The main thing is not victory, but participation: how a cunning skier "from the street" made her way to the Olympics and predictably failed

American Elizabeth Swaney, representing Hungary at the Pyeongchang Olympics, took part in the freestyle skiing competition and took last place without doing a single trick. But she was not upset at all, because performing at the Olympics was her dream, to which she was not going through sports records at all.

Source: The Denver Post

On February 19, Elizabeth Swaney surprised the audience with her performance at the freestyle skiing competition. The girl didn't perform any tricks, but just went down the halfpipe and jumped a couple of times. She got 30 points for the attempt. By the way, the athlete who took the penultimate place scored 43 points, despite the fact that she fell. The audience didn't like the performance so much that they wondered how Swaney got to the Olympics in the first place.

Swaney was born and raised in the USA. She even ran for governor, but lost to Arnold Schwarzenegger. At the age of 25, she became interested in skiing and set a goal to compete at the Olympics. To make her dream come true, she had to be in the top 30 at several international competitions.

Elizabeth went to competitions on her own, where less than 30 participants performed. Although she often did not perform any tricks, Swaney never fell, so she was not always in last place, which allowed her to score enough points to get to the Olympics. Back in 2016, she expressed a desire to compete for Hungary, where there were more places in the team, and became the first athlete representing the country in freestyle skiing at the Olympic Games.

Swaney claims that she trained a lot to represent Hungary at the Olympics, and wants to inspire others to take up this sport.

Representatives of the Hungarian Ski Federation said they had never seen an American woman riding because Swainie was independently raising money for a trip and preparation for competitions.