The Winter Olympics have just passed, with Norway taking the final win. Let’s talk about some favored sports in the Winter Olympics. Cayla Pitts, a Junior here at Apopka, said her favorite sport to watch was “ice skating.” Senior Hailey Fowler agreed with this, but added “snowboarding and speedskating.” Nathaniel Packard, another Junior here at Apopka, also said his favorite sport to watch was Snowboarding because I like to see how far they can go up in the air from the little bowl they’re in.” One disliked sports in the Winter Olympics is “curling,” according to Cayla. Hailey disagreed saying, “personally I don’t think any of the Winter Olympic sports are ridiculous.”

Some other disagreements include the controversy over Russia and whether they should have been allowed to compete or not. With Russia going by the “Russian Olympic Committee” as their name and using a different flag instead of the Russian flag in order to compete. Should it have been allowed?

Russia has a history of having their athletes use performance enhancing drugs. It is no surprise a Russian skater was found with those drugs in her system after her test results came back days later than they should have. When asked  how she felt about this 15 year old Russian skater competing, Hailey said, “I don’t think it’s fair. All of these other athletes have been training for so many years to get where they are, then some person beats them because they use banned substances. It’s almost like their hard work from training went to waste. On top of that, It can take years for an athlete to rightfully receive a medal, so it doesn’t have the same feeling of when you would receive it on the podium.” Hailey also believes Russia has had “too many chances” and believes “at this point they need to be banned.”

When we asked Nathaniel how he felt about the Russian Skater competing, he agreed saying, “No, she shouldn’t be able to compete after what they found.” Many agree with this Russian skater not competing. It was certainly unfair how she used those drugs as an edge to win. But does she deserve slack for being 15? Was she forced to take these drugs? Those are questions yet to be answered.

The Winter Olympics were certainly eventful, with Russia changing their name and Norway taking the win with 37 medals total. The Olympics came to an end with good plays and the occasional cheating, but overall, after years of COVID interruptions, the games seemed to be a success.