Get your American flag and red-striped socks out, it’s Olympic season from Feb. 4 to Feb. 20.
Team USA brought in 223 athletes to compete in Beijing and to hopefully bring back a few medals — but here are a few fan favorites to keep an eye out for this winter.
U.S. Women’s National Ice Hockey Team
The U.S. Women’s National Ice Hockey Team is composed of stars. Out of the 23 players, 15 have prior Olympic experience. A few examples include Hilary Knight, Jenny Potter, Angela Ruggiero and Julie Chu, who have all played on four Olympic teams.
At the same time, the team is bringing eight new faces to the team, bringing some youthful energy and mixing it with previous legends.
Curling is a confusing sport — when watching it from your couch, you’ll notice that two teams play on ice and slide granite toward a target. While it’s not everyone’s favorite, pause to watch John Shuster, a five-time Olympian and gold medal winner.
His lengthy resume also includes a few world championships and four USA Curling Male Athlete of the Year awards.
Figure skating is the oldest Winter Olympic sport, and in a way, the sport represents the season overall. It’s captivating and fun to watch, and some of us might even debate learning how to skate.
We’ll never qualify to become Olympians though — that’s reserved for people like Mariah Bell. Bell started ice skating at 4 and continued on to compete at several U.S. Championships. She won first place in 2022 and qualified for the Olympics.
At 3, Nathan Chen saw his brothers playing hockey and starting skating. Now, he’s a two-time Olympian and bronze medalist.
Chen became the first skater to land seven clean quad jumps and the first to land five quad jumps in 2017. He’s essentially the first to land many different quad jumps and a very impressive ice skater overall.
Oh — he also goes to Yale University and plays guitar in his free time!
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