For whom to root at the Olympics, except for Russians?

Seven outstanding athletes and one team

At the Winter Olympiad in Pyeongchang, almost three thousand athletes in 15 sports will compete. How to choose for who (except for Russian athletes) to root if you do not really follow world competitions? At the request of Medusa, Sports.ru editor Pavel Kopachev tells the stories of several participants in the Olympiad, which I especially want to support.

Astrid Jacobsen (Norway)

Skiing

Three -time world champion with a complex sports fate. In the most saturated period of her career, Jacobsen unsuccessfully fell from the bicycle: she broke her jaw, damaged her back and elbow. Restored for a long time; With great difficulty (in Norway - crazy competition) was taken to the Vancouver Olympics, where she took the fifth and seventh places, and then in Sochi. And there, an hour before the opening ceremony, she learned about the death of her brother, who was her main partner in training. The circumstances of the tragedy are still unknown - newspapers wrote that this could be suicide.

The murdered grief Jacobsen nevertheless went to the Sochi track, but she did not have enough for a prize place quite a bit. As a result, she took the fourth place in the sprint. The athlete swore: for the sake of her brother, who was so dear to her, she will certainly win the Olympic medal. Before Pyeongchang Norwezhka had to not only train a lot, but also combine it with other concerns. All this time, she looked after a seriously ill mother, and also studied at the Medical Department of the University of Oslo.

When watching: 10, 13, 15, 17, 21, 25.

Chris Lee (Canada)

Hockey

The medalist of the World Cup, the two -time owner of the Gagarin Cup and the defender of the Magnitogorsk Metallurg, without which this team would definitely not have won two titles in the KHL. Canadian Lee played for Metallurg since 2013, and in the summer of 2017 he unexpectedly broke behind the ocean, deciding to finally try himself in the NHL-at 37. Having signed a test contract with Los Angeles, he seriously hoped to compete with young colleagues. But, despite all efforts, it did not work. Chris returned to Russia and earned a call to the Olympic team. His experience and skill are what the young team of Canada is just lacking today.

This Olympiad for Chris Lee will be the first. According to him, he devotes all his “goals, glasses and cups” to his son, who has diagnosed Down syndrome. “When my wife and I first learned about this diagnosis, they were in shock. But now - everything is calm. Our son is a gift of heaven, we love him very much. <...> The Olympics is a special tournament. I think he will be glad when he sees dad in Canadian form, ”Lee says.

The hockey player never hid that he had gone to Russia because of money: “Caring for children like ours costs additional funds. They pay well in the KHL - and I am ready to play a lot and well. ” After the Olympics, Chris Lee dreams of returning to his homeland - preferably with an Olympic medal.

When watching: 15, 17, 18 February. Next-along the playoff net.

Alena Savchenko (Germany)

Figure skating

A five -time world champion, a winner of the two Olympiads, who has not yet been given Olympic gold. Savchenko does not hide: she would have gone out of sports long ago, but the dream - a victory at the Olympic Games - does not let her go. With the previous partner Robin Sholkov, they won five (!) World championships. But at two Olympiads, coming in the status of a favorite, the couple took only bronze. After Sochi, the upset Alena even threw in her hearts: “Apparently, this is a curse. But I will get my own. ”

In 2015, Alena restarted her career, starting to speak in tandem with the Frenchman Bruno Masso, who is five years younger than her. Together they learned the most difficult emission - a triple axel. And this trump card has already worked in the final of the 2017 figure skating Grand Prix: the skaters updated the world record in an arbitrary program (gaining 157.26 points) and deservedly won an important competition on the eve of the Olympiad.

When watching: February 14-15

Daria Domracheva (Belarus)

Biathlon

The three -time Olympic champion (Domracheva took all three gold medals at the Olympics in Sochi, after which she was awarded the title “Hero of Belarus”), the owner of the World Cup. After Sochi, Daria won a large crystal globe, married the greatest biathlete Ule Einar Bjurndalen (she hid her novel for almost 5 years) and gave birth to a daughter of Ksenia. Now the girl is a year and four months. For the sake of another Domrachev games, she resumed training only two months after childbirth. At the Biathlon World Championship in 2017, she won a personal medal (taking silver in the persecution race), and this year she won twice at the stages of the Biathlon World Cup.

A powerful support team is going to Korea with Domracheva - primarily the personal coach Roger Grobben (great friend of Bjorndalen) and, of course, Ule Einar himself, who, unlike his wife, did not pass the Olympic selection.

When watching : 10, 12, 14, 17, 20, 22.

Adam Rippon (USA)

Figure skating

A brave skater for whom the Olympics in Pyeongchang will be the first and, possibly, the last. Adam declared himself in 2009: two-time world champion among juniors won the prestigious championship of four continents and drove into the Podium Grand Prix on figure skating. It seemed that he was waiting for a powerful career. But instead, failures followed in national selection (with this in the USA strictly) and frequent shifts of coaches (Morozov, Orser, Arutunyan).

Rippon seemed hopelessly burning a huge talent. The fracture happened in 2015. It was then that the athlete spoke about his homosexuality: “I am gay, but this does not characterize me as a person. I am characterized by what my mother always taught: to treat people with respect, to be hardworking and kind. ” After a camming out, on an emotional wave, Rippon first won the America championship and entered the six best at the World Championship.

His career came to life. Now he is 28, and competition from youth is growing every year - however, in Pyeongchang, he may well show a bright result. The medal in the team tournament is the most real scenario.

When watching: February 16 and 17.

The women's team of Korea

Hockey

The united team of North and South Korea will perform under a single flag with the image of the peninsula. For the sake of such an event, the IOC allowed housewives to urgently expand the application from 25 to 30 players in order to painlessly include hockey players from the DPRK.

Not everyone, however, made such news. The coach of the South Korean national team Sarah Murray is sure that the policy should not replace the sport: “Everything was decided only in January. It's very late. We could not include many North Korean girls in the composition, because my players trained stubbornly and deserved participation in home games. There were other difficulties: I had a month to train newcomers to our style. Such a situation is very nervous. ”

This is not the first attempt by two Kores to forget about disagreements at least in sports: in 1991, countries sent a single team to the World Table Tennis Championship and the youth World Cup. But since then there have been no such experiments.

When watching : 10, 12 and 14 on February.

Claudia Pakhstein (Germany)

Skating

The five -time Olympic champion and the most titled XXI -century skating rides to the seventh (!) Olympiad aged 45 (!!) years. And she has good chances. This season, the German already won - at the stage of the World Cup in Norway.

Pakhstein does not hide: she remained in sports to restore justice. In 2009, it was removed from the competition for two years-supposedly for abnormal changes in the biopassport of blood. As it later turned out, the cause was a hereditary disease of spherocytosis - the congenital pathology of the erythrocyte membranes. But anti -doping services did not believe her. Pakhstein tried to take off his charges of a sports arbitration court and the Supreme Court of Germany. But every time she lost.

In Pyeongchang, Claudia will run 5000 meters. And if he wins, then the Olympic record will beat: no one has yet won the same personal discipline more than three times.

When watching: February 10 and 16.

Tina Hermann (Germany)

Skeleton

So far, Russian athletes are removed, disqualified and accused of violating anti-doping rules, a three-time Skeleton World Champion Tina Hermann is a few of foreigners who speak out to their address with restraint and in the sports honestly. She does not protect anyone, but trying to understand who is right in the confrontation between the International Olympic Committee, the World Anti -Doping Agency and Russia.

In particular, on the air of the German ZDF German television channel, she said: “I greet Russian girls. Why not? They appear at the stages of the World Cup, but they will not be at the Olympics. Strange story. I can't explain it. ” In an interview with Berliner Zeitung, Hermann said that Russians cannot be punished until there is no specific evidence. “If there were serious evidence, then everyone would be disqualified for life. But this did not happen. " She says that she makes a decision of the sports arbitration court, who did not allow 47 Russian athletes before the competition: “I have no reason not to believe [the court]. I do not want to blame anyone, but I just want to compete and speak. With the same Elena Nikitina. "

When watching : February 16 and 17.

Pavel Kopachev