Parkite Grant Fisher is off to a good start in his quest for another Olympic medal this week, advancing to the Olympic 5,000-meter final on Saturday. 

Fisher needed to finish his round-one heat in the top eight of 19 runners; he finished fourth. 

Fisher turned in a time of 13:52.44 in the first round. The lead pack was tight, with runners one through nine all posting sub-13:52 times. Event-favorite Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway won Fisher’s second heat with a time of 13:51.59. 

Norway swept both 5,000-meter heats, with Gilje Narve Nordas winning heat one with a time of 14:08.16. 

Ingebrigtsen and Fisher are a few of the favorites in the event, especially with reigning Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 10,000-meter champion Joshua Kiprui Cheptegei pulling out Tuesday due to fatigue from the latter race, which finished last Friday. 

Only four runners from last Friday’s 10,000-meter race will be lacing their spikes up Saturday for the 5,000-meter final, including Fisher. 

Another medal for Fisher would create history, as he’d be the first American ever to double-podium the events at the same Games. He had a come-from-behind triumph last Friday, and Saturday he should have an even better shot. 

The U.S. has only had five 5,000-meter medals since the event joined the Olympic lineup in 1912. Bob Schul is the country’s only gold, back in Tokyo 1964. 

The world record in the 5,000-meter could also be in play for Fisher with a career day at 12:35.36, set in 2020 by Cheptegei. The Olympic record was set in 2008 in Beijing by Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele at 12:57.82. Fisher’s personal-best time is at 12:46.96 in the event. 

The winning time in Tokyo three years ago was 12:58.15. 

The final heat will go off at 11:50 a.m. MDT at the Stade de France just outside of Paris. It will be one of the Paris Games’ final events, with the closing ceremony being held Sunday night. The final can be live-streamed on NBC’s Peacock: peacocktv.com/sports/olympics. 

The Paris Games could be the 27-year-old Parkite’s last, given that distance runners typically have short careers. Many runners like Fisher end up moving onto the marathon event, which Bekele will be running Saturday.

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In mid-June, Don Rogers, The Park Record’s editor and publisher, and owners Matthew and Tatiana Prince gave me the green light to travel to Paris with the specific mission of covering the 2034 Winter Games announcement. 

This would be my 11^th Olympics, having spent 45 years in TV news, 28 of those with NBC News. Don and the Princes shared my belief that this event needed to be covered for the Wasatch Back. The second iteration of the Winter Olympics in Northern Utah would be a big deal to our community. Soldier Hollow’s impact in Wasatch County to Park City and to Snowbasin would be significant.

Small towns always feel the biggest effects of an Olympics, even if it is just a portion of the venues. By their very size, big cities can absorb the traffic, the intense security measures, the buildup of the infrastructure, the influx of fans, corporate sponsors, organizers and media companies. The Park City ridge is a natural home for so many Olympic venues — why did it take 22 years for the decision to return?

On Monday, July 22, much of the bid committee and many Olympic donors boarded Delta flight 2034. Yup, there was a flight number change to match the occasion. Salt Lake Airport held a send-off event where Gov. Spencer Cox, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and bid committee CEO Fraser Bullock obliged my request for a proper departure photo on the tarmac with the plane in the background adorned with Olympic logos. 

We arrived in Paris Tuesday morning and quickly dashed off to a reception hosted by U.S. Ambassador to France Denise Campbell Bauer. There were 150+ supporters of the bid, most from Utah, attending in the ornate, 17^th century hotel near the embassy.

It would be a silly understatement to say the crowd was amped up for the possibility that after a good night’s sleep, the International Olympic Committee would have made the decision to have the winter Olympics return to northern Utah.

Wednesday morning, July 24, came quickly after the 10-hour, Salt Lake-to-Paris flight. The Utah delegation were dressed in snappy Olympic uniforms and took their seats in the large auditorium and listened to the 2030 French Alps Winter Olympic proposal. The IOC members quickly approved the bid. French President Emmanuel Macron served as the chief cheerleader for the enthusiastic French delegation, which meant his country will host two Olympics within six years.

Next up, the Utah delegation presented a polished and impassioned presentation to the IOC members touting the success of the 2002 games, the preservation of many Olympic venues as community focal points and the support of the state, the towns and the citizens.

But when it came time to open the presentation to questions from the committee members, the subject of doping took over for 45 minutes. The IOC insisted that all Olympic host organizations abide by the rules and decisions of the World Anti-doping Agency, essentially holding any bid hostage to making this commitment.

Twenty-three Chinese swimmers during the 2021 Tokyo games tested positive for banned substances, and later the athletes were deemed to be tainted by food contamination, according to the Chinese team.

This did not sit well with the U.S. Olympic team and members of Congress. The American investigation is ongoing, but Bullock and Cox were seriously between a rock and a hard place. They had to accept the terms of the contract demanding allegiance to the wishes of the World Anti-Doping Agency. 

When it came time to vote on Salt Lake City hosting, 83 IOC members voted yes, six no, and six abstained. IOC President Thomas Bach read the decision at 12:20 p.m. local time, and the 200+ Utah delegation went bonkers, jumping from their seats.

Shortly thereafter at a reception for the Utah delegation, I caught up with Park City Mayor Nann Worel. 

“The suspense was there, but I couldn’t imagine that we wouldn’t get the vote,” she said. 

The mayor went on to say that one of the first orders of business for the city and Summit County is to hire a person or firm to create a 10-year action plan. 

“The plan would consider every aspect of the games that you can imagine,” Worel said.

Eight-time Olympic medalist and short track speed skater Apolo Ohno was a part of the delegation, too, and the 2002 Games had been his first. 

“Utah has another opportunity to shine a spotlight on the greatest it has to offer, its natural beauty, the unique warmth of its people, the embrace of sport and patriotism,” he said.

Also attending in Paris was Parkite Chris Waddell, a seven-time Paralympian across two sports.

“It’s a great opportunity to do it again and to have the world come and enjoy what we have to offer,” he said. 

For kids who live along the Wasatch Back, he said, “It makes it personal. It makes it a reality that those dreams can come true.”

The next day I attended a pep rally hosted by a French youth sports organization aimed at inspiring Olympic spirit in young people with Olympic aspirations. Nine Utah kids attended, and the camaraderie with kids from 36 countries was impressive. 

Incoming Park City High School junior Victoria Rosales said of her first trip overseas, “I absolutely love it, when I leave I am going to be so sad, probably going to cry. I just love the diversity.”

Friday was the opening day for the 33^rd Olympics. The French organizing committee undertook the monstrous task of using four plus miles of the River Seine for the athlete procession. Teams floated down the river on all manner of crafts toward the Eiffel Tower. 

I ventured out in the morning to get a sense of Paris on this complicated day. I started my trek at the Notre Dame Cathedral and walked to the Arc de Triomphe, and then I got as close to the Eiffel Tower as I could. The French security team had closed access to the River Seine for four or five blocks on either side to only individuals with the right credentials or an opening ceremony ticket — that did not include me. I wondered: What would this level of security look like along the Wasatch Back? The police presence was unlike any I have ever seen, and I have been to some nasty places around the globe in my career.

The ticket-holder lines at 3 p.m. had hundreds, if not thousands, of people just waiting to get to their seats. The gates opened at 3:30 p.m. for a ceremony that started at 7:30 p.m.

As I walked along these long lines, I was impressed by the symphony of languages and the diversity of cultures. Everyone was sporting huge smiles and an upbeat mood. I thought to myself that these people are standing in the rain, just waiting to get to their seats, and they could not be happier. Perhaps this is what the Olympics can do to your soul. 

Presumably, some of the folks standing in the long lines were parents and friends of Olympic athletes. In 2021, the COVID games, families were not allowed to attend the delayed Tokyo games and were forced to watch their kids compete on television. I had a chance to meet with the family of mountain bike silver medalist Haley Batten on a rain-soaked day in Versailles. Mom Cathy, dad Patrick and brother Nash were so excited to see Haley compete in person. Cathy told me after the race about her daughter’s Olympic aspiration. “It is unreal,” she said. “Like, you know when you hear them talking about it when they’re young, and then it actually coming to fruition is unbelievable.”

Legendary alpine skier Lindsey Vonn has made it her mission to provide housing and transportation to families of Olympic athletes for the 2034 Utah games.

No doubt, I got caught up in the uplifting energy and optimism of Paris during the Olympics, the Olympic energy is so infectious. I look forward to attending the 2028 Los Angeles Games and hope to volunteer and take my grandkids to as many events as we can possibly muster. If I am still above ground in 2034, I hope to do the same then, too.

The post An Olympic week in Paris appeared first on Park Record.

PARIS — Six young Utah athletes appeared alongside hundreds of other young athletes on the grassy Le Jardin d’Acclimatation, Paris’ oldest park, for the Sport dans la Ville’s Festival 24.

The event formalized a partnership between the French youth group Sport dans le Ville and the Utah bid committee and included speeches from Utah first lady Abby Cox, Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith and Lindsey Vonn.

Over 500 youths from 36 nations gathered in a pep rally-like atmosphere, which the organizers called a celebration of Olympic values.

On hand from the USA delegation were Lindsey Vonn, legendary alpine skier; Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and first lady Abby Cox; Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall; Fraser Bullock, CEO of the SLC-Utah 2034 bid committee; Olympic speedskater Derek Para; Brittani Coury, Paralympic snowboarder; Paralympian Chris Waddell; Jimmer Fredette, Paris 2024 Olympic basketball player; Kaysha Love, Olympic medalist in the bobsled; and Ryan Smith, owner of the Utah Jazz and the NHL Utah Hockey Club.

Young Utah athletes from Utah also attended, including Orson Colby Luge, Riverton; Kate Pressgrove, a figure skater, Heber; Victoria Rosales, a skier, Park City; Tyson Adamson, a golfer, Lehi; Harun Ahmed, basketball player, West High School; Ellie Finlinson, a soccer player and journalist, Moroni; Jazmin Solis, a tennis player, Mount Pleasant; and Raymond Soto, Junior ROTC member, West High School.

The trip was the first time being overseas for Finlinson, Solis and Soto, and it was Ahmed’s first time flying. 

A small marching band played spirited music and got the 500-strong crowd in a festive mood before the speeches began. Utah first lady Abby Cox championed sports activities as a way to bring people together and break down political and geographic boundaries.

“Sport can be a catalyst to energize communities and foster positive connections,” the first lady said. “That’s what I see in these young ambassadors from Utah.”

Park City High school student Victoria Rosales said she has had an inspiring trip to France.

“I absolutely love it,” Rosales said. “When I leave, I am going to be so sad. I’m probably going to cry. I am going to miss everybody. I just love the diversity so much.” 

Rosales said she made many new friends from Germany, Poland, Pakistan, Brazil and Italy. She got a chance to try wheelchair basketball. That was “pretty cool,” she said.

Olympian Derek Para said the rally was energizing. 

“I think sports are very unique. My life has been 100% guided by my time in sports,” Para said. “I don’t know where I would have been if I hadn’t gotten into roller skating as a young child. There was crime, corruption and violence in my neighborhood in southern California. Sports saved my life. I.t brought me into a new arena. … It taught me to be a better citizen of this world, a better resident of the communities I was in and making great relationships. If we can teach the blending of our cultures, in our athletes and kids at a young age, I hope we can grow up in a better place, more easily acceptable to change and to working with each other.”

The group leader and chaperone is Delegation Leader Chief Sara Bowles, of Herriman, who is also an administrator for U.S. Speedskating. She said one of the goals for the trip was to unite kids through sport and offer a chance to travel and meet kids from other parts of the world who would not have that opportunity.

A private donor funded the trip.

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Utah began celebrations for the 2034 games during the early hours of Pioneer Day. The celebration continued into the evening in Park City at the Utah Olympic Park with food, music, meet-and-greets with Olympians and more.

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PARIS — Now that the International Olympic Committee has confirmed Salt Lake City will host the 2034 Olympic Games, Utah, delegates to Paris can breathe a sigh of relief. It’s really happening.

Now the group is taking a victory lap after landing the bid.

At the post-award luncheon with athletes, donors, elected officials and the like, Gov. Spencer Cox told the 200-plus in the room that in 2002, Utah needed the Olympics, but in 2034, the Olympics need Utah. 

Later in the afternoon press conference, he elaborated by saying that the 2002 games provided Olympic and community infrastructure along with community pride as a coming-out party for the state. For the 2034 games, the governor hopes that the preparation, and ultimately the Games themselves, will serve as a bonding project for all Utahns during what Cox described as fractured times.

Park City Mayor Nann Worel said the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games’ presentation to the IOC had her “choked up a lot.” 

“I saw Park City just framed there on the screen, and I thought, ‘I’m so incredibly proud of our state and our city,'” Worel said. 

Of course, there’s a lot to be done. Worel said she’s ready to start taking concrete steps now that it’s official.

“We have a press release ready to go out in conjunction with the chamber in Summit County, as well as Park City Mountain and Deer Valley, announcing that we’re going to go out for a (request for proposal) to hire a person or a firm to do a 10-year action plan,” Worel said. 

Part of that plan will include planning for 2035, too, Worel said. 

“(The Olympics are) only going to be two weeks,” Worel said. “So let’s build for 2035 and beyond and know that that’s going to be part of our Olympic preparation.” 

Park City Councilor Bill Ciraco said he felt moved by the committee’s presentation to the IOC. 

“You could say that there was an authentic genuine emotion, just on everybody’s part,” Ciraco said. 

He praised the delegation’s speeches, calling the governor’s speech “presidential” and saying Fraser Bullock, CEO of SLC-Utah 2034, did a fantastic job. 

Lindsey Vonn’s support was super helpful, too, Ciraco said.

“I think what was even more moving was the genuine emotion that she displayed during her presentation when she talked about the importance of family, and how that’s a focus of this, of the Utah bid, to make sure that this (is an Olympics) where the families participate to the same degree that the athletes do.”

Eight-time short track speed skating medalist in the Winter Olympics Apolo Ohno agreed that the awarding was an emotional time.

“Salt Lake City in 2002 was my first Olympic debut,” Ohno said. “The state of Utah and Salt Lake City and Park City, the people, have been incredible to me, to speed skating, the Olympic movement, and its impact. Those moments in Salt Lake City continue to impact my personal life in an extremely positive way.” 

“The secret is fully out about the special place of Utah,” Ohno said. 

He acknowledged that the Olympics are an expensive and potentially risky commercial for the place that hosts them. It’s not an easy decision to do so.

“If you look around the room, many of these people who are here, they don’t need to put that on the line and (take) that risk,” Ohno said. “But they’re willing to do that, and they’re all working together. … That’s a unique aspect of Utah: It still has the small-town feel, but it’s a very big place.”

Ohno emphasized that with nearly 10 years to go, the state’s challenge of fostering sustainable growth is hard to fathom. 

“There’s millions of people who are not Olympic athletes who live and call Utah home,” Ohno said. “And so the call upon the combination of receiving the Games, the stewardship of the Olympic movement, and then also making sure that people can give back to the communities, the grassroots level, how does this impact people by hosting the Games? Not only the volunteers and the kids who are watching at home, but the small businesses, the mom and pop, the corporations that call it home, the families that live there.”

A guiding principle might be to think about the next generation, Ohno said. 

The post ‘Choked up a lot’; Utah delegates to Paris celebrate after successful bid for 2034 Games appeared first on Park Record.

Park City is home to many Olympians. What’s different about Grant Fisher is he’s chasing gold in the Summer Games. 

The No. 1 runner at the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 5,000 meter and 10,000 meter track events is headed to Paris after living and training in Park City since October.  

This is not the first time Fisher has punched his ticket to the Olympics: He competed in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games, where he finished fifth in the 10,000 meter race. Two years after competing in Japan, Fisher nabbed the American records for the fastest 5,000 and 10,000 meters with times of 12:46.96 and 26:33.84, respectively. Last year, he added to his list of records by running a 7:25.47 in the 3,000 meter race. 

The bottom line is that since Tokyo, where he finished with a time of 27:46.39 and missed the podium by two spots in the 10,000, Grant Fisher has gotten faster.

In the past 10 months, his preparations for Paris have brought him here to the Wasatch Back. 

“When I made this move, I was 100% prepared to do everything alone,” Fisher said. After running for his dream school, Stanford, Fisher spent four years at the Bowerman Track Club. He said moving to Park City from Oregon was “a little scary” and a huge risk during an Olympic year. 

“Common knowledge in track is don’t change anything in the Olympic year,” the American record holder for the 5,000 and 10,000 meter races said. Before he knew he was going to move to Park City, Fisher had asked his high school coach, Mike Scannell, to train him again. 

“When I first asked him to coach me, I didn’t know I was going to move here,” Fisher said. “I didn’t know who I was going to train with, where I was going to have track access and gym access, and physio and massage and all these things, and the first piece I got in order was the coaching, and then all the other stuff was sorted out.” 

Fisher knew he wanted to live at altitude, a big benefit for a distance runner. He said he was looking at the main places people train at altitude, including Boulder, Colorado, Flagstaff, Arizona, and Park City, where Fisher had spent time before with his former track club. When he consulted Scannell about what the best option would be, the decision was left up to Fisher. 

“When I talked to Mike … he was like, ‘Look, you’ve been a professional for years. You pick the location, and we’ll make it work.’ So I picked here, and it’s been great,” he said.  

Park City has had more to offer him than altitude and access to facilities. 

“There’s a community aspect that has been fun,” he said, mentioning an unexpected new group of friends. While training at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Center of Excellence in Park City, he has been able to work out alongside athletes who have their sights set on the counterpart to the Games in the summer. 

“I would never hang out with skiers and snowboarders. I’m always around track runners,” Fisher said, describing how the intense peaks of his season are opposite from athletes who rely on snow or ice for their events. “It’s been cool getting to know them and having friends that aren’t runners and just a different perspective on training.”  

Besides the community he has formed with skiers and snowboarders, Fisher said there have been several familiar faces in and out of the area since he moved here and was staying with a friend last October.

“When I got up here, I got connected with a bunch of people in Salt Lake City, and I had tons of people to train with,” Fisher said.

This past week Fisher was joined for a run by Conner Mantz, who will be representing team USA in the men’s marathon race in Paris, as well as Matthew Centrowitz, who won gold in the 1,500 meter race at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. 

“I’ve never seen him happier,” Fisher’s girlfriend and occasional bike pacer, Sarah Walker said about his move to Park City and his current training setup. She said this year was a big year for him, and assembling the team around him in Park City shows how driven he is. 

Leading up to the final week stateside, Fisher was not focused on building fitness at this point in the season, but rather fine-tuning before the biggest races of this Olympic four-year cycle. 

Last Saturday Fisher, Scannell and Walker met at Olympus High School in the Salt Lake Valley for one final hard workout before leaving for Europe. Under a blazing sun and temperatures in the triple digits, Fisher endured what Scannell called a “sharpening workout.” 

“The interval length was fairly short. Today’s rest was fairly short, too, because we’re still looking forward to running fast when we’re tired,” Scannell said.

The kick at the end of the race is important to Fisher — it’s how he walked away with a first place finish at the Olympic Trials in Oregon in the 5,000 meter race. During part of the final lap, Abdihamid Nur was leading Fisher. In the final home stretch, Fisher passed Nur to take the lead and cross the finish line with a new meet record, breaking the one set by Galen Rupp in 2012.  

Training at Olympus was intentional to have slightly lower elevation and heat.

“We did it in the heat of the day because Paris is going to be hot,” Scannell said.

“It’s perfect prep,” Fisher said, “getting out and purposely being in hot conditions,” saying his workouts ranged from training in the valley, indoors on a treadmill with the heater cranked, and in a sauna to build his heat acclimation. 

The football athletes on the field that day may not have known who was running laps at the Olympus High School track with coach Scannell yelling things such as, “Tall like a machine, here we go!” The running community and those with eyes on the Paris Olympics know what Fisher’s presence means to Team USA, some describing this as one of the best chances an American has had to medal in a long distance track race in decades. The last American to win the 10,000 meter race was Billy Mills in 1964. 

The race for a medal won’t be a walk in the park. Fisher will be going up against runners such as Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei, who won gold in the 5,000 and silver in the 10,000 at Tokyo. Scannell told The Los Angeles Times, “Maybe we are entering the stage where we’re in the conversation for a podium slot in Paris.” 

Fisher comes from a legacy of runners, his mom running at the University of Houston and his grandfather running at Washington State. His dad ran at Arizona State, alongside his son’s future high school and professional coach, Scannell.

But he said he feels more like he’s from a soccer family. His older sister grew up playing soccer, and his younger brother, Mark, is a professional soccer player for Tornoto FC II. Fisher himself only got into running for what he thought it could do for soccer fitness. 

Walker, who works at the National Ability Center, will be in attendance for all his races in Paris. The couple met while they were both running for Stanford.

“The Grant you meet now is the same Grant I met in college,” she said. She leaves at the end of the month and will get to spend some additional time in Europe with Fisher before starting a two-year master’s program at Tufts University in Boston in human factors engineering. 

The 27-year-old long-distance track athlete will be in search of breaking an Olympic medal drought within USA running, likely with the “infectious smile” the Bowerman Track Club said they would miss in their Instagram post announcing his departure last October.  

“What matters is what we do at the end of the race in three weeks,” Scannell told Fisher on the hot Olympus High School track. With Scannell on the bike and Fisher jogging alongside him for his cooldown run, the pair added to their long tally of laps they have accumulated together over the years.

Fisher will continue his race for the podium in Paris starting with the Men’s 10,000m final on Aug. 2 at 1:20 p.m. Park City time. He will compete again at round one of the 5,000m race Aug. 7 at 3:10 a.m. Park City time.

His is a painful sport. What compels him?

“I really enjoy the harsh accountability you get from running,” Fisher said.

The post Grant Fisher comes to Park City in quest for Olympic gold appeared first on Park Record.

The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing came to a close on Sunday. And while the focus for the athletes shifts to the rest of the season, it’s worth revisiting what was a successful Games for many of the competitors with ties to Park City.

Freeskiing

Colby Stevenson, Marin Hamill and Alex Hall were part of a freestyle skiing team for the U.S. that brought home eight medals, the most of any country.

Stevenson won his first Olympic medal with a second-place finish in the men’s big air event. His first-ever podium finish in the discipline couldn’t have come at a better time. His silver medal also comes a few months shy of the six-year anniversary of a car accident that nearly ended his career.

Hall, who entered the Games as the reigning X Games gold medalist in big air, finished eighth in the event, but he saved his best skiing for slopestyle. Hall won the gold medal in the event with his first-run score of 90.01. Four years after finishing 16th in slopestyle as a teenager, he proved himself to be one of the best skiers in the world.

Hamill missed the big air finals after finishing 14th in qualifying. Her bid for a medal in slopestyle, meanwhile, ended after suffering an injury in a crash in qualifying. Hamill ended the qualifying round in seventh but couldn’t compete in the finals.

Moguls

Park City was represented in men’s moguls by teenagers Nick Page and Cole McDonald as well as three-time Olympian Bradley Wilson. Page led the four-man American contingent with a fifth-place finish, while McDonald came in 14th. Wilson, who announced that this season would be his last, missed out on the finals with a 25th-place finish.

“It all came down to this moment here, going up the lift, taking this run and seeing what happens, which was really cool,” Page said about his last run. “I definitely knew that’s where I wanted to be, so I kind of pictured myself in that scenario, so it was really cool to actually get there and see all that work pay off.”

Speedskating

Casey Dawson’s mad scramble to make it to Beijing in time to compete following his bout with COVID-19 weeks before the Games has been well documented, but he did his best to make it all worth it.

Dawson featured heavily for the U.S. squad in the team pursuit, which the Americans set a world record in before the Games. While the U.S. didn’t replicate that performance in Beijing, Dawson won’t come back to Park City empty-handed. After falling to the Russian Olympic Committee in the semifinals, the American team knocked off the Netherlands in the third-place race to secure the bronze medal.

Cross-country skiing

Rosie Brennan raced in all six cross-country events in Beijing and, despite finishing in the top six four times, could not secure her first-ever Olympic medal.

Brennan’s latest close call came on Saturday in the women’s 30-kilometer event, the final cross-country skiing event of the Games. She finished sixth and 5.4 seconds away from a medal. That came after a fourth-place finish in the sprint event, a fifth-place finish in the team sprint, and another sixth-place result in the 4×5-kilometer relay.

“I felt really good, but it was a frustrating race,” Brennan said about the 30-kilometer event in a U.S. Ski & Snowboard release. “I really wanted to bridge up that top group, but nobody was really interested in working with me, which is always hard. I really just had to do it on my own, and that was hard and I really paid the price at the end, and that was hard to swallow.”

Luge

Ashley Farquharson made her Olympic debut in Beijing and finished as the highest-ranking American slider in the women’s singles luge event.

Farquharson rebounded from a rough first run to post top-eight times in the next three runs to finish in 12th place overall. She also participated in the team relay as the women’s singles leg for the U.S. and had the fourth-fastest time among the female sliders in that event. The U.S. finished seventh.

Nordic combined

Jared Shumate and Stephen Schumann made the trip to Beijing on the Nordic combined team. Shumate was the second-best American in the normal hill/10-kilometer event in 19th, while Schumann finished 25th.

Shumate went on to finish as the highest-ranking American in the large hill/10-kilometer in 17th place as well as helping the U.S. come in sixth in the team event.

Aerials

Ashley Caldwell, Justin Schoenefeld and Christopher Lillis toppled host and favorite China in the mixed team aerials event to win gold. Caldwell, a four-time Olympian, earned her first Olympic medal, and Lillis earned the highest score of the finals with a 135 to help the Americans top the podium.

The post Olympics recap: Parkites head back to U.S. after successful Games appeared first on Park Record.

The door was wide open for Mikaela Shiffrin, but she couldn’t walk through.

In the Olympic Alpine event which requires athletes to showcase their range of abilities as both speed and technical skiers Mikaela Shiffrin was perfectly positioned to finally earn a medal at the 2022 Olympics in the Alpine combined. After a humbling start to the Beijing Games that included disqualifications in her two strongest events — the slalom and giant slalom — the World Cup overall leader sat in fifth after the downhill portion of the two-event competition which combines a downhill and a slalom run to form a total time. With only speed skiers in front of her, Shiffrin had a golden opportunity for a medal, but skied out of the slalom course at the tenth gate.

Swiss skiers Michelle Gisin and Wendy Holdener won gold and silver, respectively, with the Italian Federica Brignone earning the bronze.

A generally mistake-free downhill put Shiffrin just 0.56 seconds behind the Austrian leader Christine Scheyer after the first event. The just four primarily speed skiers in front of the 26-year-old, the 47-time World Cup winner in the slalom had good reason to be licking her chops. Yet, based on quotes coming between the two runs, that wasn’t exactly the case.

“It’s nice to know I have some practice and certainly a lot of speed in slalom,” Shiffrin said to the New York Times after the downhill.

“But I also have a little bit of, I don’t know, I have to overcome the image that I am going to ski out on the fifth gate. I am just trying to stay calm because I think I was doing pretty well with that this morning. Stay calm and have a good run at slalom.”

In 2018, when the American took the silver medal in the combined event, a discipline she also won at the most recent World Championships in 2021, she was in sixth after the downhill. The improved mark may have come from on behalf of an equipment change.

According to NBC reports, Shiffrin road down the Rock course Thursday on skis belonging to Sofia Goggia, the Italian downhill gold (2018) and silver medalist (2022). Goggia, who knows a little something about overcoming calamity and rising to the occasion on the piste — she suffered a viscous fall in late January and narrowly recovered in time for her inspiring silver medal downhill performance a few days ago — left a note for the American on the skis: “FLY MIKA, YOU CAN.”

Shiffrin rode an aggressive line at the top of the Rock course, clipping a few gates but remaining low and aerodynamic. She stayed smooth throughout the icy course, even gaining a few tenths back at the bottom of the 2,704 meter long track. Her teammate Keely Cashman, who took to the course immediately prior to Shiffrin, sat in seventh place.

“I was just trying to stay calm and not think about the course too much and not try to make too much of a strategy, but just ski it and find my tuck whenever I could,” Shiffrin told the New York Times after the downhill. In 2018, she had 1.21 seconds to make up on eventual winner Michelle Gisin.

The Swiss skier returned Thursday to defend her Olympic title from PyeongChang. Only Croatia’s Janica Kostelic (2002, 2006) and Germany’s Maria Hofl-Riesch (2010, 2014) had ever defended the Olympic gold in the event before Gisin replicated the accomplishment.

After the downhill, Gisin sat in 12th place. The bronze medalist from four years ago, teammate Wendy Holdener — perhaps Shiffrin’s biggest competition on paper going into the slalom — lurked in 11th. Holdener also won the discipline’s globe in 2016 and 2018. The leader, Scheyer, entered the competition without a single Olympic or World Championship medal and has only one World Cup win, a downhill victory from 2017.

The Austrian went first down the icy slalom hill, setting the standard at 56.83. Ester Ledecka, sitting in second, found 0.94 seconds on Scheyer, posting the new best at 55.89. Ledecka, who famously won both Alpine ski super-G and parallel giant slalom snowboard golds in 2018, made a mistake on the second gate in the downhill but still posted the second-fastest time of the day and began the slalom just 0.01 seconds behind Scheyer. In the end, she wound up in the undesirable fourth position.

Austria’s Ramona Siebenhofer, primarily a downhill skier, didn’t have much to give in the slalom and went into third place after her run. France’s Romane Miradoli, starting fourth, straddled a gate to end her day, bringing up the American with a golden — literally — opportunity.

Unfortunately, Shiffrin’s Beijing woes continued. Despite finding her rhythm through the first nine gates, she dropped low late on the tenth, throwing herself out of position and skidding to a stop on the icy, steep slope. Five of the first 10 skiers posted a DNF, including fellow Americans Keely Cashman and Isabella Wright. Tricia Mangan was the only of the red, white and blue to get to the bottom of the hill, finishing in 11th.

Federica Brignone, a two-time combined globe winner (2019, 2020) and another one of the pre-race contenders, struggled to find her speed and sat in eighth, 0.69 seconds out of first after the downhill, but blitzed the slalom course to take an early lead and eventually earn bronze.

Switzerland was hoping to become the first nation since 1988 to podium in every Alpine event. Holdener put a full 1.10 seconds on Brignone’s time to take a 0.80 second lead, though ultimately displayed disappointment over her silver. Right after her, Gisin blew the door open, gunning down the hill in just 52.25 seconds, over a second faster than her teammate, more than two seconds faster than Brignone, and over three seconds faster than Ledecka’s fourth-best mark. The remarkable performance gave her an untouchable 1.06 second lead on the field.

Notably absent from the start list was the Slovakian superstar Petra Vlhova, who’s ankle tendon injury forced her to sit out.

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Alex Hall was in a class of his own on Tuesday night in the men’s freeski slopestyle Olympic event.

He scored a 90.01 on his first run, and it stuck as the best overall mark and the only score in the 90s across the competition. Now Hall has a new crowning achievement in a career that had already risen to remarkable heights: an Olympic gold medal.

“I’m just stoked I did it, my best slopestyle ever — and for the world to see that,” he said.

Fellow American Nick Goepper joined Hall on the podium in second, while Park City’s Colby Stevenson came in seventh. The U.S. fell just short of repeating its freeski slopestyle podium sweep in 2014.

Hall, a Winter Sports School graduate, added his own flair to the Olympic slopestyle course’s grinds, gaps and kickers en route to winning the gold medal. On his winning run, Hall didn’t focus on just big spins on the jumps at the end of the course but on style as well. He spun off the middle of the second jump, touched the knuckle and continued to spin before landing.

Hall ended his first run by seemingly defying all laws of physics. He pulled off a double cork 1080 but then brought it back 180 degrees in the opposite direction. That was more than enough to impress the judges and earn that 90.01 score.

“With where our sport’s been going, a lot of what we do, we call ‘spin to win,’ and, so, everyone is spinning as much as they can,” Hall said. “To take a new approach and do a trick that has almost no rotation but is still really, really hard — it was really, really sweet.”

Stevenson’s best run was also his first one. A solid run from the top to the bottom of the course earned him a score of 77.41, but he couldn’t improve upon that mark with either of his next two attempts. Both went down as throwaways after mistakes in the first few sections of the course. Stevenson won’t be heading back to Park City empty-handed, though, as he won the silver medal in big air earlier in the Games.

“I am so happy to show my stuff on the world stage and ski the way that I did,” Stevenson said in a release. “It wasn’t exactly what I wanted today, but that’s how it goes, man, when you’re laying it all on the line. Give it your best and make sure to have fun. You don’t want to get to upset if you don’t do well. We’re living it.”

Hall was born in Alaska and grew up in Switzerland before moving to Park City to train as a teenager. He made his Olympic debut in the 2018 Games in South Korea but only finished 16th in slopestyle. Now, he has an Olympic gold medal to pair with the nine X Games medals — five of them gold — he’s won since 2019.

“It definitely was the best slopestyle run I’ve ever done, mainly because it embodied everything I love about skiing and how I approach skiing,” Hall said in a release. “I didn’t fade away from that to try and maybe get bigger scores or something.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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On the chairlift heading back up to the top of the Olympics moguls course in Zhangjiakou ahead of the medal round, Nick Page could only think about all of the work he had put in since last March. The endless hours in the gym getting his body ready for the Olympics, the countless jumps off the water ramps at the Utah Olympic Park over the summer to perfect his repertoire of tricks and even plenty of rounds of golf during the summer to improve his mental focus.

All of that hard work and preparation all led up to one, 25-second run.

“It all came down to this moment here, going up the lift, taking this run and seeing what happens, which was really cool,” Page said. “I definitely knew that’s where I wanted to be, so I kind of pictured myself in that scenario, so it was really cool to actually get there and see all that work pay off.”

Page put down his best run of his five in Beijing with a score of 78.9. It wasn’t enough to earn a medal — he finished fifth on Feb. 5 in the six-man final — but his performance was a statement nonetheless that the 19-year-old will be a contender in moguls skiing for the foreseeable future.

He made it back to his hometown of Park City last week. After a busy season of skiing and the pressure that comes with first qualifying for and then competing at the Olympics, it was nice for him to see his parents again and his dog, Rusty.

“I just remember him walking in the door and greeting Rusty and then getting that big hug that I had so longed for,” said Sheri Page, Nick’s mother. “Really fun, it’s been good to have him home.”

Making it to the Olympics at the age of 19 is no easy feat, and Nick did his best to handle it well. He found inspiration by watching videos of Shaun White, whom he had the opportunity to meet in Beijing, from when the legendary snowboarder was the same age making his Olympic debut in Torino. While he didn’t bring home a gold medal like White did in 2006, it helped to put him in the right headspace ahead of his competition.

“There are people that do so great in their Olympic debut, and then a lot of people kind of get tied up in the pressure and the event behind it,” he said. “So to go in and just take one run at a time and take all that pressure and use it to my advantage was really cool.”

Nick felt the importance of being in the right mental space after his first qualifying run. He was one of the last skiers to go, and so he watched everyone else do their runs on a television inside a heated hut, which was a new experience. He found himself worrying too much about the other skiers’ performance rather than focusing on just his run. Nick’s ensuing run was by far his worst of the Games with a score of 70.71, which left him well out of the top 10 and meant that he had to ski another run in the hopes of advancing.

“Normally, I’m always up there just thinking about my own run, and I was kind of up there thinking about what everyone else was doing,” he said. “Made the adjustment the next day to find a different spot that was warm, but to kind of just get back into my normal routine, and it seemed to work pretty well.”

From there, Nick qualified for the first finals round and then kept his run at the Olympics alive with two more solid runs to make it to the final six.

Even though he’s back home while the Games are still going on for other sports, there’s no such thing as extended time off for Nick. He joked with a coach in Beijing that the day of the women’s moguls competition, one day after his, was his first mental day off in over a year. One day after landing in Salt Lake City, he was back in the gym getting ready for the rest of the season.

There are three more World Cup events on the schedule, and he wants to be ready to take advantage of all of them. Nick is ranked 10th in the overall moguls World Cup standings. He’s also looking to compete at the junior world championships in his last year of eligibility. He joked that he’s not sure how many people have entered the Olympics before skiing at the junior world championships.

“I think the break time is over, and we still have a season to finish off, so keeping the grind down on that,” he said. “We’ll get back into formal training on snow towards the end of the month, but until then, now it’s kind of getting my body back into shape to take on the rest of the season.”

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