Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 review: The good, bad and warning for the greatest ever Australian team
The Australian team in Beijing has been hailed our greatest ever – but they’ve been given a chilling warning. Plus all the highlights and lowlights in our Winter Olympics wrap.
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Australia’s most successful Winter Olympic team has been given a chilling warning that their best days may already be over because the Chinese now have us in their sights.
While the Aussie team in Beijing has been hailed as our greatest ever, after pocketing a record four medals, there are already danger signs the team’s future will be under threat by the sudden rise of China.
Unsurprisingly, the Chinese have benefited the most from their government’s paranoid pandemic rules that have turned the Beijing Winter Olympics into a Covid lottery.
While other countries have struggled with being trapped in the ‘closed-loop’, China’s athletes have excelled, already winning a record eight gold medals.
The warning sign for Australia is clear that the Chinese – who are using the Beijing Olympics as a launching pad for what they hope will be a sustained era of success in Winter sports – are targeting the same events Australia has excelled in, particularly freestyle skiing, snowboarding and short track skating.
In aerials, Australia’s best Winter Olympics sport, China won the gold medal in both the men’s and women’s individual events, as well as silver in the team event, while the Aussies came up empty-handed.
In freestyle skiing, China’s Eileen Gu won two golds and a silver while Australia’s only medal was the gold, won brilliantly by Jakara Anthony in women’s moguls.
The Australian team chef de mission Geoff Lipshut said it was inevitable that China would become a major force in the same events the Aussies have been targeting for medals.
“If you look at the fantastic facilities they’ve got here now, I think China will become stronger in a number of different sports,” he said.
“And unfortunately, some of them will be the ones that we do.”
With a lot less money and people to pick from, the challenge facing Australia’s Winter Olympians in the future is looming as a formidable one, but Lipshut said all is not lost just yet.
The Australians have always found a way to punch above their weight at the Winter Olympics, slowly, but steadily, increasing the number of medals won since the men’s short track speed skating team won bronze at Lillehammer in 1994.
After taking 58 years to win that first medal, Australia has now won medals at each of the past eight Winter Olympics and Lipshut expects that will continue regardless of whether the Chinese start encroaching on our best sports.
“The number of medal opportunities we had at these Games is far beyond anything I have experienced,” he said.
“Before these Games I said if we managed four medals, that would be fantastic because that’s unknown territory for an Australian team.
“It is fantastic but the collective disappointment of those near misses illustrates how far we have come.”
While Anthony (gold), Scotty James (silver in halfpipe), Jackie Narracott (silver in skeleton) and Tess Coady (bronze in slopestyle) all made it to the podium, there were five other Australians who finished in the top six.
Part of that has come from improved facilities in Australia, including a water ramp in Brisbane, and Lipshut said there would now be a strong push to build a curling rink and a halfpipe to increase opportunities in other sports.
“In terms of our performance looking into the future, I would hope that we keep that slow build and keep moving upwards,” he said.
POWDER AND THE PASSION
After a month in Beijing, Julian Linden is ready to dish out his own Olympic medals.
AUSSIE HONOUR ROLL
Jakara Anthony
The first Aussie in 12 years to reach the top step of the podium after an ice-cool performance in the moguls
Scotty James
Upgraded the bronze he won four years ago in snowboard halfpipe to silver.
Jaclyn Narracott
The first Aussie to win a medal in sliding after she finished runner-up in skeleton.
Tess Coady
Picked up Australia’s first medal of the Games in snowboard slopestyle.
BIGGEST STUFF-UPS
Gold
Allowing China to turn the Winter Olympics into a big Covid prison camp. Completely killed the vibe and ruined the dreams of athletes who deserved better.
Silver
Allowing Russian teenager Kamila Valieva to compete after she had failed a doping test.
Bronze
Overzealous judges and officials who failed to reward some of the best tricks but disqualified five female skiers from the mixed team jumping event for wearing clothes that were too baggy, even though they had been approved by officials.
MOST INSPIRING AUSSIES
Jaclyn Narracott
Classic Aussie battler. Had won nothing in a decade before hitting form at the perfect time.
Abi Harrigan
Teenage freestyle skier who competed in her first Olympics on a broken leg.
Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt
Australia’s first curlers. Told to go home after Gill tested positive for Covid a second time. Given a last-minute reprieve then made it back to the rink with minutes to spare before beating Switzerland and then Canada.
BIGGEST FLOPS
Mikaela Shiffrin (USA)
Arrived in Beijing talking about winning five gold medals in alpine skiing and ended up without any medals.
Entire British team
Spent $41m on preparing a team that only managed to collect two medals, both in curling.
Channel 7’s cheerleading commentators
The best analysts know not to treat the Australian public like mugs so call it as they see it instead of labelling everyone in green and gold a legend.
SHATTERED AUSSIES
Laura Peel
The best aerial skier in the world for years, she was unable to land her only jump in the final so was pushed down to fifth spot.
Belle Brockhoff
Fought back strongly to make the snowboard cross final only to finish fourth and just miss out on a medal.
Brendan Corey
Ran into heavy traffic on the final bend of his 1000m short track speed skating race and slipped over and was penalised while trying to get past.
FUTURE STARS TO WATCH
Valentino Guseli
Teenage snowboard whiz kid who finished sixth. Watch this space.
Cooper Woods
Another first timer who upstaged some of the biggest names in moguls to make it to the super final.
Tess Coady
Took bronze in slopestyle and made the big air final but best ahead of her.
MOST AWKWARD MOMENTS
– International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bachturning up to an event alongside Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai. As staged photo ops go, this was as cynical as it gets.
– The most unwelcome welcome of any Olympic Games with athletes greeted at the airport by workers dressed in hazmat suits and armed with nasal testing equipment.
– Athletes almost freezing to death as temperatures in the mountains plummeted to worse than -30 degrees.
BEST INTERNATIONAL MALE PERFORMANCE
Nathan Chen (USA)
Gave no one else a chance as he won gold in the singles figure skating.
Ayumu Hirano (Japan)
Beat Scotty James for the gold in halfpipe when he landed the previously impossible triple cork a second time after being stiffed by the judges the first time.
Su Yiming (China)
Teenage snowboarder who won gold in the Big Air and should have won a second in slopestyle when he completed a quadruple spin. The judges gave gold to a rival who made a mistake they missed.
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEMALE PERFORMANCE
Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (New Zealand)
Sydney-born snowboarder who blew away the opposition to win gold in slopestyle then silver in Big Air.
Eileen Gu (China)
One of the most scrutinised athletes at the Games after opting to represent China in the US – she stood up and collected two golds and a silver medal.
Erin Jackson (USA)
The first black woman to win gold in speed skating. Initially missed out on making the team when she fell at the US qualifiers but was given her spot by a teammate.
BEST COMEBACK
Max Parrot (Canada)
Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma three years ago, Parrot beat the cancer in 2019 and won Olympic gold in snowboarding slopestyle.
Lindsey Jacobellis (USA)
American snowboard cross rider who blew a certain gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy when she celebrated too early and fell before the finish line. It took her 16 years but she finally made amends at age 36 and won Olympic gold – twice – in her individual and team events.
Xu Mengtao (China)
At age 31, and competing in her fourth Olympics, Xu became the first Chinese woman to win gold in aerials. She has a history of crash-landing under pressure so when she landed perfectly to seal gold, she let out a squeal that was heard across the whole of China.
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