Only three women have won ten medals in the Winter Olympics: Russian cross-country skier Raisa Smetanina, Italian cross-country skier Stefania Belmondo, and Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjørgen.
But only Bjørgen is sill sking, and she’s gunning to become the most be-medaled female Olympian in history. A four-time Olympian, Bjørgen started her Olympic career at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, where she won silver in the 4x 5km relay for Team Norway. In Turin at the 2006 Winter Olympics, she battled through bronchitis and stomach pains to manage silver in the 10k classical.
And with age, Bjørgen keeps getting better and better. At the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, she increased her distance by winning silver in the 30k classical, and dominated the shorter races by winning gold in in the individual sprint (1.5k), the individual pursuit (15k), and the 4x5k relay. The 2014 Sochi Games also saw her capture another three gold medals. Whether it was a sprint of 1.5 k of a long haul of 30k, Bjørgen emerged victorious.
Since Sochi, Bjørgen had a baby in December 2015, and maybe her competitors thought she would lose a step or two. But apparently Bjørgen has maintained her winning ways, taking four gold medals at the 2017 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland.
On February 10, 2018, we’ll find out the day after the Opening Ceremonies, in the finals of the Ladies 7.5k + 7.5k Skiathlon, whether Bjørgen makes history with an 11th Olympic medal. I wouldn’t bet against a women who can lift a ship’s anchor.
I lived in Belltown, Seattle and would often walk by Yuki’s Diffusion on 4th Avenue, where Yuki Ohno ran his hair salon. I always quietly hoped that he would be cutting his son’s hair when I passed by, but I don’t think I ever saw the salon open.
It’s possible, when I was in Seattle in 2009-2011, Yuki may have been preparing his son for one last push, one last hurrah. For Yuki’s son is Apolo Ohno, three-time Olympian and American speed demon of the short track. In 2009, he was gearing up for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, where he would garner two more bronze medals to complement his six medals from the 2002 and 2006 Winter Games, including two golds.
But years before Apolo Ohno exploded onto the scene at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, he was just a rebellious teenager. His mother had left the family when he was one, so the always-on, rambunctious boy was raised by a single father who knew, according to this Seattle Times article, only the way he was raised, with strict discipline and a clear message about hard work and respect.” Young Apolo knew how things were at his friends’ homes, where “their parents are their servants, kids’ fingers snap, there’s the food,” Yuki said.
One thing Yuki noticed was that Apolo was athletic, and encouraged his son to swim, then roller skate, before eventually picking up roller blading. According to this ABC News article, Yuki would drive Apolo hundreds of miles around the United States so Apolo could race in rollerblading competitions, this while working full days at the hair salon. After watching the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics together, they were amazed to discover that Olympians were racing around on blades, on the ice. After getting Apolo skates, they soon realized that the kid was very fast on ice skates too, fast enough that he was asked to train with other promising speedskaters at the U. S. Junior Olympic Development Team in Lake Placid, N. Y.
Suddenly, Apolo was on the fast track to the Olympics. And yet, while Apolo was physically ready for the challenge, his head wasn’t there yet. As explained in the ABC News article, after Yuki took his son to the airport and left him to wait for his flight for New York, the son slipped away, crashing at the homes of friends in Seattle for two weeks. The father eventually found his fugitive son, and got him on the plane to Lake Placid. At the 1997 trials for the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, Apolo was likely a 15-year-old ball of confusion. Out of 16 competitors, Apolo finished 16th. That’s when Yuki insisted that Apolo take the time to think about what he wanted, by himself, by banishing his son to an isolated cottage by the Pacific Ocean where it was cold and rainy.
“My dad and I, we were still battling back and forth,” Apolo said. “He said, ‘Okay, you need to go to the ocean and contemplate, what are you gonna do?’ “
For days, Apolo did little but run and think. It was a tough time for Yuki, too.
“I had to tell him,” ‘You have to do this alone, all by yourself in the cottage in a very rainy, cold isolated area,’ ” Yuki said. “It’s very hard for me to tell him, but, ‘You have to take this path to come to the decision on your own.’ “
On the ninth day, Apolo called his dad and said simply, “I’m ready.”
From that point on, focused on becoming great at speed skating, Apolo Ohno began a long and very successful Olympic career. And his father Yuki was there practically every step of the way, travelling with his son during competitions, the training sessions and of course the Olympics. After all the fighting, the long trips in the cars, the highs and the crashes, Apolo today realizes that his father has always been there for him.
“I have certain times that I have to myself, I’m on the plane or I’m in a hotel room and I think like, ‘Wow’ You’re very grateful — you know, that I was blessed to have such great dad. And he is so supportive.”
It was the morning of September 11, 2011 when Mitt Romney was driving past the Pentagon in Washington DC. The Pentagon was on fire, the smoke so extensive it filled Romney’s car. Romney was the head of the Salt Lake City Olympics Committee at that time, and was in DC to lobby, coincidentally, for more government support with security for the upcoming Winter Games to be hosted in Utah.
Romney immediately got on the phone with his COO, Fraser Bullock to talk “about the fact that in less than five months, we were going to host the world and how were we going to keep everyone safe.”
The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics went on to become, from a sports and business perspective, a relative success compared to other Olympics. But prior to the start of the Games, with 9/11 heavy on organizers’ and casual spectators alike, security was a major priority.
In fact, even if 9/11 had not occurred, the organizers and the US government had already invested heavily in security. After all, it was only about 5 and a half years earlier that a pipe bomb went off in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta on the evening of the ninth day of the XXVI Olympiad. Over 100 people were injured, including two who died.
Mitt Romney, President George Bush and IOC Head Jacques RoggeWhile the budget for security in Atlanta was $101 million, it more than doubled to $225 million for the Salt Lake City Games, according to this New York Times article. The Winter Games that year saw a security presence unlike any other Games. More importantly, a wide variety of federal, state and local authorities were coordinated in a manner that had been unprecedented, the result of painful lessons learned about the consequences of various relevant agencies not coordinating information and efforts pre and post 9/11. Here are a few or the major decisions to boost security at Salt Lake City 2002, according to the Times article:
Secret Service agents will be used to secure all areas used for Olympic events. In the past, their role was confined to protecting the president and other dignitaries. The expanded presence represents the federal government’s largest security investment, $27.2 million, according to the government report.
For the first time in an Olympics in the United States — this is the eighth since 1904 — all law agencies, as well as military commanders, will operate as part of a unified Utah Olympic Public Safety Command.
Airspace over northern Utah will be heavily guarded, with AWACs surveillance planes on routine missions, F-16’s from nearby Hill Air Force Base on alert and added radar operating at Salt Lake City International Airport, where plans call for commercial traffic to be stopped at various times, including the opening and closing ceremonies.
In another new effort, the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service are pooling resources to create an instant check on foreign visitors through a database that will let Customs officers determine immediately whether an Olympic athlete or official is on a United States watch list.
In addition, military forces will be stationed in and around the city. Mr. Romney said the commitment could reach up to 10,000 troops, including more than 2,000 from the Utah National Guard, the largest call-up ever in the state.
On February 8, only 151 days after September 11, the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Games commenced. In memory of the events that took place that beautiful Tuesday morning in New York, the tattered American flag that was recovered from the ruins of the Twin Towers was brought into the Stadium amidst an honor guard of Port Authority, NYPD and NYFD personnel who were in New York that day, with helicopter rotors thumping in the background.
Bullock said that there were objections from influential people about injecting a potentially powerful political statement like this particular American flag being displayed in an event that purports to be politically agnostic. But Bullock said that Romney had to twist a few arms to get to that decision because it “was the right thing to do.” And when the flag appeared, Bullock said, “the world really came together. It was a special moment for everyone.”
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