Best of Milan - Cortina 2026

I really get into the Summer Olympics, but have also gotten into watching the Winter Olympics in February in recent years (really since I was home on maternity leave after Niall's birth, I think!).

There were many amazing highlights over the past two weeks-- Johannes Høsflot Klæbo dominating the men's cross-country skiing events, seeing some crazy falls and recoveries (a Swedish ski relay team, a backwards finish in mogul/ski-jumping), and some incredible American triumphs, including Elana Meyers Taylor becoming the oldest woman (41 and a mother of two deaf sons, one who also has Down Syndrome) to win gold in her specialty, the individual bobsled. I loved watching Mikaela Shiffrin overcome her Olympic woes to win gold in the slalom, even as I cringed as Lindsay Vonn majorly crashed on on her race, skiing on a torn ACL, and watched young Jordan Stolz skate to gold in speed-skating.

I never watch hockey, but was compelled to watch (highlights of, because how can one watch that many minutes of hockey?! It's like low-yield scoring soccer!) both the men and women's gold medal games against Canada. The women's game was more exciting, as they were down 0-1 until a few minutes remained in regular time but pulled their goalie to have six women trying to score, and miraculously sent the match into overtime, where Megan Keller scored within a few minutes to win it for Team USA.

Then, on the anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, the U.S. men snuck out a 2-1 (overtime) victory over the favored Canadians to take home double gold. Some sexist comments (relating to cozying up with Trump/his cronies) turned me against the character of many of the men's players, but I can appreciate their athleticism and their sports moment, all the while lamenting all of their missing teeth. 

What touched me the most of the games, however, was watching twenty-year-old Alysa Liu bring home her individual figure skating gold medal in a free skate I will never forget and which had me near tears. We gasped at watching Ilia Malinin, the "Quad God," and the favorite for the men's goal, fall on ice repeatedly under the high pressure in his routine earlier in the week, finishing a disappointing eighth. But Alysa, the daughter born out of a surrogate pregnancy to a single Chinese man, and who retired from the sport at 16 due to burnout, made a joy-filled comeback on her own terms, and stunned the figure skating world and all of us watching, bringing home the first American individual figure skating women's gold in over two decades after skating her entire routine with a smile on her face, apparently impervious to Olympic pressure. JUST WOW! 

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Looking forward to LA2028 and the French Alps in 2030!