Bye PyeongChang...See You In 2022, Beijing

"The Olympic Games are an homage to the past and an act of faith for the future.  With your joint march, you have shared your faith in a peaceful future with all of us.  You have show our sport builds bridges in our very fragile world.  You have shown how sport builds bridges." 
-IOC president Thomas Bach

The Olympic Games that started earlier this month with a flurry of diplomatic activity that resulted in a joint North and South Korean team marching into the Olympic stadium under a unification flag as South Korean Olympic champion figure skater Kim Yuna lit the torch ended this morning our time as we slept here in the States.

In case you're wondering,Tongan cross country skier Pita Taufatofua was there at the closing ceremony in all his oiled up shirtless glory just as he was during the opening ceremony back on February 5.   He finished 114th in his cross country skiing event and greeted his fellow stragglers at the finish line, but is without a doubt the worldwide fan and Olympic athlete favorite of these Winter Games and the 2016 Rio ones.

Speaking of competition, the Norwegian national anthem was undeniably the soundtrack of these PyeongChang Games.   Norway led all nations with 39 total medals won (14G,14S,11B), and won a Games best 14 gold medals.

The Germans finished second with 31 total medals (14G, 10S, 7B) and tied Norway with 14 gold medals.  Our northern neighbors Canada were third on the medal table with 29 medals (11G, 8S, 10B) and the Netherlands after a fast start at the beginning of the Games, ended up fifth with 20 total medals (8G, 6S, 6B) tying the host South Koreans, who also ended up with 17 total medals (5G, 8S, 4B).

The Olympic Athletes From Russia despite the sanctions that forced it to use the Olympic flag and anthem and have the 168 athletes who did participate in these Games pass a stringent vetting process still managed to capture 17 total medals (2G, 6S, 9B) during this Olympiad, including the men's hockey gold medal.   

But old habits die hard.   The Olympic Athletes From Russia lost the chance to have their suspension lifted and march under their own flag for the closing ceremonies when two Russian athletes tested positive for banned substances.

Team USA, despite having the largest contingent of athletes in PyeongChang and narrowly finishing second in the medal count in Sochi with 28 medals to the host Russians, finished a disappointing by our standards fourth here in PyeongChang with 23 total medals (9G, 8S,6B)

It was shaping up to be a disappointing Winter Games for the US considering many American pre-Olympic medal favorites failed to make it to the podium or had disappointing results.  Despite historic feats in their performances by Nathan Chen and Mirai Nagasu, they didn't translate to a medal in their individual skating events.  They are bringing back home bronzes from the team event. 
Mikaela Shiffrin fell short of her goal of winning five gold medals as did Lindsey Vonn who is bringing home a bronze medal.   The US did have a late run powered by the first gold medal in women's hockey in 20 years, and surprising first ever women's gold in cross country skiing and the men's curling.

But these XXIII Winter Olympic Games are now headed for the history books, and while we wait for more history to be made when Beijing in four years becomes the first ever city and supplant Vancouver as the largest one to host a winter and summer games, we'll get to see in the runup to them the return of the summer Olympics to Tokyo in 2020 as part of the Asian continent's run of three consecutive Winter and Summer Games..

Bye PyeongChang.   See y'all in Beijing. 

Meet The 1st Black Player Ever On The US Olympic Hockey Team

FOX Noise's John Moody may hate the diverse US Winter Olympic team, but I don't. 

One of the cool benefits of that team diversity is we have Black History being made by our 2018 winter Olympians in several events.   One of those events is hockey.

Because of a dispute with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) concerning several issues, the NHL refused to allow its players to participate in the Olympics this year.   That meant for the first time in three decades, the US team was going to be composed primarily of collegiate players.   One of the collegiate players who was selected to play on this men's Olympic hockey squad was Jordan Greenway of Canton, NY.

And with that selection, Greenway makes history.  When he steps on the ice at PyeongChang on February 14 the first African American ever to play on a USA Olympic hockey team.

“I dreamed of [it] as a kid, and I didn’t think it was going to happen before I graduated college, but I’m fortunate that it did, and I just couldn’t be more excited!” Greenway said in a CNN interview.

The 20 year old Greenway is also the tallest player on the team at 6 feet 5 inches and 238 pounds.  He was drafted by the NHL's Minnesota Wild in 2015, but decided to complete his college education at Boston University . Greenway also has a younger brother, JD who plays the sport.

“I’m the first African American to play hockey for the United States at the Olympics but hopefully I’m the first of many,” Greenway said. “Hopefully these kids go out, try something different, play hockey, and hopefully I see a lot more playing in the near future.”

I'll have even more incentive to not only watch the USA men's Olympic hockey team, but root for its success.   The last time a USA men's team won gold was when I was a high school senior at Lake Placid in 1980

Erin Jackson Is Going To The Olympics!

24 year old Erin Jackson has only been participating in long track speed skating full time for four months.   Coming into the US Olympic Speed Skating Trials in West Allis, WI she had posted a personal best 39.51 time in the 500m back on December 23 in Salt Lake City.

But the former University of Florida engineering student and inline skater from Ocala, FL picked a great time to set new personal best times, and did so when the pressure was highest.

"I really wasn't expecting any of this, just coming in as a newbie, just trying to do the best I can. " said Jackson. "A couple of weeks ago I was still in the 40's.  So this has all happened pretty fast."

The best she can is going to take her to Pyeongchang, South Korea and the Winter Olympics.

She went 39.22 in her first heat during the Trials Friday night, and even faster in her second heat at 39.04 to become the first Black female athlete ever to qualify for a US Olympic long track speed skating team.

Jackson finished third in the 500m, behind her Ocala, FL homegirl Brittany Bowe and Heather Bergsma to punch her ticket to Pyeongchang.

February 8 and the start of the upcoming Winter Games is getting more interesting by the day with all this Black Girl Magic happening.

Goodbye Sochi, Hello Pyeongchang

The Sochi Winter Olympic Games closed last night after seventeen days of competition and a $50 billion pricetag, exceeding the estimated $40 billion the Chinese spent on the Beijing Games.    

Guess Russian President Vladimir Putin and his people will consider it a great investment.  The host Russians made up for their by their standards poor showing of 3 golds and 15 medals overall in Vancouver by riding the home soil competition wave and owning the podium  

They led all nations with 13 gold medals and 33 overall.  Norway was second with 11 gold (26 overall) and Canada third with 10 golds (25 overall).  The USA was fourth, Germany (19 overall) and The Netherlands (24 overall) tied for fifth with 8 gold medals. 

While the USA had the second highest total medal count with 28, only 9 of them were gold, reflecting the disappointing showing of the speedskating team, the aggravating losses to Canada in men's and women's hockey (arrgh), some medal favorites not coming through, and the failure of the women's figure skaters to medal in ladies singles for the first time since 1936.

Hey US Figure Skating Association, guess y'all should have taken.Mirai Nagasu to Sochi instead of snubbing her in favor of Ashley Wagner.    Wagner did get a medal in the inaugural team figure skating event, but still finished sixth in ladies singles.


And speaking of figure skating, it wouldn't be a Winter Olympics without a figure skating controversy that revolved around the judging 

South Korea's Kim Yu-Na was robbed of a gold medal repeat due to some (surprise, surprise) alleged shady judging that led to Russian teen homegirl Adelina Sotnikova who trailed Kim after the short program winning gold to the delight of the Russians in the audience and the derisive whistling (the international version of booing) from the rest of the crowd in attendance at the Iceberg Skating Palace.  

Speaking of failing to medal, one of the two US Summer Olympic team members who was a winter Olympian at these Games is coming home with a history making medal and it isn't Lolo Jones.


Lolo Jones along with Lauryn Williams became the ninth and tenth Americans to make both a Winter and Summer Olympics team and were part of a US women's bobsled team that had four African-Americans on it.   

Jones convinced Williams to try out for the bobsled team, and despite being in the sport for only six months, she became only the fifth athlete ever to win medals in a Winter and Summer Games.   Williams narrowly missed by .10 seconds becoming the first woman and only.the second ever person to achieve the rare feat of winning gold in a Winter and Summer games and the second African-American to win a gold in bobsled

She and Elana Myers were leading in the women's bobsled competition before being bumped off the top of the podium by the Canadian duo and defending Olympic champions Kallie Humphries and Heather Moyse. 

Jazmine Fenlator and Lolo Jones in USA-3 were also trying to make history as well.   Fenlator was trying to become the first African-American bobsled driver to win a medal and Lolo Jones was trying to win her first Olympic medal period but they finished 11th.   The duo of Jamie Greubel and Aja Evans took the bronze, which marked the first time ever the US has taken two medals in the sport in the same Olympics. 

The USA women were up 2-0 and 58 agonizing seconds away from a gold medal, ending Canada's feminine women's hockey dominance and me unleashing a hockey themed rewrite of the Canadian national anthem on this blog and the world until the Canadians scored late to tie it up and then won their fourth straight gold medal in overtime.

It didn't help I had to hear about that 3-2 overtime gold medal game loss and 1-0 loss of the USA men's team in the semis the next day from a certain Canadian.


Shani Davis came into these Games seeking his third straight gold in the 1000m but shockingly finished in 8th place   Like I mentioned earlier, it was a bad Olympics for a US speedskating squad that left Sochi with only one medal in the 5K relay. but a great one for the Dutch speedskaters who made themselves, the Dutch royal family and their orange clad fans feel at home in Adler Arena.

Two time Olympic halfpipe champ Shaun White also failed to leave Sochi with a medal
    
And in the inaugural edition of the women's ski jump the American women favored in it failed to make the podium.  Sarah Hendrickson did battle back from a serious injury to make a little history as the first woman ever to jump in Olympic competition. 

But there was more drama away from the competition venues that at them.   While the feared terror attacks failed to happen, there was the video of members of the activist group Pussy Riot being horsewhipped by a Cossack militiaman, the arrests of former Italian MP Vladimir Luxuria for protesting Russian anti-gay policies, and the escalating violence in Russia's neighbor Ukraine that led to an emotional gold medal victory for the Ukrainian women over Russia in the biathlon relay .   

Now the flame has been extinguished and the hosting torch passed to Pyeongchang, South Korea who after two narrow losses to Vancouver and Sochi finally get to host the 2018 Games.  

Wonder if Dennis Rodman's good friend Kim Jong Un is going to demand like his daddy did when Seoul hosted the Summer Games.back in 1988 that the South Koreans let him host some Olympic events at the brand new ski resort he's having built? 

We'll have four years to see how that plays out.      

South Korean Court Rules Trans People Can Change Gender Markers Without SRS

Some positive news on the international trans human rights front coming out of South Korea.  

On March 15 the Seoul Western District Court ruled in a case brought by five trans masculine individuals that trans individuals could change their legal gender status without undergoing genital surgery

The Seoul Western District Court ruled in favor of accepting the requests from the five trans men to have their family register listing altered to be classified as male. None of the five has undergone operations to surgically alter their genitalia.

The five trans men filed their request in December, arguing that the demand for surgery to conform to the changed gender status constituted the main barrier to approvals and violated the spirit of the legal gender modification system, which is to guarantee the Constitutional rights of transgender people.

Of course the five transmen were thrilled about the landmark ruling.

Despite the South Korean Supreme Court ruling in June 2006 that transpeople in that nation have the right to alter their legal gender status, in the guidelines they subsequently drafted one of the requirements was that individuals have to possess 'external genitalia of the opposite sex from their biological one' in order to do so.

Last January, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health sent an opinion to Seoul Western District Court arguing that genital surgery should not be a requirement because it is not medically necessary and is a difficult procedure with a strong risk of side effects and other negative consequences.

It's another good day for the advancement of trans human rights not only in South Korea, but internationally as well.