another world
on the 2026 winter olympics
There are a few bright spots in these Winter Olympics, the 14th or 15th Olympiad I have a memory of by my own, likely inaccurate count (who knows what is memory and what is remembered news footage these days - do I remember Michael Johnson myself or only what I’ve seen of him since?) Legends cementing their legend status, proposals making medals all the sweeter1 a victory, hometown Italian heroes exceeding expectations and those exceeding their own just by making the Olympics.
But what has stood out much more than these glimmers are not even the upsets - Chloe Kim’s silver medal signifying a passing of the guard to a protege she had trained with, as an example - but the disappointments:
Lindsey Vonn’s horrific crash in an improbable comeback attempt that involved skiing on a torn ACL
the scoring in Ice Dance, awarding a controversial French team scores they’d never received all season to propel them to gold over better skates from Canada and the US2
Ilia Malinin’s fall-laden free skate3 that drew silence from the usually chatty Johnny Weir & Tara Lipinksi while watching, placing him in a disastrous 8th overall, reminding us civilians of the enormity of Olympic and national pressure put on young people every quadrennial. What mortal could live up to being called a god at 21?4
Even as I write this, some French slalom skiier has hooked too many tips and had a disappointing run 2 to finish without a medal this Games, which judging by the tone of the commentators is a deep disappointment - ‘an ominous reminder that nothing is a certainty in slalom.’
Disappointment is a small word for the despair enveloping anyone with compassion in the US leading up to these Olympics - a despair that made it hard to enjoy the Opening Ceremonies, or feel any of the characteristic excitement. I had no desire to throw on any of usual my pre-Winter Olympics hype films (Miracle, Cool Runnings) nor had any motivation or energy to delight myself, such as years past with attempts any Olympics-themed food:
olympic rings dips, circa 2014: funetti frosting, black bean dip, salsa, hummus, guac
It took some decoupling from work disappointments, some compelling Gold Zone octo-boxes, and the fun of even a whiff of monoculture that the Olympics provides, but my hype did slowly return. I was able to throw on D2: The Mighty Ducks on last night my personal favorite Winter Olympics hype film and one of my favorite actual films, at the midway point of the Games - later than I would have ever revisited it in the past. Having seen it so many times I can recite it, finding joy in its 1994-era wardrobe choices and celebrity cameos each time, this time, something new happened, proving life can still surprise you - I cried!
Why? Well, simply - our young Ducks heroes, heading to Los Angeles to represent Team USA in hockey in the fictional Junior Goodwill Games, are primarily from Minnesota. Joined by a few representatives from key American hockey hotspots like Chicago, Maine and …Miami5 the team’s Minnesota hometown spirit and bond is core not only their success at these Games (what prepares you better for a fake Olympics than pee-wee hockey, this movie dares to ask) - but to their teamwork, to their integrity, and staying true to who they as players, which is the only way they can succeed as a team.
In the ‘must be in every sports movie’ inspiring climax of the film, each player stands up and proudly proclaims their name and hometown, and aside from the outliers from the likes of Austin, San Francisco, South Central Los Angeles6 - it’s Duluth, Edina, St. Paul, Minneapolis:
We’re Team USA. Gathered from all across America.
And we’re going to stick together.
With the swelling score as the old Ducks and new Ducks united under their new jerseys after, I cried and cried and cried. This is simple act of unity that used to be so basic and elementary and so cheesy Disney put it in a children’s sports film, is now seen as radical, weak, for snowflakes. Caring for your neighbor, welcoming your teammate, on the ice, in the snow, in the subzero temperatures - worth murdering for. I’m under no pretenses that recent history, or even the ‘90s, were all rose-colored (the Balkans would like a word) but the continuous lowering of the bar to the depths it has been lowered, even if the most cynical and well-read of us on empire are not surprised by it, has been so exhausting that the gap between 2026 and 1994 seemed to me a chasm, an abyss, a universe away.
Alternative timelines have been coming up in the group chats lately, imagining the what ifs and what would we be doing and the what could have beens - the Marvel multiverse no longer a sad storytelling copout but a wish for our own reality. How comforting it would be to know there’s really another world out there, led with compassion instead of cruelty, with goals of care instead of incarceration. Sometimes I have dreams so intense I wonder if those are visits from other realities, before my husband reminds me that’s the literal plot of the bad second Doctor Strange movie - though better than Inception, where dreams could be hijacked such that you can’t even trust your own mind and reality and what’s been shown to you - the lines of what’s real and not real blurring.
Every athlete has their own branching timelines - what if I had been sent to Beijing in 2022 instead, Malinin cried, I wouldn’t have skated like this - and wishes for alternative outcomes too. I’m sure Simone Biles reached out to Malinin, having experienced her own break with trusting her own mind and body on the biggest stage in Tokyo 2020, with little grace given to her from the (nearly all virtual but no less harsh) crowd on how to handle it. Thank god she got another chance to prove herself in Paris, another shot at reminding us what she’s capable of. I’m sure Malinin will too; I hope, also, cheesy as it sounds, that Americans7 will someday. For now, we’ll have to settle for these fictional realities, those alternative memories preserved on screen or in writing, these artworks that reflect the veneer of values of another era, that can remind us that we did live in another world, once. And that many worlds have been cycled through and many new ones have been born, with a slow nudging of them all in the right direction, even with stops and starts and setbacks and disappointments.
Until next time, with this sob-inducing clip of Derek Redmond and his father in Barcelona 1992 I’ve seen so many times I swear I lived through watching it live, for the road. Hug a father figure in your life!
What’s sweeter that she wanted this actually! Her fiancé was not making her moment about himself!
Even a civilian could see the difference! Not just in the way we all pretend to become experts in obscure rules of these sports every four years!
You will never convince me the quality of the ice was not an issue here. Sure, Malinin’s inability to regroup after the first fall may have been also been a case of the twisties, as some have intimated (inspired somewhat by Simone Biles being in the arena for the men’s free skate, I imagine), but everyone in figure skating has been falling more than usual, and athletes in other disciplines have also complained
There’s a Jesus joke in there if I had more energy or knowledge of the peculiars of Jesus’ life
I’d find any reason to cast Benny from The Sandlot also!
Kenan Thompson in his first! ever! role! He was a star even then, the Knuckle Puck is iconic!
United States Americans, who are one of all Americans