Pyeongchang 2018, Week Two: Triumphs and a Tragedy

The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea is over.  The two Koreas have been getting along so well that they're planning on talks to maybe improve relations, and have invited the United States to join in.  President Donald Trump, who has sent the noted diplomats Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump to put in appearances during the Games, has sent a qualified reply.  So maybe the next time we hear the word Pyeongchang, it won't be in reference to a battlefield.  But we digress.

Here are the top five nations in the final medal count:

Norway  14 gold, 14 silver, 11 bronze=39 total
Germany  14 gold, 10 silver, 7 bronze=31
Canada   11 gold, 8 silver, 10 bronze=29
U.S.          9 gold, 8 silver, 6 bronze=23
Netherlands  8 gold, 6 silver, 6 bronze=20

The United States moved up to fourth place from the first week, thanks to the efforts of the following:

• Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall were the first American women to take home gold in cross-country skiing.
• The women's hockey team won its first gold since 1998, defeating Canada in a shootout.  Isn't that like winning the Wimbledon singles championship on tiebreaks?
• Lindsey Vonn closed out her Olympic career with a bronze medal in the women's downhill.  Or did she?  Mikaela Shiffrin, who won two Alpine golds herself, isn't sure Vonn's skiing off into the sunset just yet.  You'll see Vonn in China in '22 all right--as an NBC commentator.  Hey, she can't be any worse than Bode Miller, right?
• Now that the U.S. men's curling team won the gold medal in curling, will that sport end up being as popular as hockey was after the 1980 "Miracle on Ice"?

The Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) ended up in seventh place with 17 medals.  One of their two gold medals came in men's hockey, when they defeated an upstart German team in overtime.  It was a game that was better than it had any right to be, given that NHL players sat these Olympics out while Russian KHL players dominated.  Their last gold was in 1992 when, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were known as the Unified Team.

This doesn't mean that the OAR, the remnants of a Russian state-sponsored team that was disqualified from these Olympics for alleged doping violations, had cleaned up its act completely.  Two athletes were kicked out of the Games for testing positive for banned substances.  But they'll be given a hero's welcome in Moscow by President Vladimir Putin anyway.
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We hate to end this on a low note, but this bears watching in future Olympics.

Recently Dr. Larry Nasser, a Michigan-based sports physician, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life (and then some) in prison.  He was convicted in that state for sexually abusing hundreds of female athletes, including members of the U.S. gymnastics team. 

The next time you watch a sports event involving teens and/or young women, think about what it took for them to get to where they are.  There are people who train these athletes and care for their well being in a responsible manner.  But there are also some individuals who see a captive audience for their personal pleasure, and the damage they inflict can last a lifetime.

If you are a parent of these young athletes, your support and responsibility to them rests on your shoulders.  For the rest of us watching, we need to be more aware of the price of victory.