By WILL GRAVES, AP Nationwide Author
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Hovering arias. Wrenching tragedy. Joyful triumphs. Unique backdrops. Climaxes usually designed to supply tears, unhappy or in any other case.
Maybe greater than something, the operas that Italians started creating 400 years in the past are designed to make you are feeling. To have the remainder of the world soften away as you get misplaced in a narrative sung in a language you may not perceive, however whose stakes are unmistakable.
No marvel the nation that invented the artwork kind the place music and poetry merge, and these Winter Olympics appear to be such an ideal match.
The quadrennial spectacle that started its keep in Northern Italy with a gala hosted by the Worldwide Olympic Committee on the iconic La Scala opera home in Milan spent its first full week reflecting the host nation’s signature artwork kind onto itself.
The magic the Video games so usually present, regardless of the place they might go, seemingly a bit of bolder, a bit of louder, a bit of extra deeply felt.
Tearful exits
The preliminary gasp that gave solution to eerie silence after American snowboarding star Lindsey Vonn’s proper arm clipped a gate simply 13 seconds into the ladies’s downhill on Sunday, resulting in a spectacular and brutal crash that broke her left leg and ended her unlikely Olympic return at 41.
Crashes occur. It’s part of the game. The “solely on the Video games” flourish got here afterward, when Vonn’s lengthy, sluggish helicopter trip down the mountain to security veered gently to the left, flying over the grandstand the place the throngs who got here out to observe her bid for historical past waved a tearful goodbye as an alternative.
The tears for Vonn have been borne out of concern and what might need been. The tears from IOC president Kirsty Coventry after telling Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych he was disqualified for refusing to interchange a helmet adorned with pictures of over 20 coaches and athletes who’ve died since Russia’s invasion started have been of anguish and remorse.
“Nobody, nobody — particularly me — is disagreeing with the messaging,” Coventry mentioned. “The messaging is a strong message.”
One so compelling and so vital to Heraskevych that the 27-year-old sacrificed his goals of Olympic glory to make it. Even when the eye he obtained for his stand caught him off guard.
“I by no means anticipated it to be such a giant scandal,” he mentioned on Friday after an enchantment listening to.
4 years right into a warfare that drags on with an finish still not quite in sight, Heraskevych’s stand dragged a battle that in some areas of the world has retreated to the shadows and thrust it again into the worldwide highlight distinctive to the Video games. His selfless determination elevated the dialogue about his homeland to the general public writ massive in a manner that no gold-medal-winning run ever may.
Heraskevych’s act was meant for a world viewers. Norway’s Sturla Holm Laegreid was talking to an viewers of 1 after incomes bronze within the males’s 20-kilometer race. His startling confession of infidelity to a former accomplice after what was presupposed to function one of many highlights of his profession upstaging the gold received in the identical race by countryman Johan-Olav Botn.
Love each misplaced and received
Being lovesick in Italy is hardly new. There’s a purpose seemingly each highschool literature class makes “Romeo and Juliet” required studying. The Shakespearean tragedy is about in Verona, about 3 hours southwest of the place Laegreid made his gorgeous plea, sounding very very similar to a teen within the throes of heartache. His vow of contrition created a viral second that passes for social forex, the fallout be damned.
“I can perceive what he needs to have occur together with his girlfriend,” retired German athlete Erik Lesser told The Associated Press. “However I simply wish to take into consideration sport, wish to see sport, wish to speak about sport.”
But the Olympics have by no means actually been nearly sport. How can they be when the strains between sports activities, politics and tradition appear to be rising extra blurry by the day? The one factor good concerning the Video games could be the 5 intertwined rings which have lengthy served as its brand.
That’s what makes it so enthralling. A couple of days after Laegreid achieved a small piece of infamy, Olympic downhill champion Breezy Johnson retreated into the arms of boyfriend Connor Watkins after crashing within the Tremendous-G.
Whereas Johnson’s goals of leaving Cortina with a number of golds have been gone, one other was realized anyway when Watkins dropped to a knee and recited Taylor Swift lyrics whereas producing a blue and white sapphire ring.
Johnson giddily accepted earlier than leaping into his arms, the bodily ache and emotional disappointment of what occurred up on the mountain solely minutes earlier changed by a reminiscence and a promise that may stick together with her perpetually.
“I feel most individuals wish to peak on the Olympics,” Johnson mentioned. “I simply additional peaked.”
Favorites upstaged
Not everybody does at a competition the place unpredictability usually outduels inevitability for high billing.
For each breakthrough just like the one American determine skater Ilia Malinin is offering one electrifying backflip and quadruple bounce at a time, there are bold-faced champions considerably surprisingly ceding the stage they’ve so usually commanded.
Mikaela Shiffrin arrived in Cortina because the winningest ski racer within the historical past of the game. Keen to place an 0 for six run 4 years in the past in Beijing behind her, she as an alternative started her fourth Olympics with her worst showing in a slalom that she began and completed since 2012, costing Shiffrin and Johnson a gold in girls’s mixed and opening the door for teammates Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan to assert the primary Olympic medals of their lengthy careers.
American snowboarding icon Chloe Kim’s bid for an unprecedented third gold within the halfpipe ended late Thursday when a teen who grew up idolizing her — Gaon Choi of South Korea — pulled off an upset in snowy Livigno.
“I’m a winner as a result of I used to be in a position to persevere and combat by,” mentioned Kim, who competed only a month faraway from a dislocated shoulder.
And maybe greater than something on the Olympics, it’s the combat that issues.
For the hundreds of athletes scattered throughout northern Italy, the street to this second of their lives is rooted in a ardour discovered way back. The flames might have flickered for a lot of alongside the best way. How may they not? The drudgery of observe. The monetary burden. The inevitable bodily toll. The hidden psychological pressure has solely not too long ago graduated from hushed whispers to a full-fledged conversation.
It’s loads to hold. No marvel it’s such fertile floor for drama.
Italy’s second
And nobody has leaned into it greater than the hosts who’ve surged to the highest of the medal desk.
But a rustic identified for giant gestures and even greater feelings can also be one that may revel within the quiet and earlier than the catharsis.
Ten months in the past, Italian skier Federica Brignone shredded her left leg in a crash that required a number of surgical procedures, a handful of screws to maintain issues in place and months of rehab. The 35-year-old by no means stopped pointing towards Cortina. On Thursday, in entrance of a crowd that included Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Brignone ignored the lingering ache to throw down a chic Tremendous-G run in difficult circumstances to earn her first Olympic gold.
After the medal ceremony, the Italian Air Pressure’s acrobatic unit thundered overhead, leaving a path of the nation’s acquainted mixture of inexperienced, white and purple in its wake.
The slopes in Cortina shook. The flags waved. Brignone wept, pondering not a lot of glory, however the winding path she took to get right here.
“A kind of movies that you just don’t consider in as a result of it’s not doable for it to finish that effectively,” Brignone mentioned.
Perhaps that’s one of the best half.
It’s not the tip. We’re solely midway there. Who is aware of?
Milan Cortina’s second act could possibly be even higher than the primary.
AP Sports activities Writers Andrew Dampf, Graham Dunbar, Dave Skretta, Tim Reynolds and AP Nationwide Author Eddie Pells contributed to this report.
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
