By Dylan Edelman With speed, grace and lots of shredding, the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics commenced earlier this month highlighting the world’s athletic triumphs and tribulations. For the US team, it started strong with their first gold medal going to 17 year old Redmond Gerard for snowboarding slopestyle. Staying up late, oversleeping on the day of his competition and even misplacing his jacket that morning, Gerard made history by being the youngest person to ever win a snowboarding gold medal for Team USA. He’ll be competing again toward the latter part of the games in the Men’s Big Air, a new event to the Olympics. Gerard wasn’t the only teen to triumph at the winter games. Chloe Kim became America’s new sweetheart when she earned her first Olympic gold medal in women's snowboard halfpipe. Kim set the bar extremely high on her first run, landing a backside air, frontside 1080, cab 720, frontside 900, McTwist and frontside inverted 720, according to nbcolympics.com. On her last run, the snowboarding phenom landed back-to-back 1080s. Kim was too young for the Sochi Olympics, four years ago even though she was already considered to be one of the world's best snowboarders. Wind and weather postponed the event for days, but Mikaela Shiffrin won the Women’s Giant Slalom. Though she trailed the competition after her first run she took the top time in her final run and won the women's giant slalom, earning her second career Olympic gold medal. Due to time constraints, she withdrew from the Women’s Super G so she could focus on later downhill and alpine events. The much anticipated return of veterans Shaun White and Lindsey Vonn came with a mixed bag of results. On the snowboarding icon’s third run, White landed the back-to-back 1440s along with his signature double McTwist. White redeemed himself by winning his third gold medal on the men’s halfpipe by scoring a nearly perfect 97.75 on his last run to beat out Japanese Ayumu Hirano’s score of 95.25. It is easy to say that the Flying Tomato is back. Only four years ago, White had a disappointing fourth-place finish in the Sochi Olympic games and last October, he suffered a terrifying fall resulting in 62 stitches. Back on top of the sport, White alluded to a possible appearance in skateboarding at the Summer Olympics of 2020. On the other hand, Lindsey Vonn failed to medal in the women’s Super-G by coming in 6th. Instead, Czech Republic skier/snowboarder Ester Ledecka came out of nowhere and claimed first place by a hundredth of a second. Prior to this, Ledecka had never made the podium in 23 World Cup alpine races, according to cbssports.com. Team USA won the bronze medal in figure skating, due in part to exceptional performances from Mirai Nagasu and Adam Rippon. The 24 year old, Nagasu, became the first American woman to land a triple axel during the Olympics, helping the US team to a bronze medal in the team competition. Pyeongchang, South Korea may be nearly halfway around the globe but the competition has captivated the world.
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Dylan EdelmanWilson Senior Archives
February 2020
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