The end of the Olympics

Unsport notes from the winter games. Ending

That's all. End. Of course, this is not the end of the entire Olympics, she has just been exceeded the equator, and the most interesting is still ahead. Biathlon relay races, skiing classics, bobslei and short track relay races, and most importantly-a hockey finale (I am silent, I'm not saying anything about it, pah-pah-pah through the left shoulder). Have you noticed that the fans are very superstitious? I write this when the silver Boeing (with an hour and a half late, by the way) broke off from Korean land and headed for Moscow. So - everything is ahead, but I will see it all only on TV. The end of my Olympics.

The Italian team flies with me, its part is only guys in the same blue sweaters. They look like hockey players, only in the last two Olympiads the Italians did not take part in hockey. (Later it turned out that these were volunteers and technical support). They make noise and say that they are very happy to fly home, even through Moscow. That eight hours of time difference is hard, and Korean food is a horror-zazhas. And that they all went to eat in the "Italian house", which is located in the mountains near the Olympic village in Pyeongchang. And what many inhabitants of the village did the same - only in the "Italian house" is there a normal pasta.

The German Sledon Christian flies with me. He flew out in the first qualification, speaks reluctantly about games. It seems to me that for the cup, it is too high and too thin, although, in truth, I do not really understand the clerks. He arranges his long knees around my chair and instantly falls asleep.

The plane flies over the sea. There is a sea in Korea. This is important. In our maps, it is called the Japanese Sea. Koreans are terribly offended - they have eastern. In general, people living by the sea differ not only in the amount of vitamin D. They say they are happier. They say, tears are unsalted.

Coastal Cannine is a resort city with beautiful clean beaches. On the shore of pine, a lot of pines, white sand and the sea. A little like the Baltic states, only the sea here is a completely tropical color-bright lazored, leaving on the horizon in absolute blue. In color - summer, but in practice - winter.

In general, the idea of ​​holding the Winter Olympiad in the subtropics seems strange, it seems only to me. Sochi began, now Pyeongchang, the next Winter Olympiad will be held in Beijing - in the same place, where the summer was the summer ten years ago. And the summer will take place in Tokyo, where nearby, in Nagano, was winter. I am sitting in a deserted bar in the hotel lobby, where the “Russian House” was supposed to be originally located.

“Don't worry, you're not a blonde,” Barten Chen tells me. We just found out that I am from Russia. To my dumb question, he explains:

- Here they simply believe that if a beautiful, Russian, blonde and name Natasha, then a one hundred percent prostitute. (Chen explains that their name is Kisen, something like Japanese geisha-women for amusement).

“But I'm not Natasha,” I object.

- And this does not matter! - Chen does not ironize. - Work as work, albeit illegal.

I ask if there are many of them.

“A lot,” says Chen. “Visas are not needed, the money is normal, the language barrier does not exist,” laughs. - Of course, they cleaned everything to the Olympics, put the order. But this is not for long. The police here, by the way, calls himself rescuers, and their symbol is Batman. Seriously. And near the department there is a blue recognizable figure in a cloak and with ears.

- You would have arrived in Korea and drank with me a sonnoon ( rice vodka. - Approx. Aut. 1. Everything should be tried . - Approx. Aut. 2. Nast . - Approx. Aut. 3 ), if not for the Olympics?

- Unlikely.

“But you understand that the Olympics is not Korea?”

Understand. But in some places they still intersect. For example, in the kitchen. Journalist colleagues told how they were saved from food from a media center in the nearest McDonald's (title sponsor of games). And even here they added capers to hamburgers.

The peculiarity of Korean cuisine is that it is acute. Or very sharp. There is another type of taste inherent in local desserts - the taste of a bath soap. Everything, there are no other options. Or fire, or soap.

Or Coca-Cola is another title sponsor of games. We are sitting in a cafe. In order not to risk once again, they ordered chicken. At first they bring a bowl of rice - he is everywhere like bread. Then three types of sauces. Then there are five more different things-you won’t understand by eye, you have to try. While wondering that, in fact, meat, they brought a bowl of meat from this. And tea. Well, like tea - having tried it, you clearly understand why it is called Sencha - a natural decoction of hay, not tea. Tea there is generally not very growing. The most common fast food looks like this: a massive deep fryer, you choose the ingredients - they are strung on a wooden stick with you and lowered into boiling oil. Ready. The Korean carrot, by the way, is not a traditional dish, but the invention of Soviet Koreans deported to the Union. And also steamed pies from white dough, also sharp. You feel how the throat is charred, and release smoke with your nose. It would be necessary to drink milk, but they practically do not drink milk in Korea - the Asians do not have an enzyme processing milk. And alcohol. Which does not prevent them from using and abuse.

In the plane, by the way, they offer wine. And I am sorting through the impressions of those who conquered me at the games. My heart belongs to Ukrainian Andrei Mandesia, who fell out of the sled at a speed of 100 km per hour, and then caught up with his sled and lay down in them again.

[Object htmlelement]

These games are about honesty. Or here is the beautiful Czech snowboarder Esther Ledeschka, who came to a press conference in a snowboard mask and did not shoot her, said that "she did not know that she would win, so she did not make up." And she won gold! In skiing. Once again - a snowboarder won gold skiing. And if he still wins in a snowboard, then for the first time in history there will be one medalist in two different types. These games are about the impossible.

The Japanese jumping jump for Noriaki Casai became the third. Not surprising. It's just the oldest participant in the games. He is 45. And this is his eighth Olympics. And these games that the impossible becomes possible.

And another 17-year-old American schoolboy, snowboarder Red Jerrad, who overslept a morning training, lost his jacket and borrowed it from a room in the room. And then he went to the start, did what no one does, and won gold in Sloptail. These games are about charm and gouging.

The American skater Adam Rippon (bronze in team performances, 10th place in personal) at a press conference announced that he was Freestystist Gus Kenworth-a couple. And he added that he is an icon and a handsome man. These games are about love.

Our snowboarder Nikolai Olyunin broke his leg-he fell in the semifinal of the Bord Cross. He was taken out of the highway on a stretcher, an operation was performed. These games are about accident and failure. And fate.

And one of my favorite - Mexican skier German Madraso. He was 43, for the first time he went skiing only last year. In a 15-kilometer race, he came to the finish line last-but with a flag! He was picked up and carried in his hands by athletes who finished earlier - from Portugal, Tongoga (Pete Tartofua, I loved him in the last series when he carried the flag at the opening of games with a bare torso) and Ecuador. He congratulated the debutant and winner of the race - Swiss Dario Colony. These games are about the dream! Even if it seems impossible.

And I will keep silent about hockey again - they still have to play. These games are also about chance and hopes, about expectations and failures, about ridiculous mistakes and crushing victories. About chances and merits. Well, about doping, of course ...

I’ll just say, I’m never a sports specialist, but I really don’t understand why doping is in Kerling. To rub better and faster? To push the stones with the power of gaze into the "house"? Or did they play in the war so much that the secret Ephesians were replaced by pure tests to prove that war is being waged against Russia? No one harms ourselves more. After a doping scandal, doping again is no longer from the tower to the pool, this is right on the ice! Only all this, alas, has nothing to do with sports and the Olympics.

From these games I brought a magnet and this terrible tea with the taste of hay. And for sure something, some kind of piece of heart, left there. And I will miss. Already missing. I'll go turn on the TV.

PS

The wind is subsided, and something has changed in the air. New Year has come. Either after a year of the fiery red nervous rooster came a calm reasonable yellow earthen dog, or something puffed up by the wind. But as soon as I fly away, the skiers suddenly won medals in the relay: both male and female. Belarusians, dear to my heart, took gold in Freestyle, and Daria Domracheva-silver in the mass start. And our hockey players, after a misunderstanding with the Slovaks, who cost me the voices and skein of nerves, began to score and, finally, beat Slovenia and the USA. In general, if it was in me, excuse me, boys! And girls!