It is the end of your Winter Olympics event. You have crossed the finish line, landed all your jumps, or done whatever sporting melange comprises the biathalon or Nordic combined successfully enough to earn yourself a medal. Congratulations! But your body is feeling a little crazy. Your skin feels amphibious from the swamp of your sweat. Your face is numb from the elements, slapped by gusting winds and battered by wintry mix. Your moisture-wicking performance-wear has nobly completed its mission and now sticks slick to your back. Your helmet has come off, and your damp hair has begun to ice over. But you know there's no need to fret, because it's time for the best part of any winning Olympian's day. That's right: It's time to get cozy on the podium.
Here we have a quintessential example of some fellas staying cozy on the podium. Alex Ferreira of the United States, Henry Sildaru of Estonia, and Brendan MacKay of Team Canada, who won gold, silver, and bronze, respectively, all changed out of their official freestyle ski suits and opted for some more casual insulated outerwear for the podium. As is only traditional for podiums these days, the Olympians swapped their protective helmets for warm beanies. MacKay's maple leaf insignia is a wonderful reminder that he is both cozy and Canadian. The only way these lads could get cozier? By wrapping their arms around each other for a photo, of course!
Few Olympians took coziness more seriously than Su Yiming of China, the gold medalist in men's snowboard slopestyle. You can bet your ass that Su, the first snowboarder to complete and successfully land a 1980-degree aerial spin in competition (Sabrina's take: That seems like too many degrees!), wore a helmet for safety as he sailed across the slopestyle obstacle course. But when Su finished his winning run and the event concluded, he understood the assignment, donning one of the furriest headpieces seen in Cortina d'Ampezzo this year. This guy is assuredly cozy on the podium!
Experts say the coziest podiums arise from the most grueling winter sports. Consider the athletes competing in the women's aerials qualification on Feb. 17, which was delayed due to a snowstorm. For a variety of reasons, they are all assuredly yearning to be cozy at the podium. But they are still so far away. The podium hovers somewhere in the inscrutable white distance. To paraphrase José Esteban Muñoz, the podium is not yet here. They may never get cozy at the podium, but they can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality.
When the podium arrives, as it invariably does for the lucky few, there is only one logical response: Get cozy up on there! If you have a bud with you, even better. China's Mengtao Xu and Qi Shao, who won gold and bronze in the women's aerials final, certainly bundled up at the podium. One can imagine how a flag wrapped around one's body serves as a simulacrum of a blanket, adding a pivotal element to this age-old quest.
Permit me to share a rule of thumb with you. The starker the difference between the sporting outfit and the medal ceremony outfit, the cozier the podium. Consider the women's biathlon 12.5km mass start event, in which athletes trudged through sheets of wet and slushy snowfall in what appears to be some flavor of winterized spandex. To such athletes, the coziness is just as much a reward as a medal. Czechia's Tereza Vobornikova looked decidedly un-cozy after collapsing across the biathlon finish line in a flurry of flakes.
Mere moments later, however, Vobornikova and gold and silver medalists Océane Michelon and Julia Simon, both of France, looked utterly transformed by the magic of the podium. Puffy jackets, some beanies, and a few warm pairs of gloves: Now that's what I call a cozy podium!
Not all winter Olympians get to enjoy such insulated bliss. If your event is indoors, meaning you have not braved Mother Nature's tempestuous and inclement weather, you will never be, or yearn to be, cozy on the podium. In all likelihood, you are running hot. These celebrations, while valid, are not the remit of this blog. Now please enjoy the medalists Max Langenhan of Germany, Jonas Mueller of Austria, and Dominik Fischnaller of Italy getting as cozy as possible in a fellas' embrace after the luge men's singles event.
Wanna make a cozy podium even cozier? Quadruple the number of fellas (gender-neutral.) It's a classic example of kleptothermy, the temperature regulation strategy that involves huddling up against another animal to enjoy the spoils of thermogenesis, also known as heat production. Bats do it, snakes do it, emperor penguins do it. Tell me, do you see any difference between these photos?
Anyone in the business of gettin' cozy will tell you this is one of the most redeeming elements of the Winter Olympics, a sporting event full of baffling, ultra-niche, and made-up rich people sports. The Winter Olympics will never reward the fastest person in the world or the strongest person in the world. But the Summer Olympics will never have a cozy podium, and, as such, can never deliver the full-body relief we feel as an audience member to see an athlete put on some much-needed layers, plop on a soft and fuzzy cap, and waddle up the steps to receive one of the greatest honors an athlete can achieve. So bless the Winter Olympics for setting such a high bar for a time-honored tradition that we have come to know and love. See you in 2030, and until then, stay cozy!
