On Friday, February 4, the Olympics continue with the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. While it feels weird considering the Summer Olympics just happened in the summer of 2021, due to a COVID-19 delay lasting a year, it’s time for the pinnacle of international competition. The Winter Olympics don’t carry the same level of fanfare as its summer counterpart, but there’s plenty to support.
Here are some Winter Olympics events that members of the Beyond Women’s Sports staff will be following through February 20.
Beth – Hockey
Hockey is and has always been the greatest love of my life. There is not greater sound to me then blades cutting into fresh ice and no greater smell than that of an ice cold sheet of ice.
Hockey has everything to offer any sports fan. It is a fast paced, non-stop, high skill sport. Imagine football, with fewer stoppages, and highly skilled athletes on a quarter-inch wide piece of steel strapped to their feet. Baseball but without a ball being thrown at you, instead it is a three inch piece of vulcanized rubber you control with a stick in your hands. Soccer but with a much smaller net and a heavily armored goaltender.
This year’s Winter Olympics are setting the stage for another epic rematch between the 2018 Gold Medal winning Team USA Women’s hockey team and the Silver Medal winning athletes of Hockey Canada. Beyond those two teams, there is also a lot of compelling hockey to be seen from Finland, ROC, Czech Republic, and host country China.
So strap in, and get ready because the Women’s hockey tournament is going to be one of the best round robin tournaments you’ve ever seen.
Follow Beth on Twitter @WonderBeffers.
LaDarius – Snowboarding
Despite never seeing a flake of snow, I love the sport of snowboarding. To me, it is like skateboarding but colder. Also, seeing Shaun White make the transition from the X Games to the Olympics was amazing. White has five Summer X Games medals.
He is going for his fourth Gold medal in the 2022 Beijing Olympics. At age 35, this looks to be his final time we will see him. Without question, he will go down as one of the best to ever do it.
With respect to the future of the sport, look no further than Chloe Kim. She made her Olympic debut in the 2018 Games in PyeongChang, South Korea at age 17. By the way, she won gold in the halfpipe in those games. I’m looking forward to seeing both White and Kim do what they do best in the 24th Winter Olympic Games.
Follow LaDarius on Twitter @ladarius_brown.
Thomas – Bobsled
Like most people of a specific age, I had my first interactions with the bobsled from the Disney movie classic Cool Runnings. For the uninitiated, it’s a story loosely-based on the Jamaican bobsled team. It features laughs, a lucky egg and one of my favorite comedians, John Candy (rest in peace). Like most sports-related pop culture, it exposed a generation to a new sport.
Bobsled has been around for a long time. The men have been allowed to compete at the games since 1924, in both four-man and the two-man sleds (two-man came in 1932). It was only in 2002 did women have an event of their own, the two-woman sled. Since then, the United States has made it to the podium in every Winter Olympics. Team USA has one gold, three silver and two bronze.
I’m excited for this year because there’s a fourth event being introduced: the monobob. A key piece of bobsled’s growth is this monobob event where one person drives a bobsled down an icy chute. All the usual players like the USA, Canada and Russia will be competing, along with Jamaica and other nations.
If you haven’t watched a bobsled event before, you’re in for a real treat.
Follow Thomas on Twitter @1thomascostello.
Tim – Speedskating
Speedskating is a brutal combination of strength and endurance. The sport is high flying with athletes traveling on blades at high speeds on ice, sometimes in a tight group. Speedskating has two distinct disciplines with two separate teams. Long track describes the standard large oval, often with racers in two separate lanes. Short track describes a smaller rink, think a hockey rink, where athletes race in a pack.
Growing up near the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee with a mother who was a speedskater, the sport was never too far away. The Milwaukee area is known to produce speedskating talents. In 2002, Milwaukee native Chris Witty won Olympic gold in Salt Lake City at the 1000 meter distance. I remember how proud I felt as a child watching someone from my town achieve that level of success. She also won two medals in 1998. Later Milwaukee-area native Alyson Dudek won a bronze medal in 2010. Many other Olympic medalists spent significant time training in Milwaukee, including Bonnie Blair.
Ten women will take the ice for Team USA in the Speedsaking event in Beijing. The five women on the long track team are Brittany Bowe, Erin Jackson, Mia Manganello Kilburg, Kimi Goetz, and Giorgia Birkeland. For short track, the contenders are Maame Biney, Eunice Lee, Julie Letai, Kristen Santos, and Corrine Stoddard.
On the long track side, Jackson and Bowe are serious medal contenders. The other three skaters could also find themselves on the podium, particularly Kilburg in the mass start. The team USA short track Biney, Santos, and Stoddard all have a good shot at bringing home some hardware. Unknown teenager Lee surprised everyone at Olympic trials and could continue to do so in Beijing. As always, speedskating promises to be a fun and fast journey in the Olympics.
Follow Tim on Twitter @AtozTim.
Which Winter Olympics events are your favorites? Share with us on Twitter @BeyondWSports, or in the comments below.
I agree with all of these suggestions! I’ll add figure skating. So beautiful and skilled.