On the Slopes

Shaun White proved why he is the Michael Phelps of snowboarding, having come back from a shaky second run in the men's halfpipe at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics to nail it in the third.  It was touch and go there, and the snow on the course proved to be as hard as ice - it was too much for some of the competitors - but White came through like the champion he is, winning his third career gold medal.

Meanwhile, in skiing . . . Will the women's slalom ever be held?  Will any of the skiing competitions that have already started even finish?  Bad weather on the course has prevented Mikaela Shiffrin, the young skier with the stellar ability and the spell-checker-unfriendly name, has just had her PyeongChang on the women's slalom debut delayed for the second time because of it.  I haven't seen Winter Olympic skiing be delayed by bad weather this much since Sarajevo in 1984.  At least NBC can shift to figure skating; back in 1984, ABC had to settle for commentary and music from John Denver to fill the time.

And Bosnian turnip carts.

Wow - a country-folk-pop singer who hadn't had a hit in three years . . . and adventures in pushcart vending on the streets of Sarajevo!  Oh, the drama! 

And people wonder why ABC lost coverage of the Olympics . . ..

Though it's been a long time since I've seen a Bosnian turnip cart.

With the weather in the mountains of South Korea being what it is, the Winter Olympic organizers might have to give up the ski competition for Lent.

There are in fact a lot of Catholics in South Korea . . ..

Kim and White

I'm not talking about an architectural firm.

Chloe Kim won the gold medal in the women's snowboarding halfpipe competition at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics with flying colors and by just flying.  I definitely noticed that her ability to surf the snow far exceeded the competition. She was swifter, higher and stronger, just like the Olympic credo.  It was a special moment for her, not just to win a gold medal at seventeen years of age, but to win it on the snow and soil of her parents' homeland. (That's right, another child of immigrants - are you listening, Tom Cotton?)      

Of course, on the men's side, there's still Shaun White. :-)

Most snowboarders perform the same, and it's hard to tell one from the other watching it on TV.  Not Shaun White.  You know it's him from how he files in the air. And after a disappointing run in Sochi in 2014, White distinguished himself in the qualifying runs, handling the course as if he were already going for the gold medal.  And he's 31.

Chloe Kim and Shaun White are not part of American snowboarding. They are American snowboarding.  They're pretty much global snowboarding too.  The other halfpipe competitors in both the men's and women's competition are just imitators.

Those halfpipe imitations put me on the blink. ;-)