One peculiarity of the figure skating competition calendar is that during an Olympic year, the world championships are contested about a month after the Games. This world championship often has the feeling of an afterthought, coming on the heels of a once-every-four-years mega global sporting event. The bigger names in figure skating tend to sit […]
It is impossible not to notice the ski jump. It looms above the office parks of southwest Minneapolis, Mount Everest to their glass-walled foothills. At night, it glows — power lights reflecting on snow in a soft-focused, brilliant white, like angels descending into a 1970s shampoo ad. If you drive by it on the city’s […]
When “Cool Runnings” hit the silver screen in 1993, American audiences were captivated by the feel-good story of Jamaica — a tropical country better known for its sprinting prowess — improbably sending its first bobsled team to compete in the 1988 Calgary Olympics. And though Jamaica ultimately crashed out of the competition that winter, the […]
In 1902, a 20-year-old figure skater from England named Madge Syers showed up somewhere that no official from the International Skating Union expected her to be: center ice at the world championships. Though figure skating competitions were hardly a new thing — they took place throughout the latter half of the 19th century — a […]
Almost four years ago, 3.7 million people watched a hockey game on NBC that ended after 2 a.m. Eastern, bringing an end to a drought that had spanned two decades. The U.S. women’s national team had, on the Olympic stage, finally overcome its rivals to the north for the first time in these players’ careers. […]