About fallen divas and new superstars

Who is actually the new Olympic figure skating champion? We all noticed that it wasn't Kamila Valieva. Almost only insiders know that her name is Anna Anna Shcherbakov. In the whole drama surrounding the prodigy Valieva, we almost only mentioned the winner in passing. A complicated doping story involving the 15-year-old has pushed the purely sporting headlines into the background. Unfortunately, that didn't just happen in this case.

Ski superstar Mikaela Shiffrin has been eliminated three times. This meant that she was more present in the US media than ever before. Her countless successes have not received nearly as much coverage in her homeland as her Olympic drama in Beijing. Of course, it is the fate of superstars that they get more attention than others. What happened to China? From now on this also includes Eileen Gu or Gu Ailing, whatever her name is. The dominator in freestyle skiing is celebrated by the Chinese. This also has a political background. She was born in San Francisco, has a Chinese mother and has been competing for China since 2019. This has enabled China to leave its arch-enemy USA behind in the medal table. If Gu had started for her home country, it would have been the other way around.

Eileen Gu was born in the USA but competes for China. © ANSA / MAXIM SHIPENKOV

The busiest medal collectors once again came from Norway. Johannes Thingnes Bø has won 4 gold medals like his compatriot Ole Einar Bjørndalen, but that doesn't mean he has the status of the legend Björndalen. Incidentally, this prepared China's biathletes for the Olympic Games, with moderate success.

The Chinese have achieved success in other sports. Whether China is now a winter sports country, as IOC President Thomas Bach claimed at the closing ceremony, remains to be seen. It remains to be seen whether Italy will be able to organize a similarly well-organized Winter Games in four years. But one thing already seems certain: it will not be as bitterly cold as in Zhanjiakou and Yanqing in Italy in 4.

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About fallen divas and new superstars

Who is actually the new Olympic figure skating champion? How did the host country perform? Has Mikaela Shiffrin's media presence suffered due to her failures?

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