Johannes Høsflot Klæbo’s pursuit of a record 9th gold medal is the gift of greatness the Olympics provide

Veteran sportswriter Richard Deitsch takes an international view of the Olympics.

I was thinking today about the most fundamental reason I love watching the Olympics. What I came up with was this:

Discovering greatness. 

To watch your fellow human do something extraordinary is to travel to an elevated place that makes you appreciate your moment on the planet. This speech, from the late actor J.C. Quinn in the movie Vision Quest, explains it much better than I can. 

In search of greatness, I am going to make time Sunday to watch a sport I normally would never view during the year. Norway cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is one gold medal away from breaking the record for most gold medals won at the Winter Olympics.

With eight, Klæbo is tied with three fellow Norwegians (Marit Bjoergen, Ole Einar Bjorndalen, Bjorn Daehlie) for the all-time mark. He will stand alone if Norway places first in the men’s 4×7.5km relay. The race begins at 6 a.m. ET and there are 10 countries competing, with Norway as the heavy favourites. The Athletic’s Jacob Whitehead watched Klæbo’s last race with his father and it makes for fascinating insight into what makes the Norwegian great.

Greatness existed on Saturday, too. American speed skater Jordan Stolz, bidding to win four gold medals at these Games, won his second so far with an Olympic record time of 33.77 in the men’s 500 metres. In a thrilling pairing, Stolz edged out the Netherlands’ Jenning de Boo, who skated aside him and won silver. (And what a bronze medal for Canada’s Laurent Dubreuil!) All three podium members set Olympic records during the race. Stolz still has the men’s 1,500 metres on Thursday and the mass start on Feb. 21.

Who Will Star On Sunday 

American alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin attempts to get back on the Olympic podium for the first time since 2018 in the women’s giant slalom. The first run starts at 4 a.m. ET; the final run is 7:30 a.m. ET. Shiffrin is a four-time giant slalom world champion and won gold in this event at the 2018 PyeongChang Games.

Women’s monobob (4 a.m. ET) features a ton of storylines. Kallie Humphries Armbruster competed for Canada for three Olympics — winning back-to-back gold medals in two-woman bobsled — before becoming a U.S. citizen in 2021. Elena Meyers Taylor is a five-time medallist for the U.S. and will be seeking her first career gold medal at age 41. Germany’s Laura Nolte and Lisa Buckwitz are serious medal favourites here. Cynthia Appiah is Canada’s best hope.

The Milano Speed Skating Stadium in Rho, a suburb of Milan, continues to be one of the best arenas at the Games. The women’s 500-metre race (11:15 a.m. ET) features the gold and silver medallists from the women’s 1000 metres — Jutta Leerdam and Femke Kok of the Netherlands.

Kok is the three-time world champion and record-holder in the 500 and just missed out in the 1,000 against Leerdam who set an Olympic record in the event. One of the easiest (and laziest) narratives would be to pit the two against each other but Kik says the competition is based on respect.

“To be on that podium together is amazing,” Kok said after Monday’s race. “The (Dutch) press often says, ‘Oh, Femke, Jutta’, this and that. But we really have a lot of respect for one another. We really challenge each other, put pressure on one another.”

Erin Jackson, the defending Olympic champion and Team USA flag-bearer, is the one to watch against Kok. 

The shocker of the Games

I still find myself thinking about Ilia Malinin 24 hours later. 

There is nothing like Olympic pressure — perhaps a FIFA World Cup Final — because the entire sporting planet is watching. I was curious how Malinin’s free skate collapse was perceived from those covering the Olympics and I thought it worth sharing some of the more thoughtful pieces on it. Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde addressed the Olympic pressure and how it impacted Malinin and Shiffrin versus Michael Phelps. Bryan Graham of The Guardian spoke of a sport without sentiment. The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson II compared the shock to Mike Tyson losing to Buster Douglas. The Washington Post writer Barry Svrluga notably focused on gold medallist Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, a reminder that someone else always wins when the favourite falls. 

Olympic imagery

Numbers to know

99 – Per cent chance of victory (-10,000) for Malinan on some betting sites. 

36 – Age of Janine Flock, who finally found Olympic glory on Saturday in women’s skeleton. Flock, a three-time World Cup overall champion with 15 World Cup race wins, 45 World Cup medals overall, had missed the podium in her three previous Olympics.

3 – Days, according to Italian outlet La Stampa, that it took for the complimentary condoms distributed inside the Olympic Village in Cortina ran out.

2 – Men in the history of the Winter Olympic Games who have won both the 500 and 1,000 metres in men’s speedskating at the same Olympics — Eric Heiden and Jordan Stolz.

1 – Winter Olympic gold medal for Brazil (and the continent of South America) thanks to Lucas Pinheiro Braathen gold in men’s giant slalom.The Brazilian finished his two-run combined time on Saturday in two minutes 25 seconds, topping Swiss racer Marco Odermatt, the defending Olympic champion, by 0.58 seconds. 

What we’re reading around the web

► See the Jumps That Knocked Ilia Malinin Off the Podium. By The New York Times.

► French skating coach grabs spotlight with jacket swaps at Olympics. By Colleen Brady of The Associated Press

► Colder, higher, faster: The Winter Olympics’ most extreme moments in three charts. By Alex Leeds Matthews of CNN

► After a bad night for U.S. figure skating, here’s Max Naumov, looking to tomorrow. By Steve Buckley of The Athletic. 

► Curlers are loving the raucous crowds at Winter Games. By Aadi Nair of Reuters.

► Kiss-and-cry: Is figure skating’s voyeuristic staple worth the mental health toll on its athletes. By Dave Skeretta of the Associated Press