The 16 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics Athletes That Impressed me the Most

I can loosely be described as a Winter Olympics obsessive. I grew up in a skiing family (other families took vacations to the beach or camping, we took our big vacations to the Rockies) with a father who owned a condo in Lake Placid, attended the 1980 Olympics and raced. I was similarly on a club racing team in college (not particularly good at the two disciplines I raced: It's an extremely frustrating sport I'd describe as playing a game of chess against gravity with very little time to think about how to make each move) and have dabbled in terrain parks and cross-country skiing (I don't know how to do most of the stuff these Olympians do if you're looking for tips), but I mostly forget to watch these great sports in the off-years. When the Olympics come around, I'm suddenly hooked on this stuff like it never left:

Here's my list of athletes that impressed me the most with the disclosure that I'm watching from a US-centric perspective:

1. Ester Ledecka-CZE Republic-Alpine Skiing (Super G) & Snowboard (Parallel Giant Slalom)-Ledecka wanted to make history as the first snowboarder to compete in a ski race. She never finished above 19th in a World Cup race and she borrowed someone else's skis and ended up winning Gold in the Super-G in a win so unexpected that NBC had switched over the broadcast and the NBC broadcasters only issued a half-apology saying it was "extremely unlikely" she'd make a medal podium. Her own reaction to winning was even more apropos.

 Credit: The Guardian

2. Martin Fourcade-FRA-Biathlon-For my money, the most dominant performance of the games. He came through in the clutch, he handled the lead, he took the relay baton and won from there, he eked out a photo finish. He started his Olympic performance in terrible shape and it was easy to believe that the four-time medalist would evaporate but he dominated the next event. He also came back from a fall and a series of misses in the mass start to win by 0.19 seconds. Biathlon was constantly airing during the day whenever I'd turn off the TV and I had the opportunity to watch a lot of athletes shoot. Maritn Fourcade stands out visibly: He has pure ice when he shoots.

Credit: Frontier Parisians

3. Chloe Kim-USA-Snowboarding Half-Pipe-Part of this is the narrative: An assimilated 2nd generation South Korean succeeding in an Olympics in South Korea. Kim is a media-friendly personality and a South Korean who navigates both cultures well: When my slightly conservative mom didn't like the blond streaks in her hair but was impressed with her interviews, I knew Kim was onto something. Under big pressure, Kim dominated her event with a 93.75 out of 100, and then when the Gold was assured, she turned her encore into an epic mic drop with a score of 98.25. Insane!

Credit: NBCOlympics.com

4. Jessie Diggins-USA-Cross-Country Skiing-Watching her battle it out in five events and come so close to making history as the first American to medal in a Nordic-dominant sport was heart-breaking. She soldiered through three individual events where she was achingly close to the medals (5th, 6th, and 5th) and skied the anchor to a relay that collapsed on the first two legs. In a staggered event (because people start at different intervals, when you cross the finish line doesn't equate with final standing), she skied herself to exhaustion against the clock and came in within 3 seconds of the bronze . In the sprint relay, Diggins not only made the podium but one the freakin' thing with teammate Kikkan Randall. She then competed in a 6th event-the 50k (basically a marathon but probably more puke-inducing)- finishing 7th. Quite an aerobic workout.

Credit: Voanews.com

5. Marcel Hirscher-AUT-Alpine Skiing (technical events)-If not for his slalom blunder, he could have been the most dominant guy in the games. I was partially influenced by hearing how meticulous and dominant he has been and how to approach a slope. He won golds in combined and giant slalom and flirted with the idea of being the first person since 1992. He flirted with the idea of being the first man since 1968 to earn 3 Golds in the same Olympics.

Credit: www.STL.news

6. Mikaela Shiffrin-USA-Skiing- Fourth, second, and first through three events Alpine events. If you were one of the people calling her performance a failure, go away. Because you're not seeing your competitors as you're skiing down, skiing is a sport with a humongous variation and Shiffrin largely kept her nerves, was a menacing threat in everything she raced, and should be applauded for her strategic decisions (dropping the downhill to focus on Combined). She's incredibly consistent in a skiing program that today just doesn't compare to the Austrians, Swiss, Italians, French or Norwegians.

Credit: Fox News

7. Yun Sung-bin AKA Iron Man-SKOR-Skeleton-The 23-year-old has swag galore and dominated his event like nothing I've seen. He had the fastest time on all his runs and set a track record. This is a guy who rose to 5th in the world rankings within a year of first picking up the sport. He's a fast learner and a fast slider.

8. Nathan Chen-USA-Figure Skating-The AV Club did an inventory on fictional champions in sports films who don't actually win at their sport. The sports world needs more of these stories to show us the listen that we were always told in little league but never applied as sports spectators in adulthood: "It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game." Nathan Chen didn't medal but he came so close from so far away with such an unquestionably extraordinary performance. Few times have American sports fans been happier with a fifth place finish.

Credit: LA Times

9. Sven Kramer-HOL-Speed Skating (distance)-Remember all the hype about Shani Davis trying to win three golds back-to-back. Kramer did it here leading another all-Dutch sweep. He's a nine-time medalist with a boatload of other claims to being among the greatest ever at his sport. He failed to do much else, falling out of the medals in the 10000 m, a disappointing bronze in the team, and failing which places him a little lower than expected. Still, three golds consecutively in the same event is exceedingly rare. No American male has never done this.

Credit: JapanTimes.com

10. Shaun White-USA-Snowboard Halfpipe-On his last run, White catapulted back into Gold with a run of 97.25 out of 100. Near perfection under pressure. White is the first male American to win 3 Golds in separate Olympics. Also worth noting, he did this non-consecutively (4th in Sochi). Love him or hate him, that's pretty amazing to be at such a high level for 12 straight years.

Credit: BaltimoreSun

11. Marit Bjeorgen-NRW-Cross-Country Skiing-Now the most accomplished athlete in history, Bjeorgen owns eight gold medals and fifteen overall. At 37, she had ten medals and her age left doubts over how much damage she could do against Bjorn Dahllie who previously held the record at 13. She anchored the 4 X 5 km medley relay's hopes as an underdog and won the grueling 30km mass start.

Credit: FIS

12. Aksel Lund Svindal-NRW-Alpine Skiing (speed)-For someone who gets so electrified by watching this sport, I should pay attention to it more often. But even though I tune out in the off-years I have remembered the name Aksel Lund Svindal back to the mid-2000s. This guy has been dominant forever through World Cups and Olympics and what a great swan song to come back from injuries debilitating enough to prevent him from doing any slaloms (greatly decreasing his possible medal count) to be able to win the Gold. At 35, he is the oldest alpine skiing medalist ever. Maybe there's hope for me at a year younger to make an Olympics podium. The camaraderie between Svindal and his Norweigan teammates was also touched upon in the broadcasting and in articles: The guys have a "no jerks allowed" rule and eat meals together where they turn off their cell phones beforehand...can you imagine that level of intimacy?? 

Source: CNN.com

13. Jamie Anderson-USA-Snowboard Big Air and Slopestyle-This freewheeling personality defended her title in slopestyle and took silver in big air tying her with Shaun White and Kelly Clark being the only other to win three medals in one Olympics. She's also quite the hippie.

14. The Late Steve Holcomb-USA-Bobsledding-One of the most gooey stories of the Games was from a guy who wasn't even there. Steve Holcomb piloted the bobsled to an improbable Gold in 2010 and died this past May. He must have been quite the personality because every bobsledder and luger has been sobbing when his name came up. If anyone's positive effect on his or her peers was portrayed through the inspirational background videos, it was this guy. His mom was at the games and watching the other athletes hug her mom filled me up with all sorts of goo as well.

15. Red Gerard-USA-Snowboarding Slopetsyle-This 17-year-old from Colorado with a huge family on site was adorable. His winning run was a work of art. The first US Gold medalist in the Olympics, he had time to fly to the US, work the talk show circuit, and come back in time for a Big Air event where he made the final 12. Sadly he doesn't have red hair but his name seems fitting in an old-school kind of way. Also, look at that hat!

16. Anna Gasser-AUT-Snowboarding Big Air-Her duel with Jamie Anderson and winning run was just a "you had to be there" moment. Gasser came back from a deficit to catch Anderson on the last run with one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. Also for fun, watch this photo mash-up (part of which is seen below) of Gasser's jump.

Credit: NY Times

The Greatest Showman: A schmaltzy hit

The Greatest Showman--a Hugh Jackman vehicle based on the life of circus godfather P.T. Barnum  -- is an anomoly in that it was released in the sink-or-swim period in the last couple weeks of December and looked like it was going to sink because of critical panning but somehow still found audience. It has consistently placed it in the Box Office top 10 throughout the entirety of January and February. This past weekend it was in 6th place in the 9th week of release with an extremely healthy $6 million dollars, while Star Wars: The Last Jedi isn't even in the top 20 anymore (David Simms at the Atlantic has a good essay about this)

This dissonance was also inherent in my viewing experience. On the one hand, I found myself emotionally moved by the film and even shed a tear or two at the love story and the way this man uplifted the lives of all these outsiders. At the same time, I felt something was off. Good criticism is about reacting honestly and articulating that reaction. In this case, it took me a while to articulate that to myself. Ultimately, I found two main faults in the film.

The first was that this was a biopic of the old-fashioned model  (The Darkest Hour, Aviator, and Selma represent the latter model of focusing on a period of said historic figure's life) where there was a need to check off every part of this man's life without any discernment for which parts need more deep focus. With the musical numbers taking up so much of the running time, it puts a chronological stretch and the result was a superficial look at Barnum's life.

The second is something that I agree with the film critics in one of their gripes but in a different way than they state it. One of the many beefs of the critics (they also found the songs unusually bland and various plot holes) is the deviation from history but I regularly go to the website www.chasingthefrog.com and don't think the film is more ahistorical than your average work of historical fiction. In particular, this was a 19th century figure, and while audiences at large generally assume we have as much material available about someone 150 years ago as we do about someone 50 years ago, I can assure you as a researcher at the National Archives that's simply not true.

The quote "there's a sucker born every minute" is something that the film's detractors are saying is attributed to Barnum but that's not a certainty. Part of this is the mass of critical consensus generally picks up on issues of racism in ways that are overemphasizing. While Barnum was exploitative of black members in his employ, there seems little evidence that he was any more exploitative of that class of people than anyone else, and in missing the trees for the forest, he was a staunch abolitionist (it's theorized his theater got burned down by confederate allies).

Moreso, the idea that he was exploitative would have made him a great biopic subject because that's what made him complicated. He uplifted people's lives while also feeding off these people. It's a Faustian bargain the freaks had to make but it couldn't be denied that they'd rather be in the circus than not. This film, of course, was too glossy and superficial to deal with that and if you were thinking this film had an obligation to do so, you were looking for the wrong movie.

To the degree that the film deals with anything thematic, it's about the protagonist's self-actualization being tied to class and his need to shed the chip off his shoulder from once being on the lower rungs of society. The freaks in his employ turn out to be part of his salvation but they are still pushed to the side more than they could have and some scenes don't deal with this as much as they could. In particular, the scene where Jackman

At the end of the day, however, I agree with the film critics, because I didn't feel like I was watching PT Barnum. It wasn't historical inaccuracy, however, but rather, the relationship of the project to its lead: It was well-publicized that this was Jackman's pet project. It was clearly Hugh Jackman the gregarious song and dance man I was seeing on the screen and not any attempt at immersion into a part. That kind of approach might have been ok in the biopics of the old days (Gary Cooper in Pride of the Yankees or Cary Grant in Night and Day are those two guys just carrying their winning personas on screen) but it doesn't fly today.

My Week in TV II: American Crime Story, Crashing, Superstore, Another Period

American Crime Story-House by the Lake
The main draw of this show was watching innocent, sweet Darren Criss try his hand at playing a cold serial killer. So far this show lacks any sort of thru-line except Criss’s character himself. Last week, “Random Killing” centered around the killing of a notable real estate magnate presented with little context as for the “why.” Andrew Cunanan was analyzed so little that it felt like we were meant to accept him as simply a deranged man without rhyme or reason. Did we make more progress into figuring out what makes him tick this week? Not yet, but the season is long enough that we have reason to think that the show will at least attempt to mine that territory.
In the interim, this week was a thrill of a ride that seemed unpromising at the first commercial break because it seemed like the episode tipped its hand early. These episodes seem most fun when those around Andrew don’t know he’s a serial killer so I wasn’t sure why I wanted to keep watching once that was done with. I even turned off the episode at that point, but when I returned a couple days later, I realized how wrong I was.

The episode resumed into a tense hostage situation with Andrew taking his reluctant friend/lover- and witness to the murder number one – on the road with him. Why doesn’t David scream for help and run for cover at the diner? Why doesn’t he wait until Andrew is sleeping to make a phone call? All we can say in the wake of David’s tragic end is that hindsight is 20/20.

Like past episodes, the series does an excellent job of spotlighting the tragic nature of living in this community regardless of whether they’re being hunted by a serial killer or not. The way they seek love on the DL makes them more vulnerable to being taken advantage of and the errant looks of passersby invites suspicion no matter what.

Another Period-The Olympics
This show has haphazardly thrown every famous person Helen Keller to Harriett Tubman to Sigmeund Freud to Thomas Edison to Scott Joplin into the circle of the Bellacourts regardless of plausibility. It reeks just a little of stunt casting but that’s generally a complaint to make when such stunts aren’t effective. In these cases, the intersection of the famed historic book cutout with the Bellacourts has presented an opportunity for pointed social satire: Like musicians today, the show posits that Joplin was likely aided by his historic rise through a mix of talent and being in the right place and right time promotion-wise. Similarly, the unabashed reverence that we give historical figures is challenged with Harriett Tubman and the vouyeristic possibilities that came as a result of Edison’s moving picture inventions are commented on by making Edison a snuff film pervert himself.

This week it’s Adolf Hitler. He’s derided by some critics as an easy joke target and that same school of thought translates to putting him in a historical fiction comedy. Aside from my preference for the show to focus on American figures (they jive better with this show’s take on the origins of American excess), there’s nothing much they do with him other than make him play the “who would you kill if you could go back in history game?” and, oh yes, they do give his hatred for Jews an origin story. But still, there’s nothing particularly sharp about it. On the bright side, it is a return for Brett Gelman as the shady lower class squall Hamish who apparently is a friend of the doctor. As a Jew, I can tell you that the praying they do before the Shabbat dinner is authentic Hebrew.

In other news, the incest plot between Freddie and Beatriz sister sort of gets resolved but sort of doesn’t. For my money, this thread seems like a remnant of the show’s early days when they were all over the place tonally and this is one of their ickier ideas. There’s also an archery competition which returns Helen Keller and Lillian who’s not as nasty to her fellow woman as usual. That job belongs to Brian Huskey’s character who’s gay repression has made him angrier and angrier and if seeing him get ANGRY tickles your funny bone, you might like this B-plot.

More of my writings on Another Period

Crashing-Pete and Leif/Bill Burr (Season 2 Episode 2, Season 2 Episode 3)-
There’s significantly more wiggle room in Pete Holmes approach to the rapidly oversaturating genre of comedians playing themselves when one considers that few comedians are as wet behind the ears as the Pete Holmes character. The format of using an audience surrogate who’s naïve and sweet allows us to witness all the freedom and decadence of the comedian lifestyle with enough distance that the audience is freed from complicitness.

In the season’s second episode, Pete sleeps with a woman who’s not his wife for the first time and, like many of Pete’s other misadventures, the differing view between Pete and Ally over “what last night meant” is a wake-up call that Pete is woefully unprepared for modern city life. It’s a mostly harmless encounter (I might be wrong, maybe he’ll be in therapy for this all the way through Season 4, who knows?). The distance between Pete and his friends is highlighted by the fact that his friends are much happier than he is that he slept with Ally. Also worth noting, Ally ( Jamie Lee ) looks a helluva lot like Pete’s first wife (Pete the character, that is) Lauren Lapkus that the casting doesn’t seem coincidental here.

Questions of Pete’s masculine identity are once again challenged by his host of the week Bill Burr. I have no idea who Burr (question of the week: does anyone know what Bill Burr is famous for? Does anyone want to save me the trip to IMDB?) so f--- him because he’s more toxic than Artie Lange in continually trying to turn Pete into something he’s not: a man’s man. Then again, Burr’s not that mad at Pete for his screw-up of the week, so it evens out. Although people repeatedly screwing up in epic ways is the hallmark of much of sitcom comedy, this show is too sweet to do that to its protagonist and that’s part of the charm. It’s also revealed somewhere in that Pete Holmes has a new gig as a warm-up comic for Dr. Oz so it looks like he’s at least gotten a second chance which is fitting for a show about second chances.

More on Crashing

Superstore-Groundhog Day
My general assessment of this show has been that it’s a bit overrated but it has its moments. Also some dead weight in Glenn (a waste of Mark McKinney’s talents) and Dena but this is an episode with minimal amounts of those two so that’s a plus. In fact, this was really a great episode all-around with plenty happening on the sidelines to give this place the feel of a hang-out show that it achieves in its finest moments. Jonah and Kelly handling of the announcements (with Sandra as a special guest) is the epitome of workplace goofiness that many with semi-fond experiences in the retail sector (if you were lucky enough to have a boss or two who granted you a little leeway) can relate to. Also worth asking, did anyone else see the lack of build-up to Jonah and Kelly’s romance as a missed opportunity? The show could have used just a few ounces of courtship.

While Kelly and Josh provide some levity, Garrett’s promotion provides a little impetus for self-examination. How much do the people in a place like this crave upward mobility? Most of us can relate to having worked a job like this and simultaneously wishing to be the boss while not wanting the responsibilities of the extra paperwork or coming in to the store early as the key holder. Even bigger question here: Does the show really expect us to believe that intellectually curious egghead Jonah would be content at this job for this long? When I worked at a movie theater or a tea store, the college educated kids would generally be in and out the door in a few months as they used the job as a place holder for the next big thing.

Lastly, there’s the central plot: Amy getting back in the dating scene. The plot nicely uses light-hearted comedy to approach serious challenges in the female dating experience like slut-shaming and objectification. There’s also the more universal issue of the complexities of workplace dating. Also worth noting here, I just noticed that Tate is played by Australian comedy star Josh Lawson of “House of Lies”, “Anchorman 2” and is an amazing improviser. I also just found out while looking at the photo of the Academy Awards Luncheon that Lawson got Oscar nominated this past month for his short film . Congrats!

My Week in TV Part I: LA to Vegas, 9-11, Shut Eye

 My week in TV is a more casually-phrased column I do over at a Disqus channel called the Ice Box

Credit: Vulture.com

9-1-1: The Pilot
The hype underlying this show is based on two equally baffling premises: A) That a procedural like this can be touted as high drama B) That there’s room on TV for more Ryan Murphy/Brad Falchuck shows. With the cachet of the Murphy/Falchuck brand, however, this isn’t surprising. The question is can this creative team turn a genre that’s become shorthand for unremarkable-yet-dependable into must-see TV, while avoiding the pratfalls of camp and sensationalism that started to overtake “ Glee ” in later seasons? Based on the pilot, it looks like the worse elements of the Murphy/Falchuck lore are avoided. The appearance of a baby in a sewer pipe is a bit gross but the relevant scenes exercise an admirable level of restraint towards the macabre, and hey, it’s evidently based in real life .

What the TV show does have is strong characters with potential for arcs. They’re not extremely far removed from the kinds of stock characters that pop up on whatever iteration of "CSI" or "NCIS" we’re currently on, but I trust that in the hands of these producers, big things can happen. With the show’s lead pretty boy (Oliver Stark) having two on-screen hook-ups in the first hour (and I gotta say, red-headed snake lady was H-O-T, although I’m not sure how much of it has to do with her snakes) we get the message that things have the potential to get steamy. Hell, even the (East) Asian guy (Kenneth Choi, Last Man on Earth , one of my favorite shows of 2015 ) has an active sex life. Ordinarily, those guys are cast as technical nerds. When has that been known to happen? Like many a procedural show, the pilot episode is unfortunately quite long on TV shows about, well, procedure. Ugh. Josh Krause’s relationship to Private Pretty Boy is taken straight from Ice Man’s lectures of wrecklessness towards Maverick in Top Gun. "You're Dangerous Man!"

Connie Britton, epitomizing the steely resolve needed to handle the dispatch when these bizarre things are first phoned in, is the best character in terms of most interesting POV. Hopefully, they don’t overmilk her role.

All I can say at this point is: Worth an episode 2.

LA to Vegas-The Fellowship of the Bear (Episode 3)
Despite a decent cast and a relatively novel premise, I can’t see this show reaching beyond a certain ceiling nor can I figure out why Peter Stromare is voluntarily reducing himself to a recurring TV role as a cheap Balki impression from “Perfect Strangers.” Ed Weeks’s “Mindy Project” fares a little better as he has some genuine chemistry with leading lady Kim Matula (a very charismatic lead who looks natural in high heels) as the two genuinely have some fun this week looking for his lost doll. It’s not a quest to be particularly invested in but the twist at the end made for a meaningful gesture and a comic punch. Peter Stromare’s character (Artem) gets some interaction this week with stripper Nichole (Olivia Macklin) and while the plot isn’t amazing, It helps to give them color. It’s also fun in a guilty pleasure kind of way that Nichole the stripper character is politically incorrect.

Shut Eye-First eight episodes of Second Season
One of my top shows of 2016 (see the whole list here ), it took me a while to get on board Season 2 but it’s been just as worthwhile. The show is set where the world of shady fortune telling partners intersect with the ethnic Mafioso of the Romanian-American community (AKA gypsies). I have no idea the degree with which these crime and family traditions are based in any actual research but it seems properly idiosyncratic and grounded in a sense of place to pass even if it were invented out of thin air. This show admirably juggles a lot of genres from everything from acute family drama (“Ozarks” or “The Americans”) to a mafia thriller from the POV of a man trying to get out from under their thumb, to the thrill of seeing a conman in his element (something that Jeffrey Donovan mastered in “Burn Notice”).

Season two sidesteps the climactic twist of season one (that Eduardo and Fonso are in cahoots) and gives Donovan’s character of Charlie the ability to continue his thin margin of life as if he didn’t majorly screw up. The season has a lot more pairing of Fonso (Angus Sampson) and the more impulsive Eduardo (David Zaya) and they make for an interesting due of rabble rousers. The series also features an arranged marriage through a rightfully archaic lens that’s made even more uncomfortable by the forced bride being a closeted lesbian. The only thing that doesn’t work is the plot involving Aasif Mandvi and Charlie’s supernatural abilities. If you watched the trailers for this, you’ll notice it’s one of the things used to sell the show.