{"id":5321,"date":"2022-02-13T08:16:17","date_gmt":"2022-02-13T13:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5321"},"modified":"2022-02-13T08:16:21","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T13:16:21","slug":"olympic-miracles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/02\/13\/olympic-miracles\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic Miracles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is another in the \u201cSunday Story\u201d series.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right, I start crying. Because another human being, a species that I happen to belong to, could kick a ball, and lift himself, and the rest of us sad-assed human beings, up to a better place to be, if only for a minute\u2026 let me tell ya, kid \u2013 it was pretty goddamned glorious. It ain\u2019t the six minutes\u2026 it\u2019s what happens in that six minutes.\u201d \u2013 Vision Quest \u2013 1985<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lunatic Fringe<\/a> \u2013 Red Rider<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sports Fan<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I am a sports fan.  So, I was fired up \u2013 the Olympic Winter Games (don\u2019t dare call it the Winter Olympics, I don\u2019t know why) started on February 3rd.  I was ready to spend days watching events I know little about, from figure skating to what looks like roller derby on snowboards.  And of course, there is the inevitable hours trying to figure out curling.  It\u2019s easy to write curling off; it\u2019s an inscrutable event.  What looks simplistic from the outside, must be a highly complex skill on the inside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first few days didn\u2019t grab me.   I was waiting for the \u201cJean Claude Killy\u201d moment.  It was back in the winter of 1968, not the best year of our American history.  The Winter Olympics were in Grenoble, France, and I was an eleven year-old who knew little about winter sports.  But here was this seemingly out-of-control Frenchman, flying down the mountainside. Even at eleven I recognized that the difference between winning and catastrophe, Gold or out, is a razor thin edge. And  Killy, arms flying, seemed bound to crash into the barriers.  But he didn\u2019t \u2013 his willingness to put everything on the line brought him the Gold.  That\u2019s a lesson I learned \u2013 for sports and for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the first few nights of the 2022 games didn\u2019t have it.  So we moved our viewing away, back to the unending grind of the \u201cnews\u201d.  We even read through a whole evening.  (It isn\u2019t that we don\u2019t read, but usually it\u2019s during the day.  Evening reading usually means early sleeping).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athletic Choices<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday night I tried one more time.  It was the finals of the women\u2019s snowboarding half-pipe competition.  The competitors drop down a twenty-two foot wall into the \u201cpipe\u201d then use that momentum to fly up the other wall \u2013 perform flips, turns, and things I can\u2019t even follow, switches and \u201c940\u2019s\u201d. Then they try to land and do it again on the other side.  It\u2019s incredibly complex, and obviously dangerous.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what caught me was the choices those athletes had to make.  The scoring is the best of three attempts (a lot like track and field).  If you fall \u2013 you fail and that run doesn\u2019t score. The strategic thinking is about how to weigh out the efforts:  go for it all from the beginning and pressure the field or get a safe run in, then build on that momentum.  And, after the first run, the \u201csafe\u201d run, they all got out on that \u201cragged edge\u201d of Gold or failure.  They tried \u201ctricks\u201d that were so hard that the success percentage was low.  They fell, and yet they went back up and tried it once again.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citius, Altius, Fortius<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Chloe Kim is the American champion.  Her runs were incredible, tricks that seemed undoable followed by clean landings into another amazing effort.  And when she had won it all, and could just \u201cmail it in\u201d on her final run, she didn\u2019t.  Chloe took her third run and tried tricks that had never been done in competition before.  She tried to raise the standard of her whole event, and to risk that last Olympic moment as a failure.  And she did fail \u2013 but in the attempt personified the Olympic spirit \u2013 Citius, Altius, Fortius, (faster, higher, stronger) \u2013 even with the Gold medal already around her neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And after the women\u2019s half-pipe, came the men\u2019s figure skating.  The athleticism involved in jumping, spinning, and twirling on the ice is incredible.  And again, I watched athlete after athlete risk their entire performance, give up the \u201csafe\u201d program, to gain the Gold.  For me, who watches figure skating once every four years, the incredible change is the \u201cquad\u201d.  They leap from the ice, and spin four times in the air before they land.  And it\u2019s not just once, it\u2019s four or even five different quads in a performance.  At least, if you want the Gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They fell, one after another.  The only path to Gold was through the quad.  Only one finalist, Jason Brown of the United States, didn\u2019t attempt it.  His was an impressive performance, surely a medalist effort in the 1990\u2019s or early 2000\u2019s.  He knew what he couldn\u2019t do, so he gave everything he could.  He got sixth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chen<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

And then there was the other young American, Michael Chen.  He attempted five quads, four of them seemingly perfect, one flawed but still successful.  And the rest of his performance was incredible, from interpretation to athleticism.  His was the \u201cKilly\u201d moment, when he could take all of his gifts, all of his work, and channel it into a single effort.  He won the Gold medal by over twenty points.  I don\u2019t really know the difference between a salchow and a triple toe loop, but I know an amazing, world class, dedicated athlete when I see one.  Michael Chen is one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019m back watching the Olympic Winter Games.  Last night it was the men\u2019s half-pipe, then the women\u2019s Giant Slalom.  The incredible Sean White made his last Olympic effort, and in true Olympic style, risked it all on his final run.  He was fourth, and it required even more tricks to gain a medal.  He tried and fell:  then showed incredible \u201cclass\u201d as he stood with his younger competitors and cheered on the final medalists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m glad I came back.  They\u2019ll be more sports this weekend \u2013 and another athletic oddity\u2013 the Bengals in the Super Bowl?  (Coach Sam Wyche’s daughter is bringing his ASHES in a silver football to watch the game – not making that up!!). No wonder the world seems so confused.  But as a Cincy native, an original Bengals fan from the beginning in Nippert Stadium \u2013 Who Dey!!!!  Or as a young announcer named Al Michaels said in the 1980 Olympic Winter Games \u2013 \u201cDo you believe in Miracles?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sunday Story Series<\/h5>\n\n\n\n