Team USA, Champions of Beijing, 2022…
We have had a month to reflect on the paradoxes of the Beijing Olympics, 2022, and some things are worth noting. Who were the winners? Who were the losers? Who earned our respect and who, our disdain? For the latter, please go to https://www.merleschell.com/reflections/losers-in-beijing/
The winners are the focus here: The 2,871 athletes from 91 nations who competed in 109 events and will forever be Olympians. Those who stood on the podium. Those who fell short of the heights. All displayed courage, grace, and character whether embracing the complete happiness of hard-won victory or facing up to loss and shattered dreams. The lives of Olympian men and women are compelling testaments to their personal and professional stature. Here are a few of the stories from Team USA:
Speed skating only since 2017, Erin Jackson raced to #1 world ranking and was an overwhelming favorite to win 500 meter gold in Beijing. A stumble at the Olympic trials cost her place on Team USA. That might have been the end of the story, but friend and teammate Brittany Bowe gave her spot in the 500 meters to Jackson who won gold – the first Black women to win a Winter Games individual event for Team USA. Days later, Bowe won a bronze medal in the 1,000 meter race. Win! Win!
Could she win back-to-back Olympic gold? In Beijing, snowboarder Chloe Kim answered the question convincingly, scoring a second gold medal in the woman’s halfpipe. Her first was at the 2018 Olympic Games in PyeongChang, where, at 17, she was the youngest female Olympian to ever win that event. Her grandmother and other family who still live in South Korea watched her do it. Kim has been collecting medals (mostly gold) since 2014. She will be just 25 at the 2026 Winter Games in Italy.
Mikaela Schiffrin was supposed to win. The youngest alpine skier to win Olympic Gold at age 18 in Sochi, 2014, Schriffin has more medals to her credit than anyone else in her sport – male or female. But she left Beijing empty-handed. We may never know the reasons. Yet even in her personal despair and confusion, Schriffin was a study in grace, fortitude, and courage. She attempted all of her events, made no excuses, and faced the media with honesty and dignity like the role model and champion she is.
Soon after arriving in Beijing, bobsledder Elena Meyers Taylor tested positive for COVID. She had to isolate from her son who was still nursing and forgo the honor of carrying the flag for Team USA during opening ceremonies. After two negative tests, Meyers Taylor won a silver medal in the debut monobob (newly minted US citizen Kaillie Humphries claimed gold). Then In the two-woman bobsled event, she and Sylvia Hoffman won bronze. With five medals over four Olympic Games, Meyers Taylor became the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympics history. She carried the flag in the closing ceremony.
In snowboard cross, Lindsey Jacobellis stands alone. Over two decades, she has won more medals in her sport than any female athlete ever, but waited 16 years chasing one more. In this, her fifth Olympic Games, Jacobellis was laser-focused and claimed the gold medal that she let slip away in Turin. Then, she did one better, winning a second gold at a new paired event that gave her teammate Nick Baumgartner his first Olympic gold medal after a drought as long as her own. Persistence personified.
Announcing that he would retire after the 2022 Olympics, Shaun White wanted to scale the heights of the halfpipe and reach the medal stand one last time. The legendary snowboarder - who pushed his sport and its participants to achieve seemingly impossible aerial feats - fell on his last run. Not a fairy-tale ending, but real life was better. White’s competitors lined up to applaud, congratulate, and thank him for making their sport a respected, exciting, must-see event. Their tribute is his ultimate win.
When he was three years old, Nathan Chen stepped on the ice for the first time in his older sister’s hand-me-down skates. Over the past 19 years, he has perfected his craft. Combining athleticism and artistry, Chen has won three world and six national championships plus countless other figure skating competitions. Called King of the Quads, he is considered one of the greatest of all time. At his first Olympics four years ago in South Korea, Chen faltered and failed to medal. With characteristic humility, he called PyeongChang a learning experience, and worked with a sports psychologist to develop a mindset of appreciation, happiness in the moment, and belief that neither winning nor losing would define him. This time, in Beijing, Chen earned his gold medal in stunning, definitive style.
The journey to becoming an Olympian instills self-discipline, a quest for excellence, and purpose that form one’s character. They - along with ambition and self-awareness - are the foundation for a lifetime. They hold you up, push you forward, gift you with pride and contentment – not only for the medals you may win, but for the person you are.
What matters in the end is not what country you play for or what company you work for, but what values you stand for: Dedication, hard work, perseverance, humanity, humility, sportsmanship, a sense of fun, exhilaration, passion, and gratitude for what you have been given and what you have achieved. And when the spotlight is gone, you can smile with satisfaction for what is past and what is yet to come. Because you will remain.
To Team USA and all the Olympians of the 2022 Games in Beijing: You lift us up. You give us hope. We see the promise of ourselves in you. We say, “Thank you,” and are glad.
Now, thrill, marvel, be inspired, laugh out loud, and applaud as Nathan Chen skates to gold with exceptional skill, soaring exuberance, unfettered freedom, and pure joy. You may want to watch his performance more than once.