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Farewell PyeongChang: The 2018 Winter Olympics in Review

The Winter Olympics has come and gone, and Norway has set a record for the most medals won by a single country in the Winter Games at 39, a record previously held by the United States, who won 37 medals in 2010. But in a way, we’re all winners because we all shared in the glory of international brotherhood and friendly competition. In another, more accurate way, I’m the real winner because instead of the Olympics, I watched a bunch of episodes of The Chef and My Fridge on Netflix (we love you Kim Poong!).

The games got off to an interesting start as athletes arriving in Olympic village were greeted by statues of giant penis monsters. I can only assume these were part of the promotion for some sort of pornographic Cloverfield sequel called something like Cloverfield Does Dallas. You’ll leave the theater wondering if anyone really had sex at all.

On the Olympic diplomacy front, US Vice President Mike Pence managed to be completely upstaged by Kim Yo-jong, the sister of Kim Jong-un, which is a real accomplishment when you consider that South Korea lives with the constant threat of Kim’s brother obliterating them with nuclear weapons and the United States is South Korea’s staunchest ally. But she at least had the decency to stand up and politely applaud when countries other than her own were being introduced at the opening ceremonies. Also, Kim brought 200 of the most beautiful women in the world with her, while Pence just brought his wife, whom he calls Mother.

Even though there was no hockey thanks to the NHL not giving players a break to participate and Russia was barred from competing at the games because of their state-run doping scheme, Russia won the gold medal in hockey by defeating the Germans 4-3. It’s essentially what happened in World War II only without America there to take credit for it.

As if Canada’s bronze medal in men’s hockey wasn’t embarrassing enough, they also had to watch as both the women’s hockey and their other national pastime, curling, were both won by the United States, their first ever gold medal in the “sport”. The women’s curling gold went to Sweden, but Canada managed to cling to the last shred of their dignity by winning the gold in mixed-doubles curling, which is still kind of sad seeing as how Canada is the only country that gives even a semblance of a f**k about curling. Any sense of national pride for the Canadians was short-lived as their Prime Minister was, at that very moment, in India dressing up like an extra in a Bollywood film’s wedding scene and ending every sentence with “namaste”.

In a story that might inspire a sequel to Cool Runnings, Jamaica fielded a women’s bobsled team for the first time. The team finished next to last, but they didn’t get caught doping while doing what’s basically a hobby for kids with a snow day, so they have their pride. What they didn’t have was a bobsled, because one of their coaches, Sandra Kiriasis, took it with her when she was fired, which would make a great all is lost moment in Cool Runnings 2: 2 Cool, 2 Runnings. Just saying. Call me if you need a writer for your direct-to-video disaster, though, Hollywood. You made Bright, don’t tell me my idea is too stupid, that ship has sailed.

American figure skater Adam Rippon won a bronze medal, becoming the first openly gay male athlete from the United States to win an Olympic medal. The first closeted gay male athlete to win an Olympic medal is every other male figure skater in the history of the Olympics. The first lesbian to win an Olympic medal was probably a soccer player. They don’t have golf at the Olympics, do they? They do, but it was just added in 2016? Okay, yeah, soccer.

Speaking of figure skating, the rinks really started to heat up in the ice humping competition. Excuse me, I meant to say ice dancing. Wait, that’s not right either, let me check my notes… okay, it’s ice fucking. Anyway, this is an event where a male and female skater take to the ice and try to land moves like a triple lutz into reverse cowgirl. Two skaters’ tops came off, and one, French skater Gabriella Papadakis, had her entire breast fully exposed on worldwide television. Doubly embarrassing for Papadakis is that said breast was nowhere near as large as her nose. Despite the wardrobe malfunction, Papadakis and her partner Guillaume Cizeron got the silver medal, with judges saying they would have given them the gold had she gone full frontal.

Just outside the actual Olympics was the robot Olympics, where South Korean ski-bot Taekwon V won the world’s first robot skiing event, a sport only slightly less stupid than rhythmic gymnastics. No one was really talking about it, even though Taekwon V was tiny and adorable in his little snowsuit, because people only care about robots that can either kill them or f**k them, apparently. Although I suppose a robot skiing isn’t that much of an accomplishment, I’m pretty sure I can build a robot that can fall down a mountain without even breaking out a soldering iron.

And so ends another Olympics. This year’s games, more than most, really brought the world together. Mainly because we were all praying that Donald Trump wouldn’t say something more idiotic than usual to provoke Kim Jong-un into dropping a nuclear bomb on PyeongChang, which there was probably a 50/50 chance of, honestly. Luckily for us, he was too busy trying to convince Ivanka to try ice dancing with him to cause an international incident.

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