I know I’m one of the few sports writers to jump on my keyboard to talk about Mikaela Shiffrin breaks all-time record for wins — reached 87th place in re, Swedenand pass the Ingemar Stenmark on Saturday – but I wanted to give this as a reminder that Olympic success is bullshit. The last image the sports world has of Shiffrin is she sobbed after being hit Her way out of China’s rinky-dinkhalf-covered ski mountain at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
That is an exception, and a once. Her dominance continued as soon as she returned to the right courses and conditions for skiing in the World Cup. However, the casual fan is not locked into niche sports. Olympic medals were ringz culture before we knew ringz culture existed. Think about if players were only allowed to win a championship every four years. The other three are not important, because this fact is the only fact.
Experts say Lionel Messi needs a World Cup to cement his GOAT status, and we agreed rather than appreciate that he has enough accolades and hardware to fill a court apartment. In sport, everything has to be ranked, measured and put in its rightful place. The purpose of sport is competition, and everyone is a winner or a loser.
If that’s all that matters, then why do we have Hall of Fame or All-NBA or All-Star teams with players who don’t have titles? The reasons to watch sports and play them are not the same. If the opponents have their way, they will beat the opponent and the audience will not care about the halftime.
The reason we watch sports is not only to see who wins, but also because of its drama, plot and world-class sportsmanship. If it’s just about the results, you just have to wait for the ESPN app to tell you the final results. We want to take on great, inspiring talent. Zion Williamson dribbles. Bo Jackson runs.
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And Mikaela Shiffrin rips an alpine course.
An appreciation of professional winter athletes
The reason I’m interested in Shiffrin is because my personal favorite sport (activity?) is skiing. Sitting on an elevator and seeing someone go in and out of the elevator the trees are like a well-trained James Bond, very interesting. I’ve achieved super speeds according to the app on my phone, but I’ve also done the runs Shiffrin and Co. are aligning, and that’s no joke.
The same goes for the people at X Games. There’s no way to contextualize the magnitude of those jumps and the slope of the terrain until you’ve seen it with your own eyes. The mental strength it took to do the miracles they did – inches from the hospital bed at a time – was terrible. And that’s how I would describe Shiffrin.
She’s a fucking bitch. Damn you. She’s out there just competing with herself. Few of her competitors are even close.
So don’t let the medal culture affect you because she is the most winning skier in the sport and will be GOAT when she hangs up her skis.
