The 16 Most Impressive Athletes from the 2018 Winter Olympics

I can loosely be described as a Winter Olympics obsessive. I grew up in a skiing family (other families took vacations to the beach or camping, we took our big vacations to the Rockies) with a father who owned a condo in Lake Placid, attended the 1980 Olympics and raced. I was similarly on a club racing team in college (not particularly good at the two disciplines I raced: It’s an extremely frustrating sport I’d describe as playing a game of chess against gravity with very little time to think about how to make each move) and have dabbled in terrain parks and cross-country skiing (I don’t know how to do most of the stuff these Olympians do if you’re looking for tips), but I mostly forget to watch these great sports in the off-years. When the Olympics come around, I’m suddenly hooked on this stuff like it never left:

Here’s my list of athletes that impressed me the most with the disclosure that I’m watching from a US-centric perspective:

1. Ester Ledecka-CZE Republic-Alpine Skiing (Super G) & Snowboard (Parallel Giant Slalom)-Ledecka wanted to make history as the first snowboarder to compete in a ski race. She never finished above 19th in a World Cup race and she borrowed someone else’s skis and ended up winning Gold in the Super-G in a win so unexpected that NBC had switched over the broadcast and the NBC broadcasters only issued a half-apology saying it was “extremely unlikely” she’d make a medal podium. Her own reaction to winning was even more apropos.