Domen Prevc set a males’s ski leap world document of 254.5m on the Planica flying hill in Slovenia final March, recognized for its steepness and lengthy jumps. Germany’s Philipp Raimund sat it out – he suffers from vertigo. “Occasionally, I’ve the difficulty that my physique is reacting with out me controlling it,” he mentioned. “It’s like I’m simply observing myself whereas one thing has a good grip on me.”
Nonetheless with no World Cup win on his CV heading to those Video games, the 25-year-old Raimund surprised the sphere, together with sixth-placed Prevc, and himself to win gold in Monday’s regular hill particular person occasion with jumps of 135.6m and 138.5m. “I don’t understand how I did it however I’m so, so proud that I managed to do it,” he mentioned. Raimund goes once more within the lengthy hill occasion on Saturday trying to do a unprecedented double.
2
Costume adjustments on the ‘kiss-and-cry’
Determine skating viewers might have thought they had been seeing double because the French coach and choreographer Benoît Richaud appeared rinkside in a number of nationwide group jackets inside minutes. The 38-year-old is working with 16 skaters from 13 international locations at Milano Cortina, seven of whom competed in a single night time throughout the males’s quick programme – generally in speedy succession, requiring fast adjustments of allegiance and apparel. His costume swaps are coordinated behind the scenes, with jackets saved in dressing rooms or held by group workers to make sure he reaches every skater in time and is prepared within the correct group colors on the “kiss-and-cry”, which is properly geared up with conveniently positioned Puffs tissues, a sponsor for US determine skating, for completely happy or unhappy tears.
Richaud has choreographed routines impressed by Vincent van Gogh and Henri Matisse, and sees his position as a type of storytelling. “I cannot be happy if my work as a choreographer will likely be solely to do choreography,” he mentioned. “I all the time attempt to carry tales. I all the time attempt to make folks really feel an emotion.” Teaching a number of Olympic hopefuls is, maybe, as demanding as competing – solely multiplied 16-fold.
One in every of curling’s newest viral stars is just not an athlete, however the man behind the making of the ice. Mark Callan, the top ice technician at Milano Cortina, has captured world consideration with the moonwalk-like step he performs whereas “pebbling” the floor, incomes the Glaswegian the nickname “the Michael Jackson of curling”. “The viral factor has been a little bit of a shock,” Callan mentioned.
“Everyone has a distinct model of pebbling, bit like driving a automobile. I discover that doing the moonwalk – or the shuffle, when you like – it retains me steady.” Past the web fame lies meticulous craftsmanship. Utilizing purified Dolomite water, Callan and his group layer and texture every sheet to create the tiny frozen bumps that enable stones to curve, monitoring temperature, humidity and frost with scientific precision. The work is relentless, stretching to 17-hour days all through the Video games.
4
Banned wax stops Korean skiers
The Korea Ski Affiliation was left “perplexed” after two of its cross-country skiers had been disqualified from the ladies’s dash traditional. Han Dasom and Lee Eui-jin had their qualifying occasions voided when their skis examined optimistic for fluorinated wax, a substance banned by the Worldwide Ski and Snowboard Federation since 2019. The Japanese snowboarder Shiba Masaki was additionally faraway from the boys’s parallel big slalom for a similar purpose.
The non-biodegradable wax, generally often called fluor, had been utilized in snowboarding for the reason that Nineteen Eighties to assist with glide however was banned by the FIS due to the harm it does to the setting and the potential threat to technicians making use of the substance in unventilated areas.
“The athletes’ merchandise aren’t fluorine wax,” mentioned a consultant from the Korean affiliation. “They examined adverse in all earlier worldwide competitions with no prior points. We’re additionally perplexed.” In any case, neither Han nor Lee posted a time fast sufficient to qualify for the ultimate.
5
The well-trodden rollerblading path
Erin Jackson of the USA wowed followers of the 2018 Winter Video games in Pyeongchang after she certified for the 500m within the velocity skating after solely 4 months of gaining expertise on ice. Her transition into the game was made straightforward by her expertise of inline skating and curler derby. She completed sixth within the 1,000m last on Monday and units out to defend her 2022 Olympic title within the 500m on Sunday.
Others to comply with in her footsteps in these Video games embody Singapore’s big slalom skier Faiz Basha, who grew up in Switzerland however needed to mimic snowboarding on rollerblades when he couldn’t prepare on snow throughout his necessary army service within the nation of his mother and father, and Daniel Milagros, who has change into Spain’s first Olympic velocity skater and completed second within the one-lap dash on the world inline skating championships in 2023. Milagros got here final within the males’s 1,000m in Milan however his compatriot and fellow rollerblader Nil Llop, a Winter Olympic medallist at youth stage, goes within the 500m on Saturday.
6
Followers scramble for pins and toy stoats
There’s one sport in Italy that’s not handing out medals however that doesn’t imply opponents go residence empty handed. All through the Video games, residents and guests in Milan have been setting off every morning on a race to seize restricted version Olympic pins. An Instagram publish at 8am on daily basis tells folks – “stroll, don’t run” – which of town’s seven neighbourhoods or 5 landmarks to move to, the place the tourism promoter YesMilano offers out 250 pins. As soon as they’re gone, they’re gone.
Official Olympic merchandise, numerous which has offered out already, is sizzling property regardless of its typically extortionate pricing. Maybe one of the best probability of nabbing a comfortable toy of the stoat mascot Tina (promoting for €18 to €58; £15-£50) is to really win a medal – the athletes are given one on the rostrum. Tommaso, the two-year-old son of Italy’s speed-skating star Francesca Lollobrigida, was extra excited by Tina than his mom’s gold medal.
Few Olympic tales seize the generational spirit of sport fairly like that of the Mexican alpine skier Sarah Schleper and her son, Lasse Gaxiola. Days earlier than her forty seventh birthday, Schleper grew to become the oldest lady to compete in Olympic alpine snowboarding when she raced within the super-G in her seventh Winter Video games look. Throughout the Alps in Bormio, the 18-year-old Gaxiola is making ready for his Olympic debut within the males’s slalom, making them the primary mother-son duo to compete on the identical Winter Olympics.
“For him, every little thing’s new,” Schleper mentioned. “And for me, I do know it.” Their shared presence is the end result of a lifetime within the sport: Schleper debuted in 1998 and competed for the US, briefly retired, then switched allegiances to Mexico, whereas Gaxiola grew up on skis and earned his place by junior competitors success. “For me, success is just the truth that we’re each right here,” Schleper mentioned.
8
Brazil bobsleigher’s large e book bid
Brazil’s Edson Bindilatti embodies perseverance in a sport far faraway from his nation’s tropical roots. A veteran of six Winter Olympics, spanning Salt Lake 2002 to Milano Cortina 2026, the 46-year-old has competed as a push athlete, brakeman and pilot, attaining Brazil’s finest Olympic bobsleigh end with twentieth place within the four-man occasion in Beijing and a historic thirteenth on the world championships in 2025.
Impressed by Cool Runnings, the movie loosely primarily based on the debut of the Jamaican nationwide bobsleigh group, Bindilatti endured monetary hardship, lengthy journeys, private loss and pandemic-era coaching improvisations to maintain a profession now stretching past twenty years. “It might make an enormous e book, 500 pages or extra, if I had been to inform all of the tales,” he mentioned in 2014. Catch him competing within the two-man and four-man occasions.
9
Transgender athlete makes historical past
Sweden’s Elis Lundholm grew to become the primary overtly transgender athlete to compete on the Winter Olympics when he took half in qualifying for the ladies’s moguls, ending twenty fifth and lacking out on the ultimate. Final November, the Worldwide Olympic Committee edged nearer to implementing a ban on transgender girls competing within the feminine class in time for the 2028 Summer season Video games in Los Angeles.
The 23-year-old Lundholm was born feminine and now identifies as a person however has not undergone any gender-affirming remedy or surgical procedure. Whereas this proposed ban will have an effect on different transgender athletes, Lundholm would nonetheless be capable to compete within the girls’s class as a result of it’s the identical gender he was assigned at start. “I need everybody to have the ability to compete pretty towards one another,” he mentioned after ending his run down the Livigno course.
Whereas the motion on snow continues to enthral, a urgent query lingers within the background: will there come some extent when there is no such thing as a snow left to compete on? Local weather change is more and more reshaping the Winter Olympics, as declining snowfall and rising temperatures forged doubt over how and the place the Video games might be staged in many years to come back. Earlier than the Video games a number of athletes signed a petition urging the IOC to finish sponsorships with fossil gasoline firms. The Italian oil firm Eni is one among this yr’s sponsors.
“I’m not that previous however I’m sufficiently old to see adjustments in the place I’ve skied in my life,” mentioned the American Alex Corridor after profitable silver in freeski slopestyle. “We’ve had occasions cancelled due to an absence of snow. I’ve seen first-hand the results. I do know it’s not straightforward for an athlete to say, as a result of we journey so much and do issues that don’t assist the scenario, so it’s a combined emotion. If we will development in direction of a greater future, that’s the plan, that’s the hope.”
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