The mountains always promise escape from the squalor of existence at sea level, if not a kind of purification. The fortifying ruggedness of the terrain, the apple-crisp air, the high-albedo dazzle of sunlit snow: at altitude, it seems, everything is thinned to its essence. The Winter Olympics frequently play on this mythology of purity, but rarely has culture’s quadrennial ascent up the switchbacks felt as clarifying as it has this year. Propelling us into heights untroubled by the compromises and tradeoffs that blight sport’s lower zones, Milano Cortina has delivered images so brilliant and sharp they’ve also served to expose how ugly – and morally murky – most non-Olympic team sports have become over the past four years.
As a TV spectacle, the excellence of this Olympiad has been defined as much by absence as presence. No gambling ads, no live betting odds gunking up the screen, no win percentage trackers, no janky little segments in which the hosts joke about what the prediction markets are doing: these Games have brought delight and relief to a tired public’s eyes in equal measure. Cleaned of clutter and slop, sport, it turns out, can still be a thing of wonder and mystery, agony and beauty. Who would have thought?
