I eagerly anticipated this year’s Winter Olympics — and not just because I knew it would spell the end of January and four o’clock sunsets. Frankly, the event is a welcome distraction from the terrible news breaking daily around the country and the world.
A confession, though, that might jeopardize my Vermont bona fides: I prefer the Summer Games to the winter ones.
Growing up in Maryland, I swam, did gymnastics, biked, ran, and played soccer and softball — I still have the patches from the Presidential Physical Fitness Test to prove I mastered the broad jump and the flexed-arm hang.
Snow and ice sports are a different story. When I was 17, I took a slow train from Washington, D.C., to Montréal because I wanted to learn how to ski. A friend from summer camp who was attending McGill University took me north of the city to the Mont Saint-Sauveur ski area and promptly abandoned me on the bunny slope. Because I had been trained as a ballet dancer, he reasoned, I should be able to ski.
Leg strength was not the problem. I wore his too-big jeans, held up with a makeshift rope belt, and spent the afternoon going straight up and down the hill; I never learned to stop or turn. By the end of the day, my clothes were soaking wet, and I was cold and frustrated.
Later that evening, back at the rustic house McGill owns in the Laurentians, another dude offered to take me cross-country skiing for the first time. Much better.
The Olympics are a welcome distraction from the terrible news breaking daily around the country and the world.
I have since loved the sport, even though I’m not very good at it. I wish I could be in a place with snow that lasts long enough to get out every day — for, like, a month — so I could build endurance and improve my technique.
Instead, the first time out each winter is the opposite of riding a bicycle — it feels like my first time on skis, 48 years ago. I struggle to find my balance, and soreness ensues in body parts I didn’t know I had. It takes me a day or two to recover, and by the time my hip flexors are functional again, the ski tracks close to my house have been ruined by dogs, walkers and snowshoers.
Getting on real snow at a proper ski area takes time and organization. Also, better cars than the ones my partner, Tim, and I currently have. On Christmas Day, we ventured to Camel’s Hump Nordic Ski Area in Huntington in his Prius and barely made it up the hill into the parking lot — only to find we had a flat tire. It was already 3 p.m., so we bailed.
A week later we took my Ford Focus to ski in Greensboro and made it as far as … Hardwick. Our Toyota RAV4-owning friends had to shuttle us the rest of the way to Highland Lodge.
The latest dump of snow has been a delight, in large part because the cold temps have kept it around. I’ve happily skied at Ethan Allen Homestead twice in the past week.
But what I’m doing on the snow bears no resemblance to the moves of an Olympian like Vermont Nordic skier Ben Ogden, who won a silver medal on Tuesday in Italy.
And events such as skeleton and ski jumping, for which competitors risk life and limb at high speeds? I’m in awe but also mystified; it’s hard to relate. I think it’s easier to appreciate such remarkable athletic achievements if you have some inkling of what it takes.
Nonetheless, I can’t stop watching.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Armchair Olympics”
This article appears in February 11 • 2026.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
