It seems like the London Olympics just ended, yet today marks the One-Year-To-Go mark in the countdown to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. They'll be a Winter Olympics unlike any other. Not only will they be the first Winter Games held in Russia, one of the traditional powers of the Winter Olympics, there's going to be a slew of new events, 12 in all, ranging from team figure skating to the long-overdue addition of women's ski jumping to new disciplines in snowboarding and freestyle skiing. We still don't know about the hockey tournament, but the KHL has already committed and I think the NHL knows it would be a huge mistake NOT to go. (And sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but NBC's going to have to tape-delay prime time again. Sochi is eight hours ahead of New York.)
On the one-year pre-anniversary of the London Games, I took a shot at figuring out who might be the final torchbearer, which is always one of the big questions leading up to any Olympics. We were all wrong in London. Nobody saw those kids coming. But I was right in Vancouver, where the choice of Wayne Gretzky couldn't have been more obvious. Likewise, if Pele's not the final torchbearer in Rio, what's the point of even having an Olympics in Brazil? However, with Sochi, I have absolutely no idea. The Soviet Union/Russia's Winter Olympic history is so rich and vast that the candidates are numerous. I'm not even sure there's a clear favorite. Regardless, you know I've got a couple suggestions.
If they're looking for a current athlete, Olga Zaitseva might get the call. She won gold in the biathlon relay in Torino and again in Vancouver, where she also won a silver in the mass start event. Another option who might actually compete in Sochi is Yevgeny Plushenko. Plushenko raised a storm of controversy in Vancouver when he complained about losing the gold to Evan Lysacek, but he's still got silvers from Salt Lake City and Vancouver sandwiching a gold from Torino. Plusheko's the most successful figure skater in history, and is attempting to compete in an unprecedented fourth Olympics for the sole purpose of ending his career in his home country. No skater has ever won a medal in four straight Olympics, either.
Plushenko's just one in a long line of great Soviet/Russian figure skaters. Nowhere has that been more evident than their dominance in the pairs discipline. Starting with the legendary Protopopovs in 1964, Soviet/Russian pairs won gold at 12 straight Olympics until getting shut out in 2010. The greatest of those pairs was Irina Rodnina & Aleksandr Zaitsev. Rodnina was one of the ambassadors who helped Sochi land the Games, and she won gold in three straight Olympics, the last two with Zaitsev. She also won 10 straight World Championships from 1969-78. In my eyes, a selection of Irina Rodnina, with or without her former partner (and husband), would be beyond appropriate.
Or they could go with the first great Russian Winter Olympic champion--speed skater Lydia Skoblikova. The Soviet Union didn't make its Winter Olympic debut until the 1956 Cortina Games. Skoblikova made her Olympic debut four years later in Squaw Valley and won two gold medals. She then went 4-for-4 in Innsbruck in 1964, becoming the first athlete to sweep the speed skating program at an Olympics. She also became the first athlete to win four gold medals at a single Winter Games. Her six career gold medals are still the record for a speed skater. Skoblikova wasn't just Russia's first Winter Olympic star. She was one of the first Winter Olympic stars period.
But I think the choice is really down to one of three people. When most people think of the Soviet Union and the Winter Olympics, they immediately think of hockey. The Soviet dynasty was one of the most dominant teams in the history of international sports. With the exception of the two Games in the United States (1960 and 1980), when they won silver, the Soviets took gold at every Olympics from 1956-92. (Interestingly, Russia hasn't won Olympic hockey gold as an independent nation, something they're desperate to change in Sochi.)
The biggest star of those teams was goalie Vladislav Tretiak. Perhaps the greatest goalie in the history of the sport, Tretiak is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and was selected to the IIHF's All-Time Team. He played in four Olympics, winning three golds and the 1980 Miracle on Ice silver. Tretiak was also the goalie on 10 World Championship teams. He's currently the president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation and was the general manager of the 2010 Olympic team. Tretiak represents that dynasty better than anyone, and he's also one of the game's greatest ambassadors. And after the embarrassment of pulling him after the first period of the Miracle on Ice game, which is still talked about more than 30 years later, Tretiak's ultimate reward could be lighting the Olympic cauldron in Sochi.
I don't think it'll be Tretiak either, though. In my opinion, it'll be one of two women. Both cross country skiers. Lyubov Yegorova and Raisa Smetanina. Yegorova represented the Unified Team in 1992 and won five medals, including three golds. Then representing Russia two years later, she became the first great Olympic champion for the newly-independent nation. She won four more medals in Lillehammer, three of which were gold. She was the most decorated athlete at both Games, and the six career gold medals are tied for the second-most in Winter Olympic history. The nine medals overall has Yegorova in a tie for fifth place all-time. However, her career ended with a positive drug test in 1997, which might ruin her chances of carrying the Olympic flame.
As a result, I'm going to say that Raisa Smetanina is my choice. Smetanina competed at five Olympics, medalling in all of them. Her final Olympic medal was a gold in the 4x5 kilometer relay in 1992. When she was 39 years old! With that she became the oldest woman to win a gold medal in Winter Olympic history. She was also the first Winter Olympian ever to win 10 career medals, which is still the third-most (and most by a woman) all-time. She's tied for that record with Italian Stefania Belmondo, who had the honor of being the final torchbearer in Torino.
Much like Great Britain last year, Russia's had so many great Olympians that it'll be virtually impossible for them to make a bad choice. If it were up to me, I think I'd go with Smetanina. But I'm glad I don't have to make that decision.
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