On Sunday, February 23rd, the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics came to a close and the final results came in. Russia maximized their home field advantage, raking in both the title for highest amount of medals won overall, as well as the highest amount of gold medals. The United States took home the second highest amount of medals, with twenty-eight medals total. However, the United States only ranked fourth in terms of gold medals, with only nine gold medals won. More bad new: the Sochi Winter Olympics are the first Winter Olympics since 1936 where the U.S hasn’t medaled in individual figure skating and the first Olympics since 1984 that the U.S hasn’t medaled in speed-skating. Although the women’s team did manage to win a silver medal, both the men and women’s hockey teams experienced crushing defeats.
But before we Americans get too down on ourselves, there are a few important Olympic highlights that we can bask in. Figure skating team Meryl Davis and Charlie White medaled gold in ice dancing and bronze in the pair’s figure skating competition. Sage Kotsenburg won the gold medal in the snowboard slope competition. Ted Ligety won the gold in the Men’s Giant Slalom. Joss Christensen skied his way to a gold in the men’s ski slopestyle competition. Jamie Anderson also placed gold in the first-ever women’s slopestyle competition and Maddie Bownman took home the first-ever U.S gold in women’s half-pipe skiing.
But, in my mind, the biggest highlight of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics was eighteen year old Mikaela Shiffrin, who placed gold in the women’s giant slalom competition, becoming the youngest slalom gold medalist in Olympic history. But Mikaela’s gold medal is not the reason why she is my favorite Olympic athlete of 2014.
Mikaela is a unique Olympian because she is a pioneer within her sport. While most well known U.S skiers such as Lindsey Vonn focus on speed, Mikaela, from a young age, has focused on perfecting her skiing technique and the precision of her movements. Mikaela doesn’t rely on her natural aptitude or athleticism to carry her through competition. She is an incredibly disciplined and hardworking athlete. Her enormous success in the Olympic is no doubt due to her hard work and diligence. In fact, in the final leg of her gold-winning race, Shiffrin nearly crashed. Fortunately, her training and devotion to mastering her skiing technique came through. Shiffrin’s description of how she recovered from her near-crash on the course, demonstrates her mastered technique. “I’ve made that recovery in practice a hundred times, if not more. So I said, ‘You know what to do — charge back into the course.” She went on from this recovery to win the race and the gold.
I am excited to see where Mikeala goes from her victory in the Olympics. I don’t expect to see her taking any breaks from training. She will keep practicing and perfecting her craft. I am definitely looking forward to cheering her on at the next Winter Olympics.