Olympic snapshots
The Postmedia team in South Korea shares top moments from the Winter Games
1 SCOTT STINSON
I saw many Canadians win medals here, but the one moment that sticks out is one who didn’t. Andi Naude was the last skier on the hill in women’s moguls, having had the best score in the previous heat.
The final scores ahead of her were good, not great.
If she skied like she had all night, all season, she was a lock for a medal. The 22-yearold from Penticton dropped from the gate at Phoenix Snow Park and soared off the first jump — a full backflip with a twist, one of the hardest tricks anyone in the field attempted. She nailed it. She gathered speed, maybe 15 seconds from the finish — and then she was done. Lost her line. Dream over.
She told us she was fine, proud to have earned that anchor spot. It happens, she said. And then she cried. There was snow falling on her red cheeks, blending with the tears. I’ve never reached out to offer an athlete a hug, but man, that was close.
2 ERIN VALOIS
Watching Patrick Chan in his last Olympic performance was so moving. I felt really invested in his performance at this particular Olympics and it took me a while to figure out why I had such an affinity for him. I think it’s because we all know in some way what it’s like to be good, then not good, then try to be amazing again. You could see in his face at the free skate how much he wanted to go out on a high note and do Canada’s figure skaters proud. He knew that elusive gold was out of reach, but it was such a telling moment when it was clear how nervous he was. He never stopped trying.
Canada’s athletes have achieved the incredible in Korea, but it was this show of real human emotion that put it all into perspective for me. I’m glad he waited to retire, even if it might not have been the result he wanted.
3 TED WYMAN
It’s around 11 p.m. on Friday night at a Korean BBQ place in Pyeongchang, near the Phoenix Snow Park, and the serving staff isn’t as attentive as usual to our table of Canadian reporters.
That’s because they are all gathered around tables of Korean customers, who are glued to their phones, watching curling on television.
They’re captivated by the women’s semifinal between South Korea’s EunJung Kim and Japan’s Satsuke Fujisawa. They gasp and hang their heads in dismay as Kim misses a shot to win the game in the 10th end but resume their positions for the extra end, nervously soaking in the drama of a 7-7 tie.
When Kim makes her final shot to score the winning point and send South Korea to the gold medal game, the whole place erupts. They’re dancing, high-fiving, hugging.
We’re cheering along with them.
Our server turns around and yells, “Beers on the house!”
It’s a big moment for everybody.
4 DAN BARNES
The Canadian figure skaters embraced the idea of a team event at these Olympics, in sharp contrast to their approach in Sochi.
They were all in it together, to win it together from the start. Four years ago, some of these same athletes treated the inaugural team event as a tuneup for their individual disciplines, and when the result of that approach became decidedly unsatisfying silver behind the Russians, the veteran Canadian skaters made it clear to everyone that simply wasn’t going to be good enough in Pyeongchang. They delivered on the promises they made to one another on the flight home from Sochi. And they delivered my most memorable moment of the Games; the lot of them celebrating a gold medal victory in the kiss and cry are at Gangneung Ice Arena.
5 STEVE SIMMONS
At a cold arena, in a most unlikely way, the Olympics came to life very early in the Games when a women’s hockey game featured players from both South and North Korea and a rather stunned country that doesn’t care for or understand hockey stopped to watch.
Politics and sports are never supposed to mix at the Olympics, but they always do, and here were players from enemy countries sharing a uniform and a goal, forced to come together by politicians, and the atmosphere was gleeful. In the stands at the
Kwandong Hockey Centre, the organized cheerleaders from North Korea chanted in unison. And the fans didn’t stop cheering. Even if they didn’t know what they were cheering for or about.
They cheered every faceoff, every attempted pass, every shot on goal, every save. They cheered and danced and played the usual scoreboard games. It didn’t seem to matter that Korea lost 8-0 to Switzerland. The moment mattered.
6 CHRISTY BLATCHFORD
Such a classy, generous grownup: That’s luger Sam Edney. So when, on the last solo run of a career that has spanned 20 years, he came up short (in his own mind, if not by any objective measure, because Edney’s sixth-place finish was the best-ever by a Canadian), he was crushed.
This is what he did.
First, he took responsibility for having missed the chance; he hadn’t had a good third run, he said, and so had put himself behind the eight-ball.
Second, he said, he felt worse for Felix Loch, the great German luger who was widely expected to win his third Olympic gold but finished just ahead of Edney.
Third, when an astute reporter, Kerry Gillespie of the
Toronto Star, asked how, now that he was leaving the game, he felt about all luge had given him, he began to cry — not just because it is hard to leave, but because Gillespie had captured just how he felt: Grateful.
A few days later, he, Alex Gough, Tristan Walker and Justin Snith won the Olympic silver in the team relay.
7 JEAN LEVAC
Mikael Kingsbury had to pull off the run of his life. It was a go-big-or-go-home moment for him. All that was missing was an Olympic gold. When he pulled it off, there was a collective sigh of relief from the coaches and the Canadian media. He did it in amazing fashion with a dominating run.
8 MICHELLE RICHARDSON
Agony. Hope. Relief. Repeat. Sitting in the stands watching the women’s hockey final go to shootouts was something no one, regardless of allegiance, wanted to see decide a game that important. You could feel the tension rise every time a player skated out to centre ice and up to the puck before taking her best shot.
A collective sharp intake of breath followed by sighs, cheers, exhales of relief.
Most people were on the edge of their seats, craning their necks to see every second, every twitch, every feint. Others (myself included) could hardly stand to watch.
Then it was all over in an instant. Born in the USA blaring over the sound-system. Agony painted all over the Canadian women’s faces.
9 LEAH HENNEL
When I was young, I devoted countless hours of my childhood to figure skating.
And like so many other young girls spinning, twirling and toiling on their blades in Calgary, I dreamed of one day competing on the world stage at the Olympic Games.
But that dream fell short. My other passion, though, capturing the world through photography, finally paved the way for me to live my Olympics dreams, not on blades but through the viewfinder of my camera. And it has been a dream, being here in South Korea and photographing the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
There have been so many special moments that I’ve seen through my lens, but from my time at Pyeongchang, I’ll never forget the emotional scenes on Thursday, Feb. 22, which vividly showed that not everyone’s target at the Winter Games is the same — or even in the same ballpark.
On one hand, there were the Canadian women, sobbing after settling for hockey silver after a bitterly contested shootout loss to their rivals from the United States. After having won the gold medal at every other winter Olympics for the past 20 years, accepting the silver medal almost seemed worse than not competing at all.
But then, only a few hours later, the Canadian shorttrack speed skating team was absolutely ecstatic about their final run. And they ended up in third place, insanely joyful about their bronze-medal finish.
The difference in the reaction between these two groups of medal winners — the hockey players’ dejection and the speed skaters’ joy — was staggering. And unforgettable.
It reminded me that everyone has their own journey, their own dreams and their own joy at what their efforts bring.
Me included.