"It was the Olympics of politics and penises, of JD Vance being jeered and of Ukrainian bobsledders being banned from the competition, of a convicted criminal beating the teammate she was guilty of defrauding, of Lindsey Vonn crashing out 12 seconds into the race and of Ilia Malinin making one mistake too many, of the internet became momentarily obsessed with slowmotion videos of a Canadian stroking a curling stone with the tip of his finger,"
"The great inferiority of these snow sports is that they are completely useless, Coubertin wrote, with no useful application whatsoever. But it's true, too, that over time he changed his mind. And by the end of the International Olympic Committee's very first Olympic winter sports week at Chamonix in 1924 he gave a speech in which he told his audience that winter sports are among the purest."
The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics combined spectacle, political tensions, and odd moments: jeering of JD Vance, Ukrainian bobsledder bans, a convicted athlete beating a defrauded teammate, Lindsey Vonn crashing early, Ilia Malinin erring, viral slow-motion curling videos, and Norwegian ski jumpers refusing questions about alleged genital injections. Pierre de Coubertin initially opposed winter sports as useless but later celebrated their purity after Chamonix 1924. Most winter sports remain culturally central only in a few countries, limiting mass participation. That practical uselessness contributes to their purity and inspirational appeal, and competitors pursue passion and national pride rather than wealth.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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