With an emphatic ceremony celebrating the past and the future, the XXII Olympic Winter Games came to a close. The flame was put out—by giant stuffed animals crying fake tears, no less—and now the eyes of the world turn to the next great sporting venture. The Olympic cycle will next stop in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the Summer Games in 2016, a short turnaround for Brazilians as they host the FIFA World Cup this coming summer. In numerous ways, the 2014 Olympics were a success and revolutionized the Winter Games, both from a sporting and political standpoint. In countless other ways, however, questions remain not only about Sochi and its future but also about the Olympic system as a whole.
By this point everyone following the Olympic games has heard of or read the torrent of coverage from the Western media in Sochi complaining about the conditions of hotels and how unprepared Russia was for the Olympics to begin. In fact, the Twitter account that highlights these issues, “Sochi Problems," already has more followers (342,000) than the official Twitter account of the games themselves (235,000).
How does someone go from being born on a couch in Chocolate Hole, a sleepy bay on the island of St. John, US Virgin Islands, to competing in the slalom and giant slalom events in the 2014 Sochi Olympics? Just ask Jasmine Campbell, a Whitman student who is taking a break between her junior and senior years in order to pursue her dream of skiing on the world’s greatest stage.
