How to Winter Olympics the correct way

From a woman who skied once, and it made her cry

This is a long one. If it gets cut off in your inbox, you can read it online here.

---

I currently have a cold, which I am milking to no end by lying on my couch, binge watching the Winter Olympics, and learning an entirely new language (twizzles, McTwist, goofy stance, hat trick, etc.) My lifelong love for the Olympics is no secret, particularly as an ex-swimmer who used to practice nine times a week and was—and I cannot stress this enough—nowhere near good enough to even consider the idea of the Olympics. The closest I got was—true story—chasing greatest backstroker of all time Aaron Peirsol down at an Italian train station for a photo one time when I was sixteen. I imagine it’s memorable for us both, albeit for wildly different reasons.

Livestrong, two tanks, braces. Deeply 2009.

So yes, for the next week, as we continue to exist in the hell of Stephen Miller’s making, watching athletes who have dedicated nearly every waking hour to their dreams coming true throw themselves through the air in ways previously deemed impossible is just the medicine I need. And also tea with honey.

Follow the Hot Tip Instagram account here, and get a comped month of the ~paid version~ of this newsletter on moi!

How to be American on the world stage right now: It would be much easier for Olympians to dodge questions of “wtf do you have to say about what’s going on in your country” and just focus on their sports, but instead, many have been speaking out about their discomfort with the goings-on here (see: fascism) and the inherent incongruence of repping a flag that currently stands for quite bad things (see: aforementioned fascism, twice-elected pants-shitting president.) As such, Hot Tip would love to give Hunter Hess, Chloe Kim, Amber Glenn, Rich Ruohonen, Maddie Mastro, Svea Irving, Mikaela Shiffrin, and Christopher Lillis—and anyone else I may have missed—their very American flowers.

---

And other acts of protest: The IOC is not exactly known for being a well-functioning, uncorrupt organization, but this week they made the particularly shameful move of banning Ukrainian Skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych from competing with a helmet featuring the faces of Ukrainian athletes killed by Russia. Heraskevych refused to compete without it, leaving him out of competition and leading to this beautiful moment of solidarity from his luge teammates.

---

Winners and loser: Cross-country skier Jessie Diggins won a bronze medal with bruised ribs today, Chloe Kim snagged a silver and was overjoyed for 17-year-old Choi Gaon of South Korea who took gold in snowboard halfpipe, and Ashley Farquharson earned the second-ever US women’s medal in luge with a bronze.

Other winners include: The drone shots that have yet to hit an athlete, Ilona Maher and her sisters having the trip of a lifetime, and the giant Nutella dispenser in the athlete dining hall. On the loser side we have the Norwegian guy who randomly admitted to cheating on his ex-girlfriend in an attempt to win her back (?), to which this publication says—run, girl (or as the case may be: ski, girl.)

But also, winner: Lyft

---

In politics: Attorney General and America’s evil stepmother Pam Bondi came to her House Judiciary hearing armed with prepared insult cards like she was hosting the Comedy Central Roast of People Begging Her To Answer Questions About The Epstein Cover Up While She Just Screams About The Dow Jones For Some Reason. Meanwhile, things are getting worse at the Washington Post, where a third of the staff was laid off last week, because it turns out Democracy Dies in the Shitty Metaverse.

But in actually good news, we got another victory for Democrats in a special election in Louisiana, and this one was won by 24 points (!!!!) in a district Trump won by 13(!!!!!!!!) which means, yes, in math I can do: a 37-point swing (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

---

FYC: How To Get To Heaven From Belfast, the new Netflix show from Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee. Christian Siriano’s Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection from New York Fashion Week. A new documentary about the Women’s Professional Hockey League on Peacock. And thank god herself, the just-announced Hilary Duff World Tour.

---

And now, a helpful glossary for watching these Olympics from me, a woman who skied one time, which ended in her crying and walking down the mountain:

• Ice dancing vs. pairs skating: Pairs skating involves the jumps and acrobatics involved in typical figure skating, while ice dancing involves more musicality and French villains that look straight out of Ratatouille.

• Hurtling down an ice track at 75 mph: There are three ways you can do this. They are bobsled (one-person, two-person or four-person), luge (one-person or two-person), and skeleton (one person, who I’m assuming spent their youth being told to “get down from there” by their parents.)

• Goofy stance vs. regular stance: In snowboarding, regular means left foot in front, goofy means right foot in front, largely correlated to left or right handedness, but not necessarily.

• Ailsa Craig: A Scottish island from whence all the curling stones come. I really can’t get into this sport, hard as I try.

• Stoat: Weasel-like mascot of these Games, called ermellini in Italian.

• Every kind of skiing, I'm pretty sure: Downhill, slalom, giant slalom, super-G, moguls, dual moguls, aerials, ski cross, big air, halfpipe, slopestyle, normal hill jump, large hill jump, super jump, mountaineering, cross-country, Nordic combined, and team combined.

Me researching this list.

• Quad god: Figure skater Ilia Malinin’s self-proclaimed nickname. It is giving Timothee Chalamet on ice (neither derogatory nor complimentary, just observational.)

• Hat trick: A hockey term briefly mentioned in Heated Rivalry that is in fact, real, and involves a single player scoring three goals, after which spectators may even just throw their hats onto the ice.

• Tkachuk and Hughes: The two sets of brothers on the USA Hockey Team, whom I like to imagine like this—

  

---

Previously on Hot Tip:

Kate Yablunovsky says Russians do blush, actually

Exclusively good news

buy me a coffee — instagram — work with me — shop