Trending
The Winter Olympic Games in Beijing have been over for a while now, but their memories linger, at least with me. You don't stay up past midnight and follow the Olympics app and Twitter on your smartphone every day without some aftereffects.
What I wanted most out of the Beijing Games was American Nathan Chen to win his figure skating gold. After he nailed the last jump in his short program, my stomach and I could relax. There was always the chance he would botch his free program, but he didn't.
Yay for Nathan and yay for my tummy.
I rewatched the free program again on TV and on my phone repeatedly, with my husband Dave commenting on why I would do such a thing. I said that at least I could watch it without a great deal of nervousness.
I must admit, though, it takes a tough constitution to be a figure skating fan. It's high tension all the way. It's not like you can blow toy horns that sound like emperor penguins during a short program as you might at a moguls event. It's almost like golf; you don't dare sneeze or cough.
Then there's the aftermath. After the ladies' figure skating event, all I saw among the heavily favored Russian girls -- not ladies -- were tears and a glum face. An alleged doping violation, a perceived judging slight that gave one of the girls "only" a silver medal, and a distinct lack of a celebratory air from the winner permeated the "kiss and cry area."
At that moment in time, it was just a "cry area."
Compare that scene with the finish of the women's snowboard slopestyle event. The competitors -- not all of whom, of course, won the event -- joined in an exuberant, jumping hug.
Should I have expected any less from what I call a "happy sport"?
If you want to feel good about life, watch the annual Winter X Games, a wonderland full of events such as snowboard superpipe, ski big air and knuckle huck. It's a festival of McTwists, corks, long hair on dudes and big dumb grins on just about everybody.
If someone's performance knocks you off the podium, you don't sulk or plan a knee-clubbing attack. You give them a big high-five, or invite them out for a cold one after the competition.
Alpine skiing is a mix of the happy and the tense. You are happy when they lift their poles in jubilation after crossing the line in a fast time. However, you feel bad for Mikaela Shiffrin, who after skiing out of a slalom race in her second consecutive Did Not Finish in the most recent Olympics, dejectedly sat off to the side of the course for an extended period.
The downhillers also participate in a ridiculously fast sport, where a wrong edge or snow rut can send them crashing into a fence.
Yet, for the most part, the top-tier skiers appear to be a fairly closely knit bunch, genuinely happy for each other's successes.
However, I don't think sportsmanship in many athletic disciplines can rival that of a happy sport.
And to me, nothing represents a happy sport more than knuckle huck.
The Olympics doesn't hold this event, but maybe it should. In the Winter X Games' knuckle huck, a group of snowboarders or freestyle skiers have 20 minutes to "huck" over the bottom "knuckle" of a hill, being judged on overall impression.
It's almost as if they plan to mess up, but in a fun way.
Competitors can get creative in their "gnarly" tricks in the knuckle huck, which means the viewer can get really stoked.
Well, it is a happy sport, after all, so being stoked -- not "emotionally satisfied" or "competitively fulfilled" -- is the way to go.
I think all Winter Olympics sports, and even maybe the Summer Games, should have their own version of a knuckle huck, although some would have to be modified a bit. A big hill ski jump would present some problems to perform tricks literally on the fly, so maybe just jumping off the edge with a little flair would suffice.
Perhaps they can add tobogganing to the Olympics schedule. We're not talking luge, skeleton or bobsled here, disciplines that require body-fitting uniforms that terrify those of the flabbier persuasion. We're talking the family-friendly pastime that brings people together on the nearest snow hill, hoping to make it to the bottom without everyone spilling out -- although spilling out is kind of fun.
In fact, having the best "crash" would be part of the artistic components score.
Unfortunately for me, as a viewer, I still gravitate toward figure skating the most. The Beijing Olympic Games, however, were a little too high drama for my sensitive self this year, so I kept telling Dave, "Let's watch a happy sport."
That was personified in a giddy Nick Baumgartner, an Iron River native, who with Lindsey Jacobellis won the first Olympics mixed snowboard cross. I watched Baumgartner hugging his Italian competitor, or maybe it was the other way around, as Jacobellis was heading toward the finish line first.
Can you imagine relay competitors in other sports hugging their opponents who were in the lead as the race was ending? Death glares might be more common.
I think the world can learn a lot of people who compete in the happy sports where one gnarly knuckle huck can stoke you for days.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Christie Mastric is a staff writer at The Mining Journal. Contact her at cbleck@miningjournal.net.