Winter Olympics: Three Days of Drama, Triumph and Controversy
Credit: Hert Niks on Unsplash
Winter Olympics going over your head? We’ve got you covered. Here’s a roundup of the controversy, tragedy, and victory in the first 3 days so far.
As of writing (in my pyjamas, on Sunday 8th February), Norway and the hosts Italy are tied top of the medal tables, with the Scandinavians top having won two gold medals to Italy’s one. Great Britain currently have no medals; however it is early days, and the mixed curling doubles team have been performing well lately: maintaining a 7-0 record in the sport. Curling has often proved fruitful for Team GB, with the women’s team winning gold in 2002 and famously in the previous Games in Beijing (which sparked a ‘curling craze’)
Like certain people you may know, Great Britain are also chasing success in the two-man, this time in a bobsleigh: where Brad Hall will be hoping to keep up his recent good form, having piloted a crew to silver in the World Cup last season. A final pair of ‘ones-to-watch’ has to be Kirsty Muir and Mia Brookes who, in Freestyle skiing and snowboarding respectively, are looking to win Team GB’s first ever medals on the snow. Muir has won two World Cup gold medals including a big air title in China in November. Brookes has been described as a ‘generational talent’, having won the slopestyle gold at the age of 16 in 2023. Last year, she won gold in both slopestyle and big air competitions at the highest level.
Iconic American downhill skier Lindsey Vonn has recently dominated the headlines as she, aged 41, sought to compete in the competition on Sunday having ruptured her ACL just over a week earlier. For those, unlike Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in 2018, who are unfamiliar with ACL knee injuries, they usually require somewhere between 8-12 months recovery. Vonn coming back within a fortnight was momentous: however, it ended in tragedy when she suffered a heavy crash earlier this very morning and was airlifted to hospital. Breezy Johnson, Vonn’s US teammate, won the event by just 0.04 seconds on an emotional day for the sport. Vonn had been tipped for podium, having medalled in all 5 of the races in the 2025-26 season and been the figurehead for the sport over more than a decade – winning a total of eighty-four World Cup races across her career. Four-time British Olympian Chemmy Alcott was emotional when she said she ‘never believed’ Vonn’s career would end this way.
In other news, Norwegian ‘rockstar’ Johannes Hosflot Klaebo won the first of potentially six golds at this Games in the 10km+10km skiathlon. This takes his Olympic gold medal tally just 2 away from the all-time winter record of 8 which is jointly held by three retired Norwegian skiiers. As the qualifies trundle on in the background, a steady stream of finals take place as the Games take place until February 22nd.
To footnote this summary, a small nod should go to the somewhat comical penis enlargement scandal taking place in ski jumping these Games. A German newspaper, Bild, reported in January that some male jumpers were injecting their penises with hyaluronic acid to increase circumference by a couple of centimetres. This change in surface area can make the difference in a sport like ski jumping where even 1% increased surface area increases the length of a jump. Norwegian ski jumpers have been mixed on the controversy with some suggesting that all PR is good PR when it comes to smaller sports, however many say that this has brought attention to the sport in the wrong way. While the acid isn’t illegal in the sport, it does bring difficult discussion surrounding the integrity of the sport: hopefully ski jumping can rise – pardon the pun – above this potentially fictious scandal with excellent competition on Monday evening.
Words by James Morgan