Winter Olympics reflections from NPR reporters : NPR

The Olympic cauldron on the Arco della Pace in Milan on Sunday.

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Maja Hitij/Getty Images

A worldwide occasion can really feel like a small world

These had been famously spread-out Olympics, however to me — who principally stayed in a single metropolis protecting one sport — they felt virtually instantly like a small world. Soon sufficient, I had my go-to meals spots and most well-liked transit shortcuts, pleasant bits with venue safety guards and a hilariously excessive variety of Snoop Dogg near-misses (I lastly noticed him sitting rinkside with Martha Stewart and Ilia Malinin, well worth the wait). Best of all, I obtained to know lots of the different reporters protecting determine skating. We spent lengthy, late nights within the trenches: watching the acute highs and lows of competitors, alternately discussing and distracting ourselves as we waited downstairs to speak to athletes. We shared quotes, saved seats and — as soon as — sprinted up a number of flights of stairs simply in time for the subsequent skater to take the ice. And it wasn’t simply on the rink; I bumped into a number of compatriots round city, too. I’m so grateful for his or her friendship and knowledge, whether or not concerning the determine skating scoring system or suggestions for salad locations (each are trickier than you’d anticipate).
— Rachel Treisman

Kaori Sakamoto of Team Japan poses for a selfie with different determine skaters on the Exhibition Gala on Saturday.

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Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Memes have their limits

I’m used to protecting the Olympics from afar, which entails conserving a detailed eye on no matter or whoever is instantly trending (chocolate muffins, “pommel horse guy,” a sure shirtless torchbearer). But on the bottom, the meme firewall is fairly sturdy. For one, we’re not listening to TV commentary at stay occasions, and rights restrictions hold us from seeing most of NBC’s viral tweets and clips. Plus, many of those occasions (actually determine skating) go late into the evening in Italy, so I’m asleep when issues are beginning to take off on-line — and do not have my common period of time to scroll/analysis anyway. Don’t get me fallacious, I’ve nonetheless gotten to take pleasure in Quinn Hughes’ blank stares, Elmo’s escalating beef with Rocco and the smooth moves of the curling ice grasp. But it has been attention-grabbing to see the web’s response because the cherry on prime of my viewing expertise, reasonably than the lens for it.
— Rachel Treisman

Mark Messer, Ice Master of the Milano Speed Skating Stadium, watches because the ice is checked between races final week on the Milano Speed Skating Stadium.

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Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Family moments meant essentially the most

My greatest, type of surprising joys throughout the Winter Games had been the moments with household. Elana Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries with their children on the end line of the monobob bobsled competitors. Mikaela Shiffrin talking fantastically about her father’s dying and the way these Olympics helped her study to stay with that loss. Seeing younger athletes with their dad and mom. Seeing the outstanding variety of athletes competing right here with their siblings! I additionally like the truth that these younger athletes appear so much more healthy, mentally and bodily, than after I first began protecting Olympic sports activities 20 years in the past. There’s extra of an effort to make this enjoyable, extra assist for his or her psychological well being, so much much less (not zero) grinding stress.
— Brian Mann

Gold medalist Elana Meyers Taylor of Team USA celebrates together with her household after profitable the monobob Heat 4 final week on the Cortina Sliding Center.

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Julian Finney/Getty Images

The professionals and cons of being far-flung 

I spent loads of time on streetcars, buses, taxis, trains and strolling … limitless strolling … and I’ve to say all of it type of labored. It was a ache within the butt typically. There had been days after I thought possibly I wasn’t going to make it dwelling. But in the long run, Italy managed to string collectively cities and sports activities venues unfold over greater than 8,000 sq. miles, together with among the most rugged terrain on Earth, and all of it type of held collectively. I do assume there are downsides to a broadly dispersed Olympic Games. It’s tougher to dive into completely different sports activities, sampling just a little of this and just a little of that, when occasions are three to 4 hours aside. It’s additionally tougher to have fun (and celebration) after large wins when it’s a must to catch that final bus to your sleepy little mountain city. But the association additionally meant tiny villages within the Alps weren’t completely overrun with mobs of individuals. So loads of my skepticism pale throughout the Games, particularly when buses carried me by excessive Alpine mountain passes, the place the wonder was cinematic.
— Brian Mann

Jordan Stolz of the U.S. competes within the speedskating 1500 meters final week in Milan.

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Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

A brand new golden age for speedskating

I knew little about long-track speedskating coming into the Games, and the game utterly gained me over. They look so calm, whereas going so quick! People can dominate the game at completely different ages — from 19-year-old Jilek Metodej from Czechia, who gained the 10000 meters, to mullet king Jorrit Bergsma, 40, who was uncatchable within the mass begin. Day after day, Olympic data had been smashed, typically twice in the identical race — stunning the skaters themselves, who did not anticipate the ice circumstances to be so dialed-in at a short lived rink. The credit score goes to the athletes who, with coaching, refined strategies, vitamin and sports activities psychology, are getting sooner each 4 years. And promising stars like U.S. skater Jordan Stolz, 21, have not reached the bounds of their potential but.
— Pien Huang

Gold medalist Alysa Liu at her free skate competitors in Milan, Italy.

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Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images

The athletes are all proper

“Winning isn’t all that, and neither is losing. It’s just something that happens,” mentioned figure skater Alysa Liu, after incomes gold in ladies’s determine skating, “What matters is the input and the journey.” Liu’s phrases had been essentially the most seen instance of what I heard repeatedly from Team USA athletes — satisfaction in themselves for displaying up and doing their greatest that day. Speedskater Erin Jackson was upset to overlook medaling within the 500 meters by 0.05 seconds, “but yeah, that’s racing,” she mentioned. “I can’t control podium spots because that’s about how everyone else is [skating] … My personal outlook on sports and competing is about performing my personal best.” It’s a perspective that emphasizes resilience and what a person can management — completely different from the “winning is everything” mentality I recall from watching the Olympics as a ’90s child.
— Pien Huang

Gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin celebrates her win in ladies’s slalom.

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Julian Finney/Getty Images

A grasp class in perseverance 

It is not simple to be an elite athlete, particularly when your Olympic alternative solely comes round each 4 years. Something I used to be blown away by again and again in these Games was the perseverance of athletes — particularly ladies — getting back from a devastating setback. The 41-year-old Lindsey Vonn attracted loads of headlines and media consideration earlier than the Games started due to her genuinely unbelievable comeback out of retirement and again to the highest of the World Cup standings. Her Olympics did not finish the way in which she had hoped, after all, however she mentioned she does not remorse it. And neither does Breezy Johnson, the American downhill skier who badly injured her knee simply earlier than the 2022 Games and needed to sit out, then gained the downhill gold this yr; or Federica Brignone, the Italian star who suffered a ugly leg break final yr solely to show round and win the super-G and big slalom golds in entrance of her family and friends; and naturally Shiffrin, whose all-consuming grief from the surprising dying of her father affected her efficiency in Beijing. “Everything in life that you do after you lose someone you love is like a new experience. It’s like being born again,” she mentioned after profitable the slalom gold.
— Becky Sullivan 

The U.S. males’s hockey group celebrates profitable the gold medal match in opposition to Canada on Saturday.

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Elsa/Getty Images

American hockey is again on prime

I obtained to spend the final 10 days of the Olympics watching the U.S. males’s and girls’s hockey groups, and what a blast that was. Canada has at all times been hockey’s prime canine, and to look at each of those American groups come away with wins — each with a ultimate rating of 2-1 in time beyond regulation — was marvelous. Both gold medals exhibit years of funding in youth growth and the casting of a wider internet for expertise: The males’s captain, Auston Matthews, is Mexican American and grew up in Arizona; the ladies’s brightest younger star, Laila Edwards, was the primary Black girl to compete for the U.S. Olympic hockey group. The return of NHL gamers to the Olympics paid off with electrical, must-watch TV. The success of the PWHL (thanks in no small half to Team USA captain Hilary Knight) means the ladies’s gamers can pursue a profession, and the standard of their recreation will solely enhance. American hockey is in a terrific place, and the 2 Olympic gold medals are proof.
— Becky Sullivan 

The silver-medal celebration for the U.S. on the males’s group cross-country free dash: Gus Schumacher, left, and Ben Ogden.

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Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP through Getty Images

American cross-country skiers have so much to be pleased with

As an avid fan {of professional} cross-country snowboarding, I really like that the game has so some ways to measure success. Sure, profitable races is necessary and everybody’s aim, however measuring athletes solely by the place they end in race outcomes is fairly superficial.

That being mentioned, the 2 silver medals the U.S. males gained are an enormous, historic accomplishment. They are the all-time Olympic efficiency for American males, who’ve just one different medal, a silver from 1976. Ben Ogden has educated arduous for years to get on podiums in an especially aggressive subject, dominated these days by essentially the most superlative expertise the game has seen in a era, and sure ever: Norway’s Johannes Klaebo.

Ogden’s silver within the particular person dash, adopted by one other within the group dash with teammate Gus Schumacher, need to be celebrated for the wonderful accomplishments they’re. They mirror sustained focus and dedication.

Jessie Diggins medaling in her third Olympics is a superb, unprecedented achievement for an American cross-country skier as nicely. No one on the group confronted extra stress and expectations than Diggins, and she or he bore up beneath it with attribute class. Beyond her many profession accomplishments on snow, Diggins has repeatedly emphasised that non-public development, sustaining good psychological well being and constructing sturdy relationships with teammates are what rely most. She can retire with satisfaction.

A look on the American cross-country group’s medal rely solely tells a really small a part of their Olympian achievements.
— Eric Whitney