Their singing will go on . . . Twitter
If there’s one thing more Canadian than Céline Dion, it’s a bus full of Canadian athletes belting out Céline Dion.
Moguls gold medallist Mikael Kingsbury posted a 19-second video to Twitter early Saturday morning in which he joined women’s hockey captain Marie-Philip Poulin, figure skaters Patrick Chan and, of course, Scott Moir, and dozens of other Canadians athletes singing their hearts out to Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”
The Canadian team has had a lot to celebrate, with a record 29 medals in Pyeongchang through Saturday, and fans on social media were enamoured by the quintessentially Canadian way the athletes chose to fete their collective win.
“I’m bleeding maple syrup from this,” one Twitter user posted. Another commented: “We’ve hit Peak Canada . . . all that’s missing are Tim Hortons cups.”
There were even calls for another medal to be added to Canada’s tally: a gold in “mixed karaoke.”
MEDAL MIX-UP: As the Games wound down, it was inevitable those competing, covering and operating the Olympics would start running on fumes. So perhaps it was a tired mind that led to a medal mix-up Saturday when the United States men’s curling team were given gold medals intended for the winner of the women’s event.
But gold is gold, and the team — John Shuster, Tyler George, Matt Hamilton, John Landsteiner and alternate Joe Polo — reportedly had a laugh over the mistake as they waited for the medals to be swapped. The Shuster rink won the U.S.’s first curling gold with a10-7 win over Sweden.
SQUIRRELLY SNOWBOARD: There were lots of snowboarding highlights over the course of these Games — think American Chloe Kim or Canadians Sebastien Toutant, Max Parrot and Mark McMorris — but none quite as unique as a squirrel crashing a giant snowboard slalom heat on Saturday.
Austrian snowboarder Daniela Ulbing narrowly avoided running over the small animal that crossed her path during her qualifying heat. It looked from afar like Ulbing might have caught the squirrel under her board, but the animal scampered away unharmed, if shocked, following the near collision.
MONKEY BUSINESS: A wild animal wasn’t the only thing crashing Olympic events. Streaker Mark Roberts, whose resume includes soccer games, the Super Bowl, snooker and synchronized swimming, was it again. Roberts snuck onto the speedskating oval after the men’s1,000 metres, wearing a pink tutu and a monkey-face emblazoned pouch to protect his privates. He also had “PEACE + LOVE” written on his chest and stomach.
The Englishman told Yahoo Sports in September that he had streaked at 561events in 22 different countries.
A website dedicated to Roberts’ antics wrote that Roberts’ mission in South Korea was to “promote an international spirit of togetherness” and that he wanted to “ask the world to be a little bit better.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I was dreaming about this moment since I was a little child. A lot of people were telling me that it is not possible to do both sports and to be on a high level in both sports, and today I proved it is possible.”— Czech athlete Ester Ledecka, the first woman with gold medals in two sports at a single Winter Games. She won the women’s super-G in alpine skiing last Saturday, and the women’s parallel giant slalom in snowboarding a week later.