Anyone who knows me already knows that I’m a big fan of the Olympics. There’s nothing else in our modern world that aims higher to bring the world together as one. Usually, though, my excitement is reserved for the Summer Olympics. The Winter Olympics have always felt a bit harder to get excited about. For one thing, these Olympics don’t really represent the world because many snow-less countries don’t compete. Also, the competing athletes remain mostly white and most sports still require some level of wealth in order to grow up doing them. Despite these shortcomings, I am excited for these Games and there were a few stories I read this week that helped.
One of the longstanding problems with the Winter Olympics is that it requires the host city to build all sorts of venues (like a Luge course) that have no usage beyond the Games so they often end up as abandoned wastelands. This year, Milan is pioneering a more spread out model for the Games where they are hosting in many different places across Italy. In theory, this should allow them to minimize the wastage and optimize venues for later reuse. The upcoming FIFA World Cup hosted across the North American continent is using a similar concept. If this works, the idea of diversifying large global sporting events across multiple cities and countries may become commonplace.
It was also fun to read about previous sports that did not make it into this year’s games (such as sled dog racing and ski ballet) along with some of this year’s new exhibition sports (like dual moguls and ski mountaineering), Vogue’s picks for the best and worst Olympic uniforms (note – Mongolia’s uniform is winning the most admirers so far), as well as the story behind the design of the Olympic medals. For a bigger picture context there were several stories this week about how climate change is threatening the Winter Olympics themselves. And finally of course, there are also several athlete stories to watch including the Bobsled team from Trinidad and Tobago that’s aiming modestly with their Olympic dream of “not coming in last.”
The Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony will be broadcast live in the US on Peacock at 2pm EST on Friday.