This past weekend, we said annyeong (goodbye) to the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, meaning I now have nothing to watch when I wake up at 6am.
The Winter Olympics, or, as it should be renamed, 149 different ways to slide, excited us from the opening moments. It had us shocked, thrilled and in sheer awe at what these athletes could achieve.
From the British point of view, this was to be the most successful games of the colder variety ever had by those wearing the Union Jack.
PyeongChang gave Britain the winter version of London 2012's Super Saturday. Izzy Atkin, Ski Freestyle, and Laura Davis, Skeleton, picked up two bronze medals, whilst Lizzy Yarnold repeated her feat. of four years previous and created history by becoming the first British athlete to win two gold medals at the Winter Olympics.
Prior to that, Dom Parsons picked up a bronze in the men's skeleton event, and they were to be joined by eventual flag bearer, Billy Morgan, who picked up bronze in the snowboard big air event on the penultimate day of the games.
Five medals at one games surpassed the target set by Team GB, and there were several opportunities that just slipped out of the very cold finger tips of several athletes.
Both curling teams sent from Great Britain - Scotland - could have so easily have come away with medals. The men lost their play-off match with Switzerland to make the semi-finals thanks to a freak shot - and possibly shot of the tournament - from Benoit Schwarz; and the women narrowly missed out on a Bronze Medal as they lost by a single score to Japan. Both teams captured the hearts of all the people that had the pleasure of watching each of their tense games.
One of the most heartbreaking moments came courtesy of three-time speed skating world champion and queen of bad luck, Elise Christie. In Sochi four years previous, she was DQ'd in each of her events. These games were due to be different as she entered with world gold's from every race she entered. However, PyeongChang was to follow suit and leave Christie next to inconsolable. Crashed out in the final of the 500m, collided with an opponent in the semi-final of the 1500m and was DQ'd in the heats of the 1000m after she attempted to race with ligament damage to her ankle. No medals, but she definitely one the hearts of every Brit who fell in love with her sheer determination.
Andrew Musgrave on the day 2 - wow that seems so long ago - managed to finish seventh in the cross country; the highest any Britain has ever finished. At one point, he was in the top 3, and was maybe unlucky to finish outside of that. Another sign of the progress British winter sports are making.
"I'll ski forever, baby."
Away from the near tangible success, there were several Brits who had memorable stories from these games.
Similarly to Elise Christie, Katie Summerhayes battled injury to finish seventh in the same event as Izzy Atkin's bronze medal. An injury that could have only worsened throughout the event, but the Olympic spirit kept her going.
Great Britain's women's bobsleighers - if that's the correct term - had to be self-funded as their funding from Sport UK had been cut prior to the Olympics. You'd imagine that a team that lost funding wouldn't be able to perform particularly high, but the team of Mica McNeill and Mica Moore - the only two people I have ever known to be called Mica - finished eighth over the course of four races. A huge achievement that should also do wonders for future funding.
Figure skater Penny Coomes had one of the more unbelievable turnarounds in order to perform at PyeongChang with her partner, Nick Buckland. In June 2016, Coomes suffered a horrific training injury as her knee was shattered into 8 pieces. Their Olympic dream seemed over with no chance in hell of reaching any level they were at previously. But an unlikely qualification saw them able to compete at the 2018 Games, barely 18 months since the near career ending injury. A tenth place finish did wonders for putting to bed any worries they may have had about future events too.
Away from the Brits, there were plenty of other incredible moments that made the 2018 Winter Olympics memorable. Canada's women's ice hockey team lost the Gold Medal match for the first time since 1998 to rivals USA. Chloe Kim won snowboarding gold at the young age of 17 - think what you were doing at 17...
The best winning reaction came courtesy of Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic. The snowboard racer entered the super-G ski event having not finished higher than 15th any World Cup race. When she reached the bottom, she thought there must have been a mistake. She stared down the camera, needing the camera's operator to confirm to her that she was the Olympic champion! And if that wasn't enough, seven days later she was Olympic champion in snowboarding's parallel giant slalom - the first athlete in 90 years to win gold in two different sports at the same Winter Olympics. Outstanding.
As for now, I am struggling to wake up with nothing significant to watch on TV. We must simply wait until the next major multi-sport event... The Commonwealth Games, which starts on April 4th!
The video below shows one of my favourite people to come out of the PyeongChang Games. A Ghanian athlete who's dream was to reach the Olympics no matter what.
What are your memories of the 2018 Winter Games? Share and comment.
You can read my other blogs at ScriptEye and I Can't Write Words here.
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