Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Update (Day 8)
The Olympics are one of the most unique sporting events in the entire world and there are so many reasons for that.
There is the fact that this is the biggest stage that any of these athletes could hope for as it showcases the best of amateur athletics.
It is partly due to the size of the games as the Olympics are one of the largest sporting events in the world.
There is the fact that this is a chance for the entire world to step onto a stage and show what they have.
Another massive reason for the uniqueness of the games is that fact that they only occur every four years.
There is something that most fans will understand about sports but always seems to be a weird thing to say.
Sports years are different than regular years as a certain age in sports is extremely old while that same age in real life is just the start.
These sports years tend to see a massive evolution very quickly and in four years things can look entirely different.
A sport can go from a fairly new one where athletes take it as a secondary pursuit to becoming a sport that requires pure focus on that discipline.
So the Olympics is in a constant state of flux for either the summer or the winter games with four years in between each meaning a big evolution.
The four years from one Winter games to the next ca change everything for a sport and a discipline and for athletes that makes things tough.
These athletes often only have a few Olympics to participate in and in their four years, they are all forced to keep up with the trend of their sport.
Things will always get bigger and better as younger athletes bring more athleticism and the ability to do more.
It is part of the struggle for every athlete as they need to keep up or be left behind and one of the perfect displays of that evolution is in figure skating.
Although every sport has that same type of evolution the changes in the men’s figure skating have been fairly pronounced over the last decade.
Like so many sports that involve big tricks and jumps there will always come a time when someone finds the next evolution.
In men’s figure skating it was all about the number of twists that can be done on any given jump.
For years it was all about the triples as nobody could compete without being able to rotate three times in the air.
In 2014 in Sochi the competition showed a big change as the top skaters in the world could throw quadruples into the mix.
In 2018 there was no chance for any skater not able to do a quadruple but more than that the best skaters in the world had to do multiple quadruples in their programs.
As that evolution continues in this sport the challenges on the best skaters in the world get tougher.
The evolution of the sport is shown in the fact that the men’s figure skating gold medal has never seen a repeat champion since 1948.
Every four years another skater emerged to take the crown while the old champion was forced to take a backseat.
One man was trying to change that this time around as Yuzuru Hanyu was looking to become the first repeat Olympic champion since 1948.
It was not going to be easy because of that evolution and the number of people that had essentially caught up to his level of skating.
He did end up taking the gold while teammate Shoma Umo took the silver medal as one of the few that might challenge him for years to come.
Figure skating expresses the evolution perfectly but it is far from the only sport to have that evolution in it during the Olympics.
The spacing between the Olympics makes it tough for anyone to repeat as a champion or just a medalist in any sport.
The four years in between the games forces everyone to evolve and for the veteran Olympians, it could be even tougher to keep up.
The Canadian Story:
Short Track Haul
The medal total got some welcome additions for Canada on Day 8 as the short track speed skating team was back on the podium. Kim Boutin has had a strange Olympics after receiving death threats from her first race but she got back on track to take another bronze in the 1,500m race. Meanwhile, the future of the men’s team stepped up with Samuel Girard taking a gold medal in the 1,000m race.
Comeback Trail
The start for the women’s Curling team has not been very good after dropping their first three games in the tournament. Rachel Homan and her rink got back on track on Day 8 though as they took their first win of the tournament. It wasn’t only a win though as the Canadians put up 11 points against the Americans to make a statement that they were not going to be out of it quite yet as they look for the comeback.
Familiar Loss
It was a familiar game for hockey historians as the Canadians were taking on the Czech Republic 20 years since they lost to the Czechs in the gold medal game of the 1998 Olympics. In that game, the Canadians infamously didn’t use Wayne Gretzky in the shootout and took the loss with the “Great One” sitting on the bench. This time it was all too familiar as the game went to a shootout but without the controversy, they still took the loss, their first of the tournament.
The Sport Addiction 