Anticipating this: The Olympic champion in trampoline jumping of the year 2012 remains unmatched. The man’s name is Dong Dong. How a central sound that a sport evokes condenses in the name of its outstanding athlete, that is great art. And of course, a look at the list of participants also reveals something remarkable about the games in Beijing, names are not just news, names also contain messages.
That you have to be a unit if you are a team, for example. Which is why the curlers from South Korea are called “Team Kim”, the formation Kim Kyeong-ae, Kim Seon-yeong, Kim Eun-jung, Kim Cho-hi and Kim Yeong-mi more than deserves this honorary title. Just like the slalom faction from Austria, unofficial “Team Katharina”: Katharina Liensberger, Katharina Truppe, Katharina Gallhuber, Katharina Huber.
Names can be oscillated harmoniously, in a group and as an individual starter: You Young competes in figure skating for South Korea, Lotte Lie in biathlon for Belgium, Mac Forehand (USA) in freestyle, unfortunately not in tennis. Names can be a reference to the event, which is why the German bobsledder Matthias Sommer is a welcome guest at the Winter Games – but the American snowboarder Cody Winters fits better into the panorama, as does the Norwegian freestyler Tormod Frostad, who after his career under his own name Frozen food delivery service could open to be with you.
Dong Dong’s true heir comes from Belgium
In this cold area, the so-called podium gradually comes into view. Third place goes to the New Zealand snowboarder Cool Wakushima, that’s her real name, everything is in the passport. And that in a discipline that is committed to nonchalance. A little miracle. Second place goes to the Chinese ice hockey player Fu Jiang, one of those North Americans with whom the Chinese upgraded their team for the Olympics, the names were Chinesed, so to speak. Which is a pity for Fu Jiang, because his real name is Spencer Foo, something like children’s film characters from the seventies, a grunge band that has been used to badly could be called something like that, but unfortunately grunge is dead. May Spencer Foo live forever.
Dong Dong’s true heir, however, comes from Belgium, as it did four years ago in Pyeongchang. The criterion: the unity between sport and athlete. It’s about speed skating, where the contestants glide across the track, where they pick up speed, swinging their arms. Extra point: if a name also works as a verb. Speed skater Bart Swings starts here in his own category.