Chasing Gold🥇: Closing ceremony bids farewell to Beijing and its strange, unwelcoming Games
The 2022 Winter Olympics have come to an end with a spectacular closing ceremony at the Bird's Nest in Beijing.
While these Olympics featured several iconic moments of joy and disappointment, they will most likely be remembered for the ever-present threat of COVID-19 disruptions and a figure skating controversy that cast a dark cloud over the Games' most popular events.
How dark?
In the words of Paste BN Sports columnist Christine Brennan, these will go down in history as "the strangest, most controversial, most unwelcoming Olympic Games of our lifetime."
Russian teen Kamila Valieva could have been one of Beijing's brightest stars, but a positive test in December for a banned heart medication created a dispute that went all the way to the Court for Arbitration in Sport before she was allowed to compete.
Although she helped the Russian Olympic Committee win gold in the team event, Valieva crumbled under the intense pressure in the women's individual competition and finished fourth.
In the aftermath, IOC president Thomas Bach issued a rare criticism of the Valieva's "entourage" for their lack of support, and the skating community questioned if age limits might be a possible solution.
OLYMPICS MEDAL COUNT: Track the hardware in Beijing by country
How else will the Beijing Games be remembered?
There was triumph. Team USA netted 25 total medals in Beijing, including eight golds.
The United States earned a silver medal in the team figure skating competition (behind the Russian Olympic Committee) and Nathan Chen won gold in the men's individual event.
Bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor, who began the Olympics in isolation because of a positive COVID test, earned a silver and a bronze in Beijing to give her five career medals in the event.
Erin Jackson of the speedskating hotbed of Ocala, Florida, (really!) became the first Black woman in Olympic history to win gold in an individual event at the Winter Games.
And Chinese-American freeskier Eileen Gu became one of the Games' brightest stars, winning a pair of gold medals in big air and freeski halfpipe, plus a silver in slopestyle.
There was disappointment as one of the greatest technical skiers of all-time, two-time Olympic gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin, shockingly skied out in three of her six events and left Beijing without a medal.
There were also wistful goodbyes, particularly for snowboarding icon Shaun White. Competing in his fifth and final Winter Olympics, White came up just short of another medal to go with his three golds, finishing fourth in the halfpipe at the age of 35.
Speaking of goodbyes, the Olympic torch will now set its sights on 2024, when the Summer Games take place in Paris. The next Winter Games will be in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, in 2026.
Thanks for subscribing to our Olympic newsletter during the Beijing Games. Here are a few more stories you might enjoy:
- Paste BN's Dan Wolken takes a look back at the highlights from each day of competition in Beijing.
- Paste BN's Nancy Armour writes that U.S. athletes showed obstacles can be overcome
- From Paste BN's Chris Bumbaca: Black Olympic skiers offer hope for more diverse Winter Games in the future
Chasing Gold is Paste BN Sports' Olympics newsletter.
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