As the IOC assumed its (usual) amoral posture, Olympic sports athletes stood tall as a moral counterpoint in 2020

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As the IOC assumed its (usual) amoral posture, Olympic sports athletes stood tall as a moral counterpoint in 2020

For the past 33 years, Globetrotting has selected annual medal winners in international sports, given to those athletes for whom an Olympic gold is the ultimate goal.

The pandemic that has shattered lives around the world made it impractical and unsafe to have most international sports competitions for the last nine months – and even those that have taken place in the current winter season have been changed by having athletes opt out or, in the case of figure skating, becoming essentially domestic events.

Given that, trying to give awards in the format I used in the past seems like a fool’s errand.

Yet it would not be good to let the year pass without some shout-outs to athletes in Olympic sports, both active and retired, whose achievements or courage (or both) were noteworthy.

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On giving thanks, mile after mile after mile

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On giving thanks, mile after mile after mile

Proximity to large bodies of water has been a big and calming part of my life and psyche.

From my birth in 1946 until I was 26, my family’s home was 150 yards from the Atlantic Ocean in Revere, Mass. During my first two years living in Baltimore, my home was about the same distance from its harbor, part of an estuary of Chesapeake Bay. During the last 33 years in Evanston, IL, I have lived about a quarter-mile from Lake Michigan.

Cycling has become another big and calming part of my life this year, with the joy of being outside on a bike more important than ever. And water figures as bookends of my cycling story, too.

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Reality check: Audrey Shin is what’s happening in U.S. women’s skating

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Reality check: Audrey Shin is what’s happening in U.S. women’s skating

The first thing Audrey Shin asked her parents in Colorado when they spoke by phone after she skated the short program at Skate America in Las Vegas was, “Did this actually happen?”

The “this” in question was the near flawless, self-assured performance that had put Shin in third place, beginning two days in late October that ended with her as the surprising star of her first senior Grand Prix event. But even her parents’ reassurance that they saw how well their 16-year-old daughter had skated could not assuage all of Shin’s desire to pinch herself.

“It was already on YouTube, so I watched it a few times in a row right after we talked because I was really proud of what I did,” she said in an interview last week. “After a while, it kind of finally sunk in.”

The disconnect between what had happened – and how well Shin would do again in the free skate to win the bronze medal – and what she had envisioned was understandable.

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Bradie Tennell moving forward in fresh start, aiming for triple Axel

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Bradie Tennell moving forward in fresh start, aiming for triple Axel

Bradie Tennell was frustrated.

Three years after she had gone from “who?” to “wow!,” jumping from ninth to first at the U.S. Championships in just one season and then becoming the highest U.S. finisher at both the 2018 Olympics and world championships, Tennell felt as if she were spinning her wheels.

It wasn’t as if the figure skater from north suburban Chicago no longer was getting solid results. Last season, despite a foot injury in late summer, she became the first U.S. woman to qualify for the Grand Prix Final since 2015 and the first to win a Four Continents Championship medal (bronze) since 2017. She also completed a full set of medals at nationals, adding 2020 bronze to her 2018 gold and 2019 silver.

“But I was getting older, and I didn’t feel I was reaching my goals fast enough, and I wasn’t progressing fast enough,” Tennell said.

Tennell was increasingly annoyed by her failure to get traction on her goal of adding another spin to one jump, the Axel. She wanted to master the triple Axel, a jump that is turning into something of a litmus test for elite women the way it did for elite men in the 1980s.

It reached the point where, at age 22, she would explain the frustration during a recent phone interview with a paraphrase of a quote about insanity attributed to Albert Einstein.

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A taller Alysa Liu also hoping to show growth as a skater

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A taller Alysa Liu also hoping to show growth as a skater

Word on the street is Alysa Liu has grown.

The two-time reigning U.S. figure skating champion said that’s true… to a degree. The two inches of height she added between last season and her 15th birthday in August don’t change Liu’s perspective.

“I just went from really short to very short,” Liu said, wryly, via telephone after a training session last week in San Francisco. “I’m up to 5-0. I like the five-foot number, but it’s still short.”

Anyway, the more important measure will be how much Liu has grown as a skater since her successful 2019-20 debut in international junior competition.

As is the case for all skaters, especially those in North America, such skating growth risks being temporarily stunted by restrictions on training and lack of competition caused by the coronavirus pandemic. And physical growth, even if it is only two inches, can also be problematic.

In Liu’s case, issues related to the pandemic have complicated her sudden shift to a new coaching team in late June, when she announced a split from Laura Lipetsky, who had coached her since age 5. Cancellation of the Junior Grand Prix series is giving Liu more travel-free time to adapt to the new situation, although, ironically, travel restrictions are keeping her from having the two-country, three-coach arrangement work the way it was planned.

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