Winter Olympics

The presence of eleven skiers, skaters and sliders with ties to the Pacific Northwest should add intrigue to the 2022 Beijing Olympics, although the upcoming sports spectacle beset with extreme COVID precautions, a diplomatic boycott and scarce snowfall hardly needs more drama. Several late additions to the Team USA Olympic roster upped the regional representation at next month’s Winter Games to similar levels as in past editions.

A roller skating rink in Federal Way, Washington, has a remarkable track record of minting future ice skating Olympians. It started in the 1990s and 2000s with four-time Olympic long track speedskater K.C. Boutiette and short track gold medalist Apolo Ohno. The streak will extend to an eighth consecutive Winter Olympics when a new short track speedskater on Team USA named Corinne Stoddard steps to the start line in Beijing next month.

An Olympic torch lighting ceremony in (Ancient Olympia,) Greece on Monday started the countdown to the next Winter Olympics. Those games will unfold in Beijing three-and-a-half months from now. Olympic hopefuls from the Northwest are undeterred by controversies swirling around the host country.

The Winter Olympics ended Sunday under a shower of fireworks with athletes waving flags and dancing exuberantly to K-Pop music. None of the 13 athletes with Pacific Northwest roots who competed in PyeongChang won a medal. But they seem to be coming home happy anyway.

The four-man bobsled competition at the Winter Olympics this weekend offers the last realistic chance for a Pacific Northwest athlete to bring home a medal. None of the 12 Northwest Olympians in South Korea has stood on the podium so far in these Winter Games.

The American women won for the first time in 20 years, after tying the score late and forcing overtime against their archrival, Canada. Then it went to a penalty shootout.

Prime-time viewership is lower than it was for the Sochi Winter Games, though NBC is still drawing more viewers in prime time than its competitors.

If you've been watching the Winter Olympics, you may have noticed athletes native to one country competing for a different country's team. In fact, there are three Northwest-raised and trained Olympians who are competing under foreign flags.

Now that the Winter Olympics have you pumped about snow sports, you might head into the hills for some real, live athletic feats. Conveniently, a ski area in north central Washington state has set up a luge sledding course.

If you're looking for an adrenaline-packed event to watch on TV during this year’s Winter Games, you’ll almost certainly be drawn to ski jumping. It’s a sport where the competitors speed down a ramp at nearly 60 mph before soaring hundreds of feet through the air.