The 2018 PyeongChang winter Olympics are shaping up to be some of the most interesting Olympics to date. The stories this year focus not only on the sporting events themselves, but also the political climate in the world. The tense relations between North Korea and the US makes the location of the Olympics, South Korea, controversial. In recent weeks North Korea and South Korea have been putting their differences aside and talking in order to en-sure a smooth 2 weeks of games. Not only are there political controversy brewing overseas, but in the US there have been tensions as well. Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon, who is apart of the LGTBQ community, has denied to sit down with Vice-President Mike Pence due to Pence’s anti-gay stance. Pence has publicly supported anti-gay conversion therapy and Rippon has spoken out against the therapy. Pence has tweeted that this is #Fakenews, but most believe it is not. Aside from all the political drama, these Olympic games should be promising for the US as we send over terrific athletes to represent us. The following are some athletes to look out for…
Gus Kenworthy
Gus is a freestyle skiier, who won the silver metal at the Sochi winter games. Gus is one of the two openly gay US athletes going to PyeongChang. He originally worried that comming out would hurt his career, but it has done the opposite, he has only become more popular.
Mikaela Shiffrin
In the 2014 Olympic games, Mikaela became the youngest skier to win gold in the slalom at age 18. She will be heading back to the games this year, ranked as the number 1 skiier in the world.
Elana Meyers Taylor
Elana is another strong woman who is at the top of her sport, which is bobsled. She won bronze at the Vancover games and in Sochi she won silver. This year she hopes to go for gold at PyeongChang.
Nathan Chen
Nathan is an 18-year-old figure skater who is already a two-time US champion. Chen has no Olympic experience and interestingly enough neither do the other 2 US, male, Olympic skaters. Although they are all new to the games, there are high hopes for the 3 men.
Shaun White
Shaun will be returning to the Olympic games this year for the 4th time. It was unclear if Shaun would be able to compete after a terrible accident on the halfpipe where he fell about 22 feet and had to get 62 stitches on his face. Shaun is always an exciting athlete to watch and I’m sure it will be no different at these winter games.
Check out HerCampus next week for a review of the 1st week of the games.
Go team USA!
Source:
denverpost.com
viamediatv.com