Favourite Athletes

For  Canada, erm in no specific order;

A lot of these are similar to 's, but the same moments are standing out to me, there's also one that I'm not ready to mention yet because even though I'm proud of him, at the same time I'm still very disappointed about it. 

- Rachel Homan finally winning an Olympic medal after receiving a lot of hate after Pyeongchang 2018 and Beijing 2022 for not making the playoffs in either, she deserves this more than anyone. Also her triple takeout in the 8th against Sweden

- Entire cross country skiing team, no words to describe their performance, except saying they're easily the Canadian team of the Olympics and my expectations were blew out of the water. 

- Piper Gilles/Paul Porier winning an Olympic medal in ice dance, three years ago, Gilles had a cancer diagnosis which put her dreams in jeopardy. Also very special given how many times they've been screwed over by judges this season. 

- One of the greatest to ever do it in freestyle skiing, Mikael Kingsbury, winning gold in the Olympic debut of dual moguls in likely his last event at an Olympic Games.  

- "Sparky" Mark McMorris, coming back from that nasty hard crash during big air training, to not only compete in slopestyle, but finish third in qualifications and land a run in the final to finish 8th. Respect. 

- Brad Jacobs winning gold in men's curling as a big "fuck you" to everyone who has been accusing him of cheating online (I still like Edin but still), mostly people who don't understand curling ofc 

- Kelsey Mitchell fulfilling her dreams of becoming a dual summer-winter Olympian in 2-women bobsleigh, after only 8 months of competing in this sport. Insane! 

- Stephen Gogolev finishing 5th in the men's figure skating event, thought top 10-15 would've been what could realistically be expected.

- Megan Oldham winning her first Olympic medal with a bronze in slopestyle, then later on winning a gold in big air, after finishing 4th in big air in Beijing. 

- Deanna Stellato-Dudek becoming an Olympian after hitting her head during a training accident, which had her and Maxime Deschamps miss the figure skating team event.  

- Valerie Maltais winning three Olympic medals in speed skating at 35, team pursuit gold, and 1500m/3000m bronze. At most you could've hoped for 2, one of the 3000m/mass start and the team pursuit. Her winning a medal in the 1500m, can't have imagined it beyond my wildest dreams, it was her first international podium in this event. It's also likely her last Olympics. 

- Brendan Mackay coming up clutch on his last run to win an unexpected bronze in halfpipe as he didn't compete much this season, that being said he did win an event this season. 

- Laurent Dubreuil's surprise medal in the 500m in speed skating
- Courtney Sarault winning four medals, most medals by a Canadian at a Winter Olympics since Klassen in 2006, even though I choose to try and forget about short track. 

Then International Athletes, in no specific order;

•  Johan-Olav Botn pointing to the heavens to honour Sivert-Guttorm Bakken 
•  Benny Karl winning back-to-back golds in parallel giant slalom, ofc 
• Totallympian  's Olympic debut (we are all so proud of you)
• Men's freestyle skiing big air final, we were blessed with some insane tricks from the boys  
•  AJ Ginnis' farewell run, because it meant him becoming an Olympian
•  Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo creating history as the first athlete to win 6 Olympic golds in a single games
• One of the greatest alpine skiers of all time,  Federica Brignone, winning her long awaited Olympic gold, and a few days later winning another one, the more special one to me was the super-G though
•  Kacper Tomasiak becoming one of the breakout stars of the games with 3 medals
•  female biathlon team 
•  Von Allmen with an incredible Olympic debut, with 3 golds  (we'll choose to forget about Odi here... at least he won one in Beijing 2022?)
• Nazgul, the dog, crossing the finish line during women's team sprint qualifications 
•  Suvi Minkinnen and especially  Teresa Vobronikova winning bronze medals in biathlon  
•  winning three medals in ski mountaineering, and especially Oriol Cardona Coll with the gold
• More on ski mountaineering,  Marianne Fatton winning gold in the women's event, she seems like a nice person and a great ambassador for the sport. 
•  Mikhail Shaidorov upsetting Malinin to win gold in men's figure skating
•  Sturla Holm Lægrid admitting to cheating on his girlfriend publicly in an interview (kidding) 
•  Nadja Käelin coming from out of nowhere, and having an incredible Olympics
•  Hassleborg and Isabella/Rasmus Wråna winning double gold for Sweden in curling, continuing their legacy of a strong history in this sport, very happy for all of them as they are all some of my favourite curlers.
•  Tirinzoni winning an Olympic medal in what is likely to be her last Olympics after seeing how dominant she's been ever since the 2018-19 season, same with Pätz if she does hang up her broom. 
•  Riku Miura/Ryuichi Kihara's WR in the pairs free skate 
•  Thorup medal in the mass start, even though the race was boring
•  Eileen Gu winning gold in halfpipe, after her grandmother passed away the very same day. She didn't know about it until after the event, but I think to me with how she performed, her grandmother seemed to be giving her that extra bit of strength from above. 
• Medal for  Henry Sildaru in halfpipe, and not only a final but a top 8 for  Benjamin Lynch 
•  Elina Ieva Bota winning a medal in women's singles luge
•  with three medals in in nordic combined, Eero Hirvonen and Ilkka Herola  
• A few curling shots that stood out, Mouat's run quadruple in the 7th end against Switzerland in the semifinals,  Muskatewitz's quadruple runback double in the 1st end against China and his spinner in the 5th end against Czechia (definitely a few that I'm missing)
• Just seeing how happy everyone was every time one of their athletes either medaled, or did better than expectations, definitely was one of them.