As the IOC assumed its (usual) amoral posture, Olympic sports athletes stood tall as a moral counterpoint in 2020
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Hayley Wickenheiser, the world’s most decorated women’s hockey player, in hospital scrubs.
For the past 33 years, Globetrotting has selected annual medal winners in international sports, given to those athletes for whom an Olympic gold is the ultimate goal.
The pandemic that has shattered lives around the world made it impractical and unsafe to have most international sports competitions for the last nine months – and even those that have taken place in the current winter season have been changed by having athletes opt out or, in the case of figure skating, becoming essentially domestic events.
Given that, trying to give awards in the format I used in the past seems like a fool’s errand.
Yet it would not be good to let the year pass without some shout-outs to athletes in Olympic sports, both active and retired, whose achievements or courage (or both) were noteworthy.
And even if some WNBA players consider a league title bigger than Olympic gold, I am making them eligible because all WNBA athletes deserve an award for being front and center on issues like racism, sexism and pure misogyny (An aside: sports on the 2020/21 Olympic program in which there clearly is a bigger prize than Olympic gold include soccer, men’s ice hockey, men’s basketball, men’s road cycling, golf, baseball and tennis.)
To begin, though, we give a special Amorality Award, made from tarnished nickel, to the International Olympic Committee for:
1) relentlessly continuing to shove the 2020/21 Olympics down the throats of a Japanese public among whom, according to polls, 63 percent feel the Tokyo Summer Games should either be cancelled or postponed again to beyond 2021.
2) allowing the international sports federations that govern boxing and weightlifting, both Olympic sports, to be unchecked cesspools of corruption for decades. And those are only the latest examples of a lack of oversight, similar to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s failure to address the festering problems in USA Gymnastics that turned into the horrific Larry Nassar abuse scandal.
3) hiding behind its mantra of “we don’t interfere with the internal affairs of sovereign nations“ in refusing to speak out, let alone levy sanctions, against 2022 Winter Olympic host China for what human rights groups say is mass incarceration and ethnic cleansing of its Uighur population. (And, yes, the IOC should also have blasted the USA, 2028 Summer Games host, for the Trump administration’s policy of ripping children from parents and essentially caging them because they had entered the country illegally.)
After washing my hands several times, that leads me to acknowledge some athletes in 2020 whose courage of conviction and / or action makes them the moral counterbalance to the IOC:
*Hayley Wickenheiser of Canada, an IOC member, winner of four Olympic hockey golds, Hockey Hall of Famer and now a doctor in training, called out the IOC in mid-March as “insensitive and irresponsible” for continuing to insist the 2020 Olympics would go on as planned. Someone in the IOC then had the gall to send her a message saying she should have consulted them before speaking out. At the time, Wickenheiser was doing medical training in hospitals dealing with Covid patients. Five days after her critical post, Canada said it would not send teams to Tokyo in 2020. Two days after that, the IOC and Japan announced postponement of the Tokyo Games.
Joannie Rochette carrying the flag at 2010 Closing Ceremony
*Joannie Rochette of Canada, the 2010 Olympic figure skating bronze medalist. Now Dr. Rochette doing a residency in anesthesiology, the two-time Olympian got her medical degree in the spring and immediately answered the Quebec government’s plea for medical personnel to help out in the province’s nursing homes when the pandemic first hit hard.
*Breanna Stewart of the U.S., basketball gold medalist in 2016, who stood taller than her 6-feet, 4-inches when she took a leadership role in the WNBA’s activism to support Black Lives Matter and protest racism. Stewart, coming off an injury that forced her to miss the entire 2019 WNBA season, also led her Seattle Storm team to the 2020 title and was named MVP of the league finals.
*Maya Moore of the U.S., two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist, who gave up two seasons of her professional career to fight for the acquittal of Jonathan Irons, who had been sentenced to 50 years in prison after a conviction a judge would overturn in March. Moore and Irons were married two months after he was freed.
Screenshot from the Jan. 3, 2021 edition of L’Equipe.
*Clarisse Agbegnenou, France, judo. Like Stewart, four-time world champion Agbegnenou took on major social issues this year, speaking out for Black Lives Matter, women’s health matters and women’s rights. She is a high profile athlete in France and expected the same attention at a Tokyo Olympics, since judo is part of Japan’s sporting DNA. Writing from a French perspective, the sports paper L’Equipe described her as “one the rare sportswomen to take on societal issues.” And she won a fifth European title in mid-November.
Elladj Baldé at home: on the ice.
*Elladj Baldé, Canada, figure skating. His videos showing the pure joy of skating on whatever surface was available are a delightful respite from these trying times. His performance interpreting the message “No Justice, No Peace,” which he called “the best way I know how to express” his feelings, is an overwhelmingly powerful artistic statement about racial injustice and inequality. Baldé’s commitment to address those issues in his sport led him to co-found The Figure Skating Diversity and Inclusion Alliance, of which he is president.
And some kudos to those who pressed on after major emotional setbacks:
*Mikaela Shiffrin, U.S., alpine skiing. Shiffrin was on her way to a fourth straight World Cup overall season title when she left the circuit after her father died Feb. 2 of an accident at home. She returned six weeks later for races that would be cancelled by the pandemic. While coping with the heartbreak of losing her father, Shiffrin found her voice, adding it to those supporting Black Lives Matter, speaking out against racism and advocating for social justice. When some told her to “stick to skiing,” she replied, “Wanna `Unfollow’? I’ll see you to the door. . .” Shiffrin is back on the World Cup circuit, notching her 67th career victory in December.
*Gracie Gold, U.S. figure skating. While learning to deal with significant mental health issues that sidelined her from competition for most of the previous three years, the two-time U.S. champion and 2014 Olympian battled her way to a spot in the 2020 U.S. Championships. That she finished 12th made no difference to a knowledgeable crowd that rewarded her determination and personal courage with a standing ovation after the free skate.
And a few props simply for achievement, in no particular order:
*Nathan Chen, U.S., figure skating. Barely two weeks after being immobilized several days by the flu, Chen won a fourth straight U.S. title, becoming the first man to win more than three in a row since Brian Boitano in 1988. A win at Skate America in October extended his unbeaten streak to 12 competitions dating to the 2018 Olympics, where he was 5th.
*Federica Brignone, Italy, alpine skiing. Making the podium last season in every discipline but slalom, Brignone became the first Italian woman to win the World Cup overall season title and also won the season titles in giant slalom and combined.
Winning 2020 Four Continents gave Yuzuru Hanyu a “super career grand slam”
*Yuzuru Hanyu, Japan, figure skating. The two-time Olympic champion’s victory at the 2020 Four Continents Championship made him the first person to win the “Super Career Grand Slam”: titles at the Olympics, World Championships, Grand Prix Final, Four Continents / European Championships, World Junior Championships and Junior Grand Prix. It was yet another distinction for world’s most popular skater. Hanyu also finished his college degree in September and, after a 10-month competitive layoff, won his fifth national title with dazzling performances.
*This year’s Russian figure skating troika – Anna Shcherbakova, 16; Kamila Valieva, 14; and Alexandra Trusova, 16. In the free skate at the Russian Championships, skating back-to-back-to-back, they delivered the most extraordinary group of performances in one event I have seen in 40 years covering figure skating. Two quads each, no significant mistakes in programs of stunning difficulty. Shcherbakova won her third straight national title as the 22nd Century arrived 80 years early in women’s skating.
Armand Duplantis after clearing world record bar of 20 feet, 3 1/2 inches
*Armand Duplantis, Sweden, pole vault. In competitive circumstances that changed hour-to-hour because of the pandemic, Duplantis was a paragon of consistency. On the indoor circuit, he set two world records (recognized as the overall record in the event), with a high mark of 20 feet, 3 ½ inches in February. In September, his vault of 20-2 1/4 broke Sergey Bubka’s 26-year-old outdoor mark.
*Caeleb Dressel, U.S., swimming. The man expected to bring home two pocketsful of medals from the Olympics made the best of the one big chance swimmers had to compete internationally in 2020 by setting four short course world records in the International Swimming League’s November meets.
