Starting February 9th, Pyeongchang County, South Korea, will host the 2018 Winter Olympics, nearly a century after the first Winter Olympics was held in 1924. This year’s event is filled with just as much, if not more, drama than in years past.
The country of Russia shocked the world when Olympic Board Investigators found that they had given their athletes performance enhancing drugs. Consequently, they were eliminated from the competition. The official Olympics Board decided to allow Russian athletes to compete under the generic Olympic flag, but received backlash when Russian officials responded with a call for a boycott of the Olympics altogether.
South Korea recently announced that they would be competing under a unified flag with their Northern counterpart, an astounding revelation among a past year filled with tensions and threats. In some sports, most notably women’s hockey, the two countries will share a team. However, this news was met with an outburst of protests from South Koreans, dampening the normally exciting news
In the world of ice skating, teenage phenom Nathan Chen is tearing up the ice, gathering an incredible amount of excitement and support, and will attempt to bring home the gold for the US along with his teammates Vincent Zhou and Adam Rippon
Jim Johansson, the general manager of the United States hockey team, saddened the entire hockey world when he passed away in his sleep at the age of 53, just days before the start of the competition. Johansson was in charge of choosing this year’s hockey team, and with the NHL choosing to remove their players from the international competition, his job was as daunting as ever. Johansson wanted to choose 25 players with 25 “stories,” and create a team as memorable as the legendary “Miracle on Ice” team of the 1980s.
All in all, since the very origins of the Olympics back in Ancient Greece, the Olympics served as a period of time where people from all over the world could come together peacefully and have their athletes compete to bring pride for their countries. Whether it be in a time of death, war, or peace, the Olympics always served as a bright spot and time for celebration. Despite all the drama and politics surrounding this year’s winter event, fans all over the world hope that this year’s Olympics can do the same.
Image from Creative Commons
