USA TODAY International Edition
Our view: 3 lessons from the Pyeongchang Olympics
Team USA winners and losers
You might have noticed that the United States is not doing so great in the Winter Olympics. After a good run on Wednesday and Thursday, Team USA had still pulled down just 21 medals, compared with 35 for Norway, a nation with about 1/65th our population.
In most sports, answers are hard to come by. But not in men’s hockey. The women might have won gold, but the men exited in the quarterfinals without players from the National Hockey League. Unwilling to extend its season to accommodate an Olympic break, the NHL wouldn’t let players participate.
That left Team USA in a pinch. While the team drew from many of the same foreign leagues that filled out European rosters, it was at a distinct disadvantage. Americans playing in Europe are those not good enough to get much playing time in the NHL, while a number of top level Europeans could play in the NHL but chose to stay closer to home for personal reasons.
The results were not pretty for Team USA. Nor will they be for the NHL.
The NHL’s decision to eschew the Olympics seems particularly shortsighted. While it is clearly the best, it faces competition from high-quality leagues in Scandinavia and Germany as well as the Kontinental Hockey League, which reaches from China and Russia through Eastern Europe.
That Olympic audiences saw players from those leagues and not the NHL will not help its cause. In fact, it is quite possible that European leagues could capture more eyeballs worldwide, causing the NHL to rue the day it decided to stay home.
Winter Games no longer so white
In much of the world, the rap against the Winter Olympics is that it is an event for the white peoples of Europe and North America.
That is changing rapidly.
The most obvious development is the embrace of these Games in Asia. Figure skating and short-track speed skating have long been popular there. But the explosive growth of skiing and snowboarding in China and Japan portends a new wave of competition.
The Asian embrace is evident among Asian Americans. The USA roster this year includes Korean-American snowboarder Chloe Kim, who reveled in winning gold in her grandparents’ country. It also includes Chinese-American figure skater Nathan Chen and Japanese-American figure skater Mirai Nagasu, who landed a historic triple axel in Korea while dressed in a Chinese-styled outfit and skating to the music of Miss Saigon.
But there’s more to this year’s Games than the Asian theme. Bobsledding is increasingly being embraced by Africans, African Americans and Afro-Caribbean peoples. A majority of Team USA’s female athletes in this sport this year are African American or mixed race, including the tandem of Elana Meyers Taylor and Lauren Gibbs, who won silver Wednesday.
Something similar is happening in speed skating. Four-time Olympic medalist Shani Davis was joined this year by short-track speed skater Maame Biney, who immigrated from Ghana as a child.
This diverse cast of athletes serves as a role model for others to take up sports they had not considered before. It could also expand the Olympics appeal beyond its traditional audiences.
Standing up to Russia
The International Olympic Committee won plaudits for last year’s sanctions against Russia, which had been caught in a massive doping scheme leading up to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. Those actions included banning Russia from officially competing as a nation, but allowing athletes not implicated to compete under the Olympic banner. But the positive test at this year’s Games of a Russian curler raises a broader question: Should any Russian athletes have been allowed to compete in Pyeongchang?
Gauging from Russian athletes’ responses, the answer is probably not.
Had only a few Russians been caught, it would have been appropriate to allow others to go on. But the World Anti-Doping Agency found that 1,000 athletes had been involved.
At some point, it has to be asked whether it’s more important to allow the innocent to compete or to devise a punishment that forces Russian authorities to change their ways.
Russia’s athletes at the Games — competing in neutral colors — are not making things easy. After winning a bronze medal, Russian short-track speed skater Semen Elistratov spoke for a nation that seemed more defiant than chastened: “I dedicate this medal to all guys that have been excluded from these Games in such a hard and unfair way.”
Russia hasn’t received the message, leaving the IOC looking like it lacks resolve. That’s regrettable. But it wouldn’t be the first time that someone failed to stand up to a thuggish nation.