By: Colton Barry ’19

The opening ceremony for the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, will begin February 9, 2018.  There will be 242 U.S.A. athletes that will attend the ceremony, 32 of which are from Colorado.

The 32 athletes will compete several different events.  These include ski racing, snowboarding, ice hockey, nordic and nordic combined, and freestyle skiing, just to name a few.  Many of the athletes are veterans of the Olympic Games, such as Lindsey Vonn from Vail and Noah Hoffman from Aspen.  There will also be many new faces representing Colorado in the Winter games, including Jasper Good from Steamboat Springs and Lauren Gibbs from Denver.

The most likely to bring home the gold is Vail native Mikaela Shiffrin.  Shiffrin is currently ranked first on the Slalom Alpine Skiing leader board and third on the Giant Slalom leaderboard.  Over the past two years, Shiffrin has dominated the Alpine Skiing stage, with 29 podium finishes since the beginning of 2017, and 15 podium finishes already in 2018.  Body Miller, a successful retired ski racer said, “I would say it’s likely she wins two (Olympic) golds, I would say an outside shot at five medals, and I think probably, at her best, maybe three or four of them are golds,” about Shiffrins chances of medaling at the Olympics.

The first events in South Korea have already started, and Regis Jesuit is wishing our Colorado and U.S.A. athletes good luck during their competitions in the 2018 Olympics.