Olympics
With the opening ceremony of the Milano-Cortina Olympic Winter Games less than two weeks away, Team USA has finalized its list of 232 competitors, the largest contingent ever sent. Though more than 80 athletes live or train in Utah, only 17 of them identified Utah as their home state. Colorado is the state with the most athletes, at 30, and 32 states are sending at least one athlete. The origins of the athletes of Team USA give a unique look into where winter sports happen within the United States.
Perhaps most surprising of all is that the four skiers competing in freestyle skiing are from Ohio, of all places. Though there may be more booters and sidehits on a single run in Utah than in all of Ohio, the Buckeye State is well represented in the women’s and men’s freestyle aerials event. The Midwest contingent, like its snowpack this year, is far deeper than you might expect, with Indiana’s Nick Goepper in the hunt for gold in slopestyle after silvers at Beijing and Peyeongchang and bronze in Sochi. Two other women on the freestyle team are from Michigan, along with two snowboarding men. Michigan is sending a total of 15 athletes and Minnesota is sending a total of 24 athletes, more than California’s group of 19.
Anyone thinking of criticizing winter sports in the Midwest would do well to remember that Wisconsin is sending half of Team USA’s biathlon team. To look for an explanation for the strong freestyle representation from the Midwest, look no further than the ancient rope tow, found in almost every Midwest terrain park, which runs at what feels like a million feet per second and makes it possible to get a hundred rails in before Western skiers even get to the front of the gondola line. Just bring an extra pair of gloves.
The women’s and men’s snowboarding teams are both concentrated geographically, with roughly half the women from California and roughly half the men from Colorado. The alpine skiing team is a bit more spread out, but the East Coast is conspicuously underrepresented. Many members of Team USA are already in Europe, competing on world cup circuits. Athletes will not show up to any one of the six Olympic Villages until a few days before their event. The first finals will be on February 7, and competition will run until February 22.
