managed something that has never been done before. In an Olympic setting in which the impossible becomes a daily occurrence, Ledecka made history all her own.
She won a gold medal in skiing. And a gold medal in snowboarding.
“It takes a lot of effort to become a professional skier,” said Justin Reiter, her snowboard coach. “It takes a lot of effort to become a professional snowboarder. And she does both with ease.”
She won two gold medals. Young cross country skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo from Norway was the only athlete to win three gold medals here. The brave Canadian short track speedskating rookie, Kim Boutin, came home with three medals, a story to write a book about and a Canadian flag to carry in the closing ceremony.
For Canada, these were an Olympics of glee and crushing disappointment. Canada won a record number of medals, could have won more, and in sports we hold dear, hockey and curling, the results left us wanting more.
I will remember more than podium performances; more than Alex Harvey come so close in cross country skiing three different times; more than the bravery of 20- year- old Canadian skater Gabrielle Daleman, who fell three times in her free skate routine and still came out to talk to media about it; more than the Tongan, who learned to cross country ski in three months, and celebrated his 114th-place finish in the 15K.
The sporting moment that won’t leave me was the final of the ice dance, with the Canadian team of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir having to be perfect to win gold. And then they were. They had to be effervescent and better than they’ve ever been before.
That’s the power of any Olympics. The show triumphs over drug cheats and corruption and scandal. It always does.