‘Skin Orgasms for Everyone’: Highlights of the Winter Olympics So Far

0:01This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.

0:22I am Steve Stromberg, an editor in New York Times Opinion and a huge Olympics fan. I'm joined today by two fellow Olympics devotees, the Times-contributing writer Issa Macaulay and writer and podcast host Kelly Corrigan. And also with us is Olympics royalty. We've got Sasha Cohen, a figure skater who won silver in the 2006 Winter Olympics. Thank you for being here. Oh, thanks for having us. Thank you for having us. Great to be here. Thank you. The games aren't over, but I want to hear some of your superlatives of the Winter Olympics so far. What has been your favorite, most outrageous, most inspiring or most unexpected moment of the games?

1:04And I should note that we were recording this on Wednesday morning, and it's probable that some amazing new things will happen by the time people hear this. We already heard this morning that Michaela Schifrin won gold in the slalom, so her drought is over. Issa, why don't you start? My favorite story for this Olympic soap bar has been Frederica, I think it's Brignone, I guess that's how you say her name. She's an Italian skier, and she broke her tibia, fibula, and she had a complete knee disc location 10 months ago. And she just returned to gentle skiing in November and she won two gold medals.

1:42She talked about how she thought that she may never ski or walk normally again. For her to come back and to win two gold medals, that's been my favorite story from the Olympics so far. It really makes you think about the times that you complain about your occasional shoulder pain. Listen, I hurt my back in November. During a snowstorm when I was - You should have a gold medal around your neck by now. I'm not back to shoveling the snow here in Chicago yet. You're such a slacker. Oh, my goodness. Kelly, give us a superlative. Francesca Lola Brigida and her two-year-old son, Tommaso. She is the first Italian woman to ever win a speed skating gold and has Italy's first speed skating gold since Torino 20 years ago.

2:26She is away from this kid 250 days a year. And then there he was. And, you know, like as a mom, I can't even imagine what it would do for me for my kid to see me excel at my thing. So the way that the husband and the kid were jumping up and down like lunatic, it was like a gonzo moment. I loved Ilia coming off the ice after that really hard moment with such composure and using the words grateful. fall. The backflipping skating sensation known as the quad god had one of his worst performances and failed to medal in the free skate finals. Was it something physical or do you think it was more mental out there?

3:06I think it was definitely mental. I mean like just now finally experiencing that Olympic atmosphere it's it's crazy. It's not like any other competition. It's it's really different and it's just such I'm still so grateful that I was able to you know put in this work and effort to get to where I am. But of course, that was not the skate that I wanted. And I love the insane arguments I've been getting into with my husband over like all the equipment stuff. Like penis skate. And somebody had to bring it up. But also about like, you know, the brooms they use and curling and whether a blue suit moves you faster than a red suit.

3:47Like all that kind of seeming minutiae to a layperson has been kind of fun to engage in. Just to add a little context, Penis Gate is, of course, about ski jumping and whether there was too much fabric in the sensitive areas of some of the competitors, which would give them a little bit of extra lift. Sasha, do you have any superlatives for us? What comes to mind is watching Maxim Nomov, And it just gave me goosebumps because I saw him as a little kid. I knew his parents. And for people that don't know the story, his parents were on the flight that crashed about 13 months ago. and he didn't think he was going to skate anymore.

4:36And he came back with such joy. And I was talking to him at the winter house and he carries a picture of his parents. And when he was maybe five years old at the rink everywhere and you see him after he skates, show it to the camera. And he was saying, you know, I'm just so thrilled to be here. This is my parents' dream. I'm living their dream. This is, you know, this last year has been the highest highs, the lowest lows, but I'm so grateful. to be here and to live out this Olympic dream because it was also my parents' dream. And to me, that just captured the Olympic spirit at its best. It was the ethos of, I am so grateful to perform at this level and put my life's work on display and share my dream and my family's dream with the world.

5:25And I just thought that was such a beautiful expression of what the Olympics is about in some aspect. And so that was definitely my favorite moment. Yeah, totally. Did you see the conversation? I think it was with a skier. I don't remember her name. Forgive me. And she won the silver. Do you see these as two silvers gained or two goals lost? I'm the most decorated female free skier in history. I think that's an answer in and of itself. The way that she kind of reset and allowed us to understand the actual pressure of an athlete and how those of us who are watching the sports can kind of be excessively critical.

6:05I don't know how you felt. Did you see that interview, Sasha, and how did you feel about it? I think I saw a headline that referenced it, but I didn't see the actual interview. And I think it's so true. One statistic I remember reading is that those that win third place and first place are the happiest. And second and fourth are the most disappointed. You either just miss the podium or just miss gold. But I think a lot of it depends on the color of maybe how you won the silver. Did you defy expectations and move from fifth to second? Or were you leading the competition and make a mistake and drop down to second?

6:42So I think that really colors how an individual athlete might think about the color of their medal. And then I think it's wonderful to reframe, right? I'm the most decorated skier in Olympic history. Something like that to say, this is all that I've done and it's icing on the cake and it reminds me of Lindsey Vonn. Oh my goodness, snow! Even though the games did not go as we wanted and as she wanted, she showed us that so much of it was about showing up and the attitude that you walk through life with. And despite the adversity and your body falling apart, you choose to show up and compete. And that in itself is going to be so memorable for her and everyone watching.

7:32And so I think reframing is very important, especially as athletes are older and are further along in their careers. And it's their third or fourth Olympics because they realize how special it is just to have a spot at the games and get to do this for a living with the world watching. You know, I'm sort of fascinated by behavioral psychology and I feel like this is the golden age of the layperson understanding mental health. And I feel like that's very evident in this Games. I repeatedly have this sensation of like, oh, that kid, these young, young people is either balanced or striving for balance in a way that you didn't hear 20 years ago.

8:16Yeah, so a lot of gratitude we're hearing from the men's skaters. Kelly, you mentioned Ilya Malinan, the quad god. The quad god. You know, if your household was anything like mine, your four-year-old daughter screamed quad God every time he appeared on screen, you know, in a promo, in an ad, anytime. So pretty much constantly. And expectations for melanin were so high that it would have been hard to meet him, even for the best of the best. But it's hard not to feel for him. You know, did he have a bad night? Was he unprepared mentally? it just sort of seems like there's something about Olympics competitions that makes the stakes feel higher than others, right?

8:57I mean, Sasha, you're the expert on this. How do you see this? He is the creme de la creme of men's figure skating, and he has set the bar so high that the point lead that he typically has over his nearest competitor is 20, 30 points. It's such cushion that everyone thought he can fall two or three times and still win. And so I think it really took the spectators by surprise. But then I also know what it's like getting onto the ice, skating last, and knowing that this is your time and you're four minutes away from securing your dream. and that can be very rattling. And it's almost like your system short circuits where you're trying to process so much information coming in and everything's compressed into a few minutes and then it's compressed into each jumping pass.

9:59And it can be just an extraordinary amount of like energy and intensity and nerves just bouncing around in your body, not to mention every thought that's going through your head because I find the interesting juxtaposition here is that as an athlete, what we should do is train our body, trust our body and tell our mind to be quiet. And so you have different ways to do this. Like, okay, just breathe in, out, arm goes left, right. But then your mind wants to be involved. Like, hey, this moment's too important. I can't let the body just do it by itself. Like I need to optimize. Like, what can I be doing to help?

10:40And then I think that's where you get into a lot of trouble, where the mind just really tries to be involved and perfect each moment. And that can lead to just one millisecond of delay or moving a little bit too quickly and change timing on a jumping pass. And then I think once you miss one, you're just carrying another set of expectations and disappointment that you can't really process in real time because you have to keep going. I blew it. And that's honestly the first thing that came to my mind was there's no way that just happened. Like, I mean, I was preparing the whole season. You know, I felt so confident with my program, so confident with everything.

11:19And just to go out and that happened was, I have no words, honestly. I think it was that culminating moment of like, it's all here. It's in my hands. I've got it. I'm four minutes away from the dream. And that's when it started to unravel. I mean, every maternal bone in my body just wanted to sweep him up in my arms. And I was like, I'm so proud of you for your composure. You just saved a lot of kids down the line. There's a 10-year-old and a 15-year-old who learned more from you in that interview than they did by watching you on the ice. That's the human trick, is composure under pressure. Sasha, while we have you on figure skating, let's turn to the women.

12:00We have a trio of American female figure skaters known as the Blade Angels. And of course, you were the last woman from the U.S. to win an Olympic medal in figure skating, and that was 20 years ago. The Blade Angels, they're hoping to end that drought on Thursday. Is this the year? I just watched the Ladies Short program yesterday, and the depth of the field was really stunning. not only the technical abilities but the artistic package that most of the lady skaters have Alyssa Liu American from Oakland is in third place going into the long program Isabella Vito is I believe seventh or eighth and Amber Glenn is 13th and so I think it's going to be a lot tougher for our second and third place ladies to get up to the podium.

12:55But I think Alyssa Liu has such a good shot. And I have to say that I've been out of the sport for a long time. Going to nationals this year in January was the first time I really watched figure skating since I competed. And I went to the Olympics and watched as a spectator. It was hard. You know, a little bit of PTSD and just reliving my own nerves and everything in watching Olympic skaters. So I took a long break. So coming back to watch nationals this year was just so awe-inspiring to see Alyssa because she comes out there with this grace, this ease, this joy that I've never seen in someone competing at the highest stakes.

13:39And it makes you root for her more because she's so different. And you don't see that kind of clenching, like, you know, this is my moment on the line and I've got to meet these expectations. And I think she's our shot at a medal on the podium. Yeah. And she's really saying the right things. She specifically said, I don't evaluate my performance by the outcome. I evaluate it by what it feels like and what the process leading up to it has been. I mean, that is like the healthiest attitude you could possibly have. It's amazing because she lives what she says. I think a lot of people say that, but they don't really feel it.

14:24And she really seems like she's a living proof of that. Yeah, I believed it when she said it. I was like, I believe you. I want to follow up on something that you said when you mentioned taking a long break from watching the Olympics. Can you explain what it's like for someone who's had that kind of spotlight and had that much of their life dedicated for something, as you have. And then just to say, the pressure is so great, I need to turn off even watching my sport for a period of time. Can you explain what that experience is like or what leads someone down that road? Is it the attention that comes with it?

14:59Is it the pressure? Is it the scrutiny? I think it's probably different for each athlete. Personally, I can speak to my experience. and my Olympic Games in Torino did not go as I hoped it to. I ended up with a silver medal. I made two mistakes. I was injured going in and not able to prepare. And I just lived in this pressure cooker. I didn't go to the opening or closing ceremonies. I stayed in an apartment away from the village to try to focus. And I just knew everything that I had been training for it was going to boil down to these few minutes and how was I going to do it when I wasn't prepared and 20 years later I am so grateful for that silver medal for that experience and for skating a really strong program after my my mistakes but I couldn't watch for a while every time I saw the Olympic rings or heard that music and saw other skaters warming up backstage or about to take the ice, I would relive my own programs and disappointments.

16:09And if somebody fell, it would remind me of my own mistakes. If someone skated perfectly, I would say, that was a program I wish I could have done. And it was a lot. And so I think I needed space to develop as a person and have other outside interests. And you wait long enough. And then I realized that, hey, no matter What I do, skating is always such an integral part of who I am. It defined me. The people that I love, that I trained with, that I competed with, the way that we have moved through life and have oriented our goals and dreams around like a moment in the Olympic Games and making crazy decisions and, you know, sacrificing so much because the Olympics is such a big dream.

16:59It was a homecoming to come back. But now it's so exciting because I've been watching at home with my kids. And they're like, Mom, you were in the Olympics. Like, were you better than her? Were you better than her? I was like, oh, 20 years ago. And I'm really enjoying watching. And that is such a gift that I can watch the Olympic Games again because that's how it all started. I remember cheering you on in Torino and just being so happy and proud when you won. And so it always blows my mind when you hear about the silver medalists being disappointed. You got a silver medal. You did amazing. We're all so proud of you.

17:34In the entire world, like, you know, there's one person who did slightly better. I just can't imagine. I mean, I understand it's the nature of the sport, but I'm not the top three of any particular thing. Like, nothing. So it's amazing. 20 years later, I have the perspective where I can appreciate the silver medal. And yes, I want to go back in time and skate my personal best, but not training and being injured, I wasn't able to prepare. And so now 20 years later, it's just another reminder, you know, the human body does not always do when you want it to do, whether as a normal person with your health or as an athlete, being able to prevent injuries and be at your best at the moment when it is the most important.

18:21And so I think I've given myself some grace and understanding of, you know, not only like the life cycle, but the strength and the frailty of the human body and also how much we can't control even when we try to control everything. So we all love figure skating. There are a few other sports in the Winter Olympics. Kelly, any big stories out of some of the other events that have stuck out to you that you've been interested in, proud of, sad about? So Alana Myers-Taylor is my person. Bobsled driver Alana Myers-Taylor came from behind to win the women's solo event last night. Coming into these games, she had won five medals in four Olympics, but this is her first gold.

19:09I mean, she has two young children. They are both deaf and one of them has Down syndrome. And in December, she was texting her husband saying, I don't think that this is where I should be. I don't think I can do this. And then two months later, she's wearing the gold and signing to her children, I did this. I did it. I mean, that is what I live for. That is like my perfect story is a mom who didn't cut herself off, who didn't like put herself in a cage and say, this is as big as I'm allowed to be. and then gets that moment of connection with her kid where it's like, I did it. Because I want kids to see adults having great lives.

19:58I feel like part of the anxiety and depression that we see is that the younger people are looking at our generation and saying, that doesn't look that good. So it looks good. Being a little older looks better after these Olympics than it has ever looked. All right, before we move on to politics, I just want to give a shout out to Jordan Stoltz, the pride of Kowaskam, Wisconsin. And it's official. Jordan Stoltz is the fastest speed skater in the world. Two events, two golds in Milan with two more races still ahead of him. And did you see his quads? I mean, they're enormous. Many times the question has floated through my mind.

20:40Is that what a human body is supposed to look like? Like, is that what a leg is? Is that what a butt is? Because there's just zero, you know, the Venn diagram of my legs and butt and their legs. It's the null set. There's no overlap. And that's part of the awe and wonder of the whole thing is like this Adonis feeling of like, you are seeing somebody do with their body the most that can be done with a body. And that is a very uplifting thing to witness. As a friend of mine said, he needs to stop skipping arms day.

21:18Well, that's a funny thing about the Olympics, too. It's like when you get a little cocky on your couch. Yeah. You know, like while you're eating your bagel and you're like, that was not very good. Or like you could have put another spin on that high jumper. You're watching the biathlon and suddenly you're an instant expert. Totally. There was something a friend of mine said that was so hilarious, which I think would be great for viewing, is that you add one normal human to every Olympic sport. Yes. Just so you can see how actually difficult what's going on is. Because, you know, everyone makes it look relatively easy.

21:52But if you just put one ordinary human in each sport. That's so brilliant. That would give us a whole world of context and entertainment. All right. Politics is never far away from the Olympics. But this year has been particularly fraught for American athletes. Last week, a reporter asked American freestyle skier Hunter Hess about representing the United States. It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think. There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren't. I just think if it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I'm representing it.

22:31Just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the U.S. Now, President Trump responded by calling Hess a real loser, though I guess we'll see when he competes in the halfpipe on Thursday. Other American athletes have spoken out about the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. You saw athletics intersecting with politics is nothing new, as you recently mentioned in a guest essay. But what, if anything, is new about what you're seeing here? Well, one of the things that makes this particularly complicated is the nature of the American political division in the moment.

23:07Because most of our division is around how we treat the immigrant and the foreigner. The spirit of Olympics is international cooperation and competition. And one of the things that's been great about the Olympics is how we've seen American athletes be gracious in defeat. That's actually, I think, one of the key stories that has come along. And so when we are the people who are saying, oh, we want to take Canada, we want to take Greenland, it's kind of hard for us to say we want to see America dominate in an international competition. That was at least kind of how I thought I would go into the Olympics, but I just did like a bit of research.

23:43And what the athlete just said was actually true, that an American Olympian does not represent the current policies of a particular administration that's in power. And one of the things that's been surprising is how little I've thought about Donald Trump during these Olympics. I've just been watching the athletes. And I have found myself being able to celebrate them in a way that I hadn't necessarily expected I would be able to do this year. And so that's been, for me, it's been easier than I thought. I even bought some Olympic gear. Ralph Lauren tricked me into buying one of those snow bears.

24:17And so, yeah, I've been full Olympics. Kelly, you wrote about the awe of the Olympics. Have you been awed and have you been able to escape from the constant worry about the state of the world? Yeah, I mean, I think of it as a place to recover and restore so that you can be ready for the next act of participatory democracy that is surely going to be demanded of all of us. so you can't be in that vigilant state 24 7 as my uh friend the neuroscientist lisa feldman says vigilance is metabolically expensive it is exhausting yeah and so this is a place to rest and on top of that if you could get a touch of awe if you could be filled with wonder which is so easy when you're watching the Olympics.

25:14It's a huge neurobiological reset. And who doesn't need a neurobiological reset? In fact, they talk about aesthetic chills, and they call them skin orgasms. And I was like, more skin orgasms for everyone. But I think the thing about America that I like the most is that we're allowed and actually called upon to be critical thinkers at all times about what's happening in our country. Like that's the defining piece for me. So the idea that Hunter Hess is a loser for doing the thing that we are all required to do, which is to stay alert and and comment on when things seem to be going awry and participate in the shaping and directing of the next policy decision.

26:10That's the best thing about us. That's what makes me want to drape myself in an American flag. There's a couple of things I've noticed about this particular administration. The president seems to be trying to almost take over sports. This administration has been omnipresent in a lot of sporting events, not just, you know, the Olympics, but also a lot of the fighting events. There's the whole UFC thing that's supposed to be happening in the White House, like more than I think any other president, the way in which he's trying to wrap sports into kind of a certain kind of aggressive agenda. And so I think that allowing our American athletes themselves to define Americanism, and especially one example is like Khloe Kim.

26:52When she didn't win the gold, she rushes over and she participates in like the celebration. And watch this classy move. 17-year-old Choi Gown says she was inspired and mentored by Khloe Kim. Choi gets the first medal for South Korea in this event, and it's gold. And that to me is what America is supposed to be. Like being able to celebrate and cooperate with our global neighbors. We've seen this happen over and over again, where in the hardest moments, America's been gracious in defeat. And I think that's actually in its own way, even if they weren't trying to make a political statement, given a different picture of what America can be.

27:31Not that we dominate everything, but whether we win, whether we lose, hopefully we treat people with some dignity and respect. And I think that's been an interesting message from these Olympics that counters in its own way the aggressive nature of what the Trump administration has been doing vis-a-vis the rest of the world. Yeah, and you saw the same thing yesterday with Mack Forehand, the men's big air skier. Amazing. 96-25, gets him in his silver. He's going to take a score that no one's dropped so far in this competition.

28:03Oh, Mack Forehand! Are you kidding me? I mean, he put down some amazing jumps and yet went into silver. And the first thing he did was they all hugged. He drops the hammer of Thor with a 98-5-0. Tormag Frosted gets the second gold for Norway in this event. I mean, they were jumping around like best friends. Yeah. I loved that scene. Sometimes I think we're a little bit unfair to our athletes because they spend their entire lives preparing to do a sport. And some of them have political opinions and the ability to speak about them and to nuance them well. But some people have opinions, and this isn't their area of, like, the comfort of speaking in front of an audience.