The Winter Olympics feature 2,951 of the world’s greatest athletes, and also this woman...
Elizabeth Swaney is a freestyle skier from America, but she is competing for Hungary, which she was eligible to do because of Hungarian grandparents.
According to Deadspin:
Swaney can’t throw a single trick in the halfpipe, and she can barely catch any air to speak of, but that doesn’t matter, since the real competitive portion of her Olympics came before she even traveled to South Korea, as she worked her way onto the team in an effort that was something between a scam and a tale of perseverance.
In order to qualify, Swaney needed to finish within the top 30 at a few World Cup skiing events. After “competing” in halfpipe contests around the world, Swaney finally qualified in December, when she went to a Chinese event while the top skiers in the world were at a more prestigious event in Colorado. She finished 13th out of 15, which has nothing to do with her actually besting anyone, since, once again, she doesn’t even do any tricks. Other people fell or certain events simply featured fewer than 30 competitors, which let her sneak in. That’s her gameplan: show up and stay upright.
Because a few competitors pulled out of the Olympics with injury, because of limits on how many skiers from a single country can compete in the same event, and because of some arcane reallocation rules within the Hungarian ski federation designed to balance men’s and women’s competitors, Swaney got to go do her fake run in Pyeongchang.
Check it out below. Click here to read more.