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Tears were shed today, as they likely are every day of the Olympics — tears of celebration and of disappointment, of pain and of elation and of every emotion in between.
There were tears in the eyes of 17-year-old Choi Gaon of South Korea after her final run as she waited for her score to be announced, and those tears kept flowing when her score of 90.25 vaulted her to the top of the podium, leapfrogging reigning champion and two-time gold medalist Chloe Kim. The tears flowed as she celebrated with her coaches, with an earnestly happy Kim, and with her other opponents. They continued throughout the medal ceremony. It was clear that it wasn’t just about winning gold for Choi — it was about overcoming all the odds to accomplish something remarkable.
Today was one of those special, fairy-tale-ending days in sports when the tribulations made the triumphs all the more great, when athletes reminded us that it’s about so much more than just winning.
Here are some of those moments.
Choi Gaon wins halfpipe gold after crash, edging mentor Chloe Kim
By all accounts, it looked as if Chloe Kim had it in the bag.
The reigning champion was in position to make snowboard history with a gold medal three-peat. She posted an 88.00 on her first run to put herself at the front of the pack, where she remained for most of the contest. If it weren’t for Kim failing to stick the landing on the second of her back-to-back double corks on run No. 2, the podium might have looked a bit different. Kim also fell on her last run.
Plenty of other athletes scratched runs as well (some of them on all three). Choi caught the lip of the pipe so hard on her first attempt that medical staff had to be brought out (all but five competitors completed the initial run), and she did not finish her second run. But her third run was a much different story.
Choi floated between the rims of the pipe, dancing between high backside 900s and frontside 720s for a highly technical, perfectly executed run. It stunned everyone in attendance (the cameras on the NBC broadcast barely switched from Queralt Castellet Ibanez — the Spaniard who took home halfpipe silver in Beijing but placed 10th this year — in time to catch Choi dropping in), not the least of whom was Choi herself.
As soon as Kim got to the bottom of the pipe, she beelined it for and embraced a tearful Choi. Kim was beaming for her protégé, who, over their decade-long relationship, has trained with Kim at Mammoth Mountain in California and has been unofficially under her tutelage since their fathers befriended each other before the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in 2018.
“She’s my baby,” Kim, who earned silver, said after the medal ceremony. “I’ve known her since she was so little. Now I think I know how my mentors felt when I came on to the stage. It’s really a special moment. I always wanted to be there for her and I still do. I just think I want to do what my mentors did for me and show up for her.”
Choi’s gold is the first for a female Korean snow sports athlete, as well as the first snowboarding medal for the country. If that doesn’t have you welling up, I don’t know what will.
Gold medalist Choi Goan laughs with mentor and silver medalist Chloe Kim after the women’s snowboard halfpipe final. The two have trained together at Mammoth Mountain in California. (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych files appeal over IOC’s disqualification
On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, we have Vladyslav Heraskevych’s day. The Ukrainian skeleton athlete has been wearing a helmet with the images of athletes who were killed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine to honor their lives and the impact on their sports. Today, he was disqualified from the first heat of the men’s skeleton competition by the International Olympic Committee, which says the gesture violates anti-messaging rules.
“It’s not about the messaging. It’s literally about the rules and the regulations,” Kirsty Coventry, IOC president, said in a news conference. “In this case, the field of play, we have to be able to keep a safe environment for everyone, and sadly, that means no messaging is allowed.”
Heraskevych met with Coventry on Thursday morning and “did not consider any form of compromise,” according to an IOC statement. While talks with the IOC were apparently cordial enough, Heraskevych maintains that he doesn’t believe he violated the rules and that the IOC failed to align itself with Ukraine. The IOC also removed Heraskevych’s Olympic accreditation.
“I made a great proposal this morning to wear this helmet and show solidarity with Ukraine — I believe it’s a great way (for the IOC) to show it has solidarity with Ukraine — and to remove all the scandal,” Heraskevych said. The “helmet of memory” has been the center of one of the Game’s biggest controversies, and has global leaders weighing in.
Now, the skeleton racer is appealing the verdict, asking the Court of Arbitration for Sport to reevaluate his case and fast-track a decision that could get him back on the sliding track. The first two of the event’s four runs were completed Thursday morning, and the final two runs of the competition are scheduled for Friday night. The CAS will have to move quickly if Heraskevych hopes to compete.
A detail view of the “helmet of memory” worn by Vladyslav Heraskevych. (Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
U.S. men’s hockey skates to 5-1 victory over Latvia
It wasn’t the start that the U.S. team wanted, but the team will certainly settle for a win.
After two overturned goals in a hard-to-watch first period, the men’s team overcame challenges (literally) and hit its stride by the second period. Brock Nelson scored two goals in his first career Olympic game, and Brady Tkachuk, Tage Thompson and Auston Matthews rounded out the effort with a goal apiece (Quinn Hughes and J.T. Miller had the overturned scores).
Meanwhile, Team USA’s rival, Canada, made a statement with a 5-0 stomp of a talented Czech team (notably, Canada remains gold medal-less — catch up on the medal count here). The U.S. will face Denmark in its next game on its quest to win its first gold since 1980 (and first medal since 2010), the year the team defeated the Soviet Union in the so-called “Miracle on Ice.”
Brock Nelson’s first goal against Elvis Merzlikins gave the United States a 2-1 lead in the second period against Latvia. (David W Cerny – Pool / Getty Images)
Dutch speedskater sets world record in 500-meter short track, then takes gold
Did you see that? Neither did I — but I’m told it was speedskater Xandra Velzeboer of the Netherlands whizzing by. In the semifinals, she broke her own world record with a time of 41.399 seconds. She then won gold in 41.609, more than half a second ahead of silver medalist Arianna Fontana of Italy, who collected a record-extending 13th short track Olympic medal. Velzeboer, 25, had already podiumed in this year’s Games, having won the silver medal with the short track mixed relay team event. Not a bad week — unless, of course, you’re a world record.
Xandra Velzeboer celebrates after winning gold in the women’s short-track speedskating 500 meters for the Netherlands. She led after every lap of the final. (Elsa / Getty Images)
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the nature of Choi’s gold medal. It was the first for a female Korean snow sports athlete.
