{"id":2168,"date":"2014-02-11T13:14:31","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T18:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=2168"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:01:02","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T19:01:02","slug":"wabash-pulse-winter-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2014\/02\/11\/wabash-pulse-winter-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Wabash Pulse: Winter Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige — Just because the Winter Olympics are a half a world away in Sochi doesn\u2019t mean that the glow of the Olympic flame can\u2019t be felt here on our campus.<\/p>\n

Most of the North American viewing audience may have to brush up on the differences between skeleton and luge, pairs and dance, and the confluence that gives us the Nordic combined. Bonus points will also be awarded for knowing the difference between classic and free technique.<\/p>\n

I took a very brief Wabash pulse on these Games to see what interests these Little Giants about the XXII Olympic Winter Games.<\/p>\n

Location matters in the Olympics, as nothing casts a longer shadow as the vibe displayed by a host city. Looking back at the host cities in the last 20 years, the most mentioned hosts were Vancouver (2010) and Lillehammer (1994).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting to see the weight that Lillehammer\u2019s well-earned reputation for delivering a transcendent Games resonates with a group that, at best, were mere toddlers two decades ago.<\/p>\n

\"fireworks<\/a>
The 2014 Olympic Winter Games opened Friday, Feb. 7, at Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi, Russia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When it comes to favorite sports, the answers ran the gamut, as skiing (\u201cthe body control they have is insane\u201d), hockey (\u201cI’m from Wisconsin where hockey is huge\u201d), figure skating (\u201cit\u2019s very interesting because of the precision\u201d, ski jumping (\u201cthey defy gravity while effortlessly flying through the air\u201d), and superpipe (\u201call the biggest stars are there\u201d) all received mentions.<\/p>\n

Prompted for a favorite athlete or moment, the 1980 \u201cMiracle on Ice\u201d trumped individuals like Bode Miller, Peter Forsberg, and Apolo Anton Ohno, and my anticipated winner Shaun White.<\/p>\n

While the Miracle on Ice still might be the greatest upset in sporting history, the geopolitical implications still bubble up. When explaining why it\u2019s so memorable, Ben Cook \u201914 said, \u201cI love capitalism and freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige — Just because the Winter Olympics are a half a world away in Sochi doesn\u2019t mean that the glow of the Olympic flame can\u2019t be felt here on our campus. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/02\/Sochi_Opening-Ceremony.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3764,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168\/revisions\/3764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}