Liz Swaney Frigging Rules!
33-year-old Elizabeth Swaney is the best skier in the world. Of course, a lot of people disagree – namely, all the athletes at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics. But what the hell do they know? I mean, okay, technically speaking, Swaney is probably the worst skier of all time, at least insofar as qualified international competition. But that’s beside the point: The thing about Swaney – a Hungarian (by way of Venezuela by way of America because bored trust fund kid with a diverse family tree) – is that she’s really no better on the slopes than you or me. And I’ve never even been skiing.
Here’s Swaney performing for her proud Magyar brethren in the Freestyle Halfpipe Skiing Event at this year’s Winter Games. (There’s probably a mop in the closet for the goulash that just dribbled down your gawking mouth.)
How freeskier Elizabeth Swaney made it to the #WinterOlympics with this very simple halfpipe run: https://t.co/enfDyoQjGC pic.twitter.com/kHTAV7XND4
— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 20, 2018
Compare that flawless run with Gold medalist Cassie Sharpe’s. Remember, the 25-year-old Sharpe (from Canada by way of Canada by way of Canada) is actually very good at what she does.
Swaney is clearly not on the same level as Sharpe. Or maybe more aptly, Sharpe is clearly not on the same level as Swaney.
For my money, Swaney is leaps and bounds (or tiny bunny hops and stiff-legged 180s) better. Here’s why: Swaney didn’t just show up to some backwater South Korean municipality rocketing headlong into a multigenerational bankruptcy crisis and do her tricks and get her award and go home. Nope. What Swaney did was to demonstrate just how big a bag of nonsense the Winter Olympics actually is.
Sure, the Olympics is great to bet on, but – as NBC’s tanking ratings will tell you – the Games are not very accessible, and they’re not very fun to watch. But more than that, the Olympics are a fraud across the board. In fact, the most honest thing about Olympic sports is the betting board.
For one thing, the simple fact that the IOC would allow Swaney into the Games is evidence enough of gross negligence on the part of a governing body that just doesn’t care. And this DGAF attitude pervades every aspect of this trite piece of quadrennial political fluff. On one side, you have the Russian team, which isn’t allowed to be the “Russian” team because – like every other nation in the Games – Russia dopes the bejeezus out of its athletes. Of course, nobody officially tested positive for anything, but that didn’t stop the obvious politicization of “Russian sanctions” on the slopes. Effin’ hackers, the lot of them, amirite? Then on another side you have that poor asshole from Japan who got railroaded because some idiot NBC commentator never took a history lesson. And on top of that, you have the OAR curler – the curler! – “test positive” for a stimulant that is less effective than a Red Bull, putting his hot wife’s Olympic medal in jeopardy.
But not to worry, faithful Olympics fan: The IOC is proving that they give a shit about the integrity of the game because of how they’re catching the token doping “cheats.” The competition is world class, but you better believe it’s all natural and that it’s fair! The system works!
Only it doesn’t. Because the same system that picks and chooses which athletes test positive for banned substances (because every single one of these folks is on the gas, and God bless ‘em for it) also let Swaney – who calculated how to “cheat” her way into the Winter Olympics years ago – actually show up and get airtime. The Olympics are a scam, and Elizabeth Swaney proved it. And for that, OlympicBettingOdds.com gives her the best skier ever award.
Ironically, she’s also probably the only athlete at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games not on PEDs.