Performances Underwhelming Thus Far

The Olympics is supposed to be the pinnacle for the world’s top athletes – the absolute best. But the performances haven’t looked that way in the early going.

In the pairs free skate, China’s Qing Pang and Jian Tong were the only ones I saw that skated relatively cleanly without any major mistakes (i.e. falling, tripping, downgrading a jump or skating out of unison.) Pang and Tong earned the highest scores of the night and a silver medal. Their veteran countrymen, Shen and Zhao, won gold despite struggling and falling out of a lift too early. But the two skated a flawless short program Sunday night, which provided them some leeway. The gold medal for China was its first ever in pairs figure skating, and maybe even more notably, stopped a streak of 12 straight Olympic pairs figure skating gold medals for Russia, dating back to 1964.

Also, the men’s snowboard cross, an event where American Seth Wescott won gold, featured someone losing control on every run. In the finals, fellow American Nate Holland’s spinout cost him a medal. He ended up finishing fourth.

I wish the flawless performances, like Shen and Zhao short program, weren’t so few and far between. Medals should be reserved for near perfection, not for accumulating fewer mistakes than the others.

I understand crashing and falling does occur in extreme winter sports, and I haven’t seen the last of it. But I’ve seen more of it than I anticipated. These athletes have reached the apex of the sports world. I expected to be wowed by their abilities, not their wipeouts.