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Talent, athleticism, mastery, greatness—from Usain Bolt’s world-record runs to Keri Strug’s
legendary landings, these are the qualities that define the great Olympic stories…..
but not this one, so let’s try again.
Ineptitude, clumsiness, mediocrity, technicalities—from Ryan Lochte pretending he was mugged to Boris
Johnson doing whatever this is, these are the qualities that define the story of Elizabeth
Swaney: a true Olympic zero.
The Olympics are all about representation: people of all different colors, creeds, backgrounds,
and nationalities can be seen competing together on the Olympic stage, but throughout its history,
the Olympics have always failed to represent one key group: people who are bad at sports.
However, two decades ago, in 2018, through the heroic actions of one woman, that all
changed.
Elizabeth Swaney was born in 1984 in Oakland, California, and from a young age, showed stunning
mediocrity in sports.
Her first attempt at making the Olympics came in 2014, when she tried to qualify for the
Sochi games in women’s skeleton and freestyle skiing.
She hoped to be on Team Venezuela, representing the country where her mother was born, but
in the end, she was on Team “Did Not Qualify,” and represented the couch where she sat and
watched the actual athletes on TV.
But Elizabeth Swaney decided she wasn’t going to let something as silly as being a
bad athlete stop her from competing in the Olympics, and so, she identified a sport that
had minimal competition: the women’s freestyle skiing halfpipe, which at the time only had
about 30 or so elite international competitors.
30 people just isn’t a lot; in fact, there are more people named Elizabeth Swaney than
there were women’s halfpipe skiers for Elizabeth Swaney to compete with—at least according
to the very cursory Facebook search I did so I could write that.
But still, it wasn’t going to be easy: you see, because of their elitist commitment to
having “good athletes” compete, the Olympic Committee sets minimum requirements for each
sport.
For the halfpipe, there were two: First, that the skier has finished in the top 30 at either
a FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup or the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships.
FIS, by the way, stands for Federation Internationale de Ski, which I believe is French for “Fedora
Interpreters of Skittles,” or maybe not; I don’t have the money for fact checkers.
The second requirement is that the skier must have earned least 50.00 total FIS points,
which are handed out in each FIS competition based on how a skier places—100 points for
first, 80 for second, 60 for third, all the way down to a single, lonely point for thirtieth.
In order to meet these qualifications, Elizabeth Swaney decided that she would earn her placement
and points in the most glorious and exciting way possible—by doing nothing at all, because
here’s the thing you have to know about the skiing halfpipe: people fall a lot.
Like a lot a lot.
Like, “every other halfpipe run looks like an ‘epic fails’ vine compilation” a
lot.
So, by not attempting any tricks at all, and simply finishing each run without falling
down, she’d be able to notch a score, and thus beat opponents who had fallen on all
their runs.
Combine that with the fact that several competitions had fewer than thirty competitors to start
with, and Swaney was able to slowly rack up FIS points—enough to not only surpass the
50-point minimum, but to become the 34th ranked women’s freestyle halfpipe skier in the
world.
However, there was one final hurdle—there were only 24 spots for women’s halfpipe
in the Olympics, but the good news was, while Swaney may not be able to jump over actual
hurdles, clearing logistical hurdles is her specialty.
Her solution was to game the Olympic quota system by representing not the US, but her
grandparents’ birthplace of Hungary.
You see, in an attempt to encourage participation from as many countries as possible, the Olympics
limits each country to 26 competitors across all freestyle skiing events—of which, there
are fourteen: moguls, aerials, ski cross, half-pipe, slopestyle, big air, and ballet,
with each split into men’s and women’s divisions.
Lucky for Swaney, the US had 33 skiers qualify, and Canada had 32—which according to my
math are both more than 26.
That meant both had to leave some skiers behind, including three women’s freestyle half-pipers.
That put Swaney at 31st, which, combined with seven injuries from other top competitors—injuries
that I’m totally not accusing Elizabeth Swaney of causing—led to just enough dropouts
to edge Swaney into 24th and onto the Olympic stage in Pyeongchang.
Now I’m going to be honest: as much as I desperately want to, I cannot show you Swaney’s
run, because the Olympics is very into copyright and I am very into not being sued by the Olympics,
but you should go and watch it, because it is truly a thing of beauty.
At the Olympics, in front of the entire world, Elizabeth Swaney did exactly what she had
always done: nothing.
As baffled commentators tried to make sense of what was happening, Swaney skied up the
side of the halfpipe, and then went straight back down—no jumps, no flips, no double
McTwist 160 Flippy Baconator McFlurry With Fries… her one trick, if you could even
call it that, was a half spin while about a foot above the ground, a move about as difficult
as hitting a golf ball into the ocean.
In the end, Swaney finished with a score of 31.4 out of 100, landing in a distant last
place behind the next competitor who managed to score a 45 despite falling down on both
attempts, but in honor of Swaney making it to the Olympics at all, I right now am offering
her a prize far greater than a gold medal: a free audiobook when she signs up for Audible
using the link audible.com/HAI.
In fact, I’ll go ahead and extend that offer to all of you, just because that’s the kind
of cool guy I am, and might I even recommend using that deal to check out an audiobook
about actually good Olympic athletes, Daniel James Brown’s incredible The Boys in the
Boat.
It’s maybe the best piece of non-fiction writing about the Olympics ever, telling the
story of the eight-man US crew team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
It’s got drama and racing and defeating Nazis and it’s awesome, I promise.
If that isn’t your style—even though it should be because it rocks—Audible definitely
has something for you: not only fantastic audiobooks, but a ton of other incredible
spoken-word content, from podcasts to guided wellness programs to theatrical performances
to comedy, plus exclusive Audible Originals you can’t get anywhere else.
So sign up at audible.com/HAI, or text HAI to 500-500 to get a free Audiobook, plus two
free Audible originals.