© 2024
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
An update has been released for the Android version of the WAMC App that addresses performance issues. Please check the Google Play Store to download and update to the latest version.

Keith Strudler: The Best Or Worst Of Olympic Times

No one is going to confuse Liz Swaney with Lindsey Vonn. They do both compete in winter downhill Olympic sports. But the comparisons stop there. This is Swaney’s first Olympic Games, compared to Vonn’s fourth. And Swaney does the snowboard half pipe, while Lindsey Vonn is a downhill skier. So those are some differences. But that kind of buries the lead. It's like saying the difference between Brad Pitt and John Candy is that Pitt prefers to wear brown shoes.

Vonn, of course, is perhaps the most decorated women's skier of all time. She has 76 World Cup wins and three Olympic medals. And she's also recovered from more debilitating injuries than your average NFL football team. Vonn is the epitome of the Olympic ideal, elite athleticism driven by an unrelenting will to succeed.

Swaney is perhaps less so. To be blunt, she is likely the worst Olympic snowboarder in history. Representing Hungary, Swaney qualified through a complex process of traveling the globe to compete in the right qualifying events, particularly those lacking top stars or those with low attendance. Essentially by playing the numbers and effectively finding a path of least resistance, Swaney did what legions of the world’s most elite athletes regularly fail to do. She earned a spot at the Olympic Games. Swaney is not the only, shall we say lackluster Olympic athlete in Korea this year. Venezuelan cross-country skier Adrian Solano had his first ever run on snow at the Olympics. It was not good. And everyone remembers Eddie the Eagle, the British ski jumper. So this is not entirely new terrain.

In PyeongChang, Swaney’s performance was, shall we say, untraditional. In the half pipe snowboard competition, where participants are judged based on the execution of extreme tricks, Swaney did no tricks. Not that she did them poorly, or fell. She just didn’t do any. It’s kind of like playing Hot Cross Buns on your tryout for Julliard. Needless to say, she didn’t make it past the qualifying rounds of the Games. Which means she’ll go home like the vast majority of Olympic participants – that is, medal-free.

Do not make the mistake of assuming Swaney to be uneducated, even if her statements do seem a bit naïve. American born despite competing for Hungary – because obviously it’s a lot easier to make the Hungarian team than the US Snowboarding team – Swaney has degrees from Cal-Berkeley and Harvard and as an undergraduate ran for governor of California. Needless to say, she didn’t win. So perhaps she has not only a strong sense of self, but also seemingly no fear of failure. As someone who lives every day motivated by that very anxiety, I suppose I should admire her for that.

The lines are pretty distinctly drawn around Swaney’s Olympic run. Some have called it an abomination and embarrassment. That’s she’s marginalized the hard work of more elite Olympic athletes. That she should be ashamed and is simply an attention hog. Others hold her as a role model of what’s possible, that she represents the Olympian in all of us. There’s not a lot of middle ground.

To be fair, there’s probably more nuance to this debate than the actual debaters allow. For example, it’s different when underperforming athletes come from truly undeveloped nations, where simply finding the will to make it to the Olympics and complete an event is inspirational for a people. Even if it’s a bit hokey and requires a suspended disbelief about the Olympic movement in general, I can live with that dissonance. This case isn’t that. While Liz Swaney did compete for a nation that doesn’t have a whole lot of snowboarders, there’s nothing particularly inspirational about her journey. And Hungary isn’t exactly a third-world nation. And not for nothing, Liz Swaney doesn’t live in Hungary anyway. So by that account, I’d tend to see this performance as somewhat more self-serving than inspirational. Even if technically Swaney didn’t do anything wrong. She followed all the rules of qualifying and found a way there – at considerable expense in qualifying, I’m sure.

But let’s also be clear. The Olympics were never designed for average athletes. It was in its genesis a venue for elite performance – so much that it’s often feels like a gated subdivision. The Games were designed to inspire through greatness, not relatability. So for those who consider Liz Swaney to represent the true Olympic spirit – I’d soundly disagree. Whether you like that or not is up to you. But it’s simply the reality of the event.

The IOC will make sure it stays that way and is already looking to close the loophole that let Swaney qualify in the first place. Which means the Games will be a lot more Lindsey Vonn and a lot less Liz Swaney. I don’t think anyone will get the two confused.

Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

Related Content