When fans tune in to watch the Olympics, they expect to see the most talented athletes in the world competing for medals at the highest levels of their chosen sports. But not everyone who made it to PyeongChang quite fits that description.
The story of Elizabeth Swaney has become almost legendary in the past few days. Swaney is an American from California who competed on the Hungarian team in the women’s freestyle skiing halfpipe competition.
Swaney finished dead last, which isn’t notable by itself: after all, someone has to do that in every event. But Swaney’s qualifying runs caught the attention of the world because they seemed extraordinarily out of place at the Winter Olympics.
Lack of Tricks Brought Attention to Run
When Swaney hit the halfpipe, there weren’t the kinds of tricks you’d associate with Shaun White. Actually, there were almost no tricks at all in her first run, with the exception of a single small alley-oop. For the most part, it looked like the kind of gentle run an average skier would casually do during a day out on the slopes.
That’s possibly a little too harsh, as just getting down the halfpipe without falling takes some skill in and of itself, and her simple runs did earn her scores of 30.00 and 31.40 in qualifying. But it’s certainly not up to the Olympic standard: Swaney finished 13.60 points behind the 23rd place finisher in the 24 skier field, and she was more than 40 points behind the score needed to qualify for the final.
That begs the obvious question: how did she make it to the Olympics in the first place?
The answer has to do with how slots are awarded. Swaney, who competes for Hungary on the basis of her grandparents having been born there, used online crowdsourcing to raise funds and compete at World Cup events around the world for the past two years.
According to CBS Sports reported Pete Blackburn, finishing in the top 30 of an event is enough to earn ranking points.
“The field is not very deep in the women’s halfpipe, so she was able to enter events in which there were 30 or less competitors,” Blackburn told Here & Now’s Jeremny Hobson.
Allocation Rules, Injuries Got Swaney to Olympics
That still left Swaney ranked only No. 34 in the world entering the Olympics. But countries could only send a maximum of four athletes each, so some athletes from countries like the United States couldn’t go despite outranking her. That, combined with injuries, opened the door for Swaney.
This might seem to go against the Olympic spirit to many – the Hungarian Olympic Committee has said they will rethink their procedures to try and avoid a similar incident in the future – Swaney, who is 33 years old and only started skiing eight years ago, says that she wants her experience to inspire others.
“I want to show others that freestyle skiing is possible and it is never too late to get into this sport, and to help others to dream and to progress the sport in Hungary,” she told Reuters.
The women’s halfpipe event was ultimately won by Cassie Sharpe of Canada, who scored a 95.80 on her second run of the finals to earn her first gold medal.
