Cannolis and carbs: The Winter Olympics are back

MILAN — In the universe of topics we talk about in the run-up to an Olympic Games, food is not often at the top of the list.

Construction delays? Security concerns? Geopolitical tensions? The number of condoms being distributed in the athletes’ village? That’s been standard stuff over the last couple decades.

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But hey, this is Italy.

“I’m especially looking forward to cannolis,” American bobsled stalwart Elana Meyers Taylor said. “I have to be gluten free in-season and I have to watch what I eat. But as soon as I cross the finish line, I’m getting that cannoli.”

Indeed, when the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics begin with Friday’s Opening Ceremony, there are probably not many athletes downing a plate of creamy risotto or a bubbling pizza margherita before skiing down a mountain or skating around a rink.

But the rest of us fortunate enough to be here will be happy to partake, with hundreds of millions around the world watching the Milan Cortina Games with its breathtaking European backdrop and wishing they had the same opportunity to taste the vino and see the Italian Alps.

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Because much like in Paris two years ago, where the Games reengaged an American audience whose interest in the Olympics was in danger of slipping into a generational coma, the next fortnight will offer viewers a guilt-free sensory spectacle — except, of course, for the carbs.

“Definitely — definitely — some carbs,” women’s hockey star Laila Edwards said. “Hopefully towards the end I can reward myself with some gelato.”

And what a welcome change! After three straight Winter Games in locales that were cursed by authoritarian regimes, human rights violations, COVID, problematic time zones or lack of real snow, the return to Italy 20 years after Turin offers something a little extra.

Normalcy.

“I’ve been to an Olympics before,” short track speed skater Corinne Stoddard said. “But I feel like Milan will be a completely different experience and kind of feel like a first Olympics in a way.

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Does it matter? On one hand, the Olympics are compelling no matter where you put them. For the athletes, who are mostly globetrotting anyway for big competitions, a gold medal won in Milan is no different than a gold medal won in Beijing. And for most of the world it’s all just a TV show anyway. Who cares where you put the hockey rink?

But if you rewind to the summer of 2024, Paris was different. From the racy, bizarre and very French take on the Opening Ceremony to iconic Paris landmarks being used as the backdrop for competition venues, something clicked in the zeitgeist. After several cycles of audience decline for its Olympic broadcasts, NBC rebounded with a whopping 30.6 million viewers per day across its platforms — an 80 percent increase over Tokyo three years earlier.

It felt like the Olympics as a big, galvanizing cultural force were truly back.

“The Olympics reestablished its unique power to reassemble the American media audience,” NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel said at the time.

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Can Italy deliver the same irresistible experience?

Don’t discount the possibility, albeit with one big caveat: The Winter Games are not the Summer Games. There are fewer sports, fewer athletes, fewer countries involved and most importantly fewer mainstream superstars.

One of them on the American side, Lindsey Vonn, will compete but will likely be compromised after tearing her ACL last week during a fall at skiing’s World Cup. Perhaps by the end of the competition, Wisconsin-born speedskater Jordan Stolz will win three or four gold medals, drawing in viewers as he potentially becomes a household name like Eric Heiden in 1980. He’s not there yet.

Also, Milan and the mountainous areas of northern Italy do not have the instantly recognizable, seductive appeal of Paris as an Olympic tableau.

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But relative to the last three Winter Games held in Sochi, PyeongChang and Beijing, these Olympics are going to visually present like a storybook Alpine adventure in a way that you simply could not pull off at a Russian Black Sea resort or on the Korean peninsula or in a smog-filled megalopolis where it almost never snows.

Another difference: NHL players are back in the men’s hockey tournament for the first time since 2014. With all due respect to the minor-leaguers who stepped in and put on a good show in PyeongChang and Beijing, the Winter Olympics were significantly diminished by not having the elite of the elite competing in one of its marquee events.

“I have a bunch of buddies that played on those teams, and I’m super proud of them representing us and their countries,” said former NHL star and Olympian T.J. Oshie, who will work as an analyst for NBC. “But to grow the game, you want the Connor McDavids, the Jack Eichels. Getting the best players in the world there is great for everyone.”

Milan is also going to be different because of what we don’t have to talk about. We are not in a host country rife with human rights abuses like China. We are not in a host country getting ready to invade a neighbor, as Vladimir Putin did at the end of an Olympics that put a spotlight on Russia’s repression of gay people and protesters of his authoritarian government. And, perhaps of utmost relevance from an audience perspective, we are not in the middle of an Olympics defined by COVID infections and empty stands.

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While time zones were undoubtedly a hurdle for NBC across three straight Olympics in Asia, it would be foolish to discount the COVID factor in the historically poor ratings for Tokyo and Beijing, the latter of which averaged a paltry 11.4 million viewers.

By the summer of 2021 when the Tokyo Games finally launched, COVID’s impact on daily life in America started to wane with the NBA playoffs that June welcoming fans back into arenas. That feeling of normalcy was becoming even more pervasive in early 2022.

To watch either of those Olympics with empty stands and people wearing masks and constant conversation about some of the strictest COVID protocols in the world felt like turning back the clock to a time none of us wanted to relive. It shouldn’t be a surprise fans did not respond. Even in person, everything felt off.

“The rink was super quiet and kind of lonely,” Stoddard said. “I’ve heard from a lot of Olympians that had been to past Olympics before Beijing that it was an insane experience you’ll never have again.”

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Thankfully.

Of course, these Games are not taking place at a perfect moment for the world either. Though Russian athletes are here competing under a neutral banner, Russia will not be recognized as the war in Ukraine rages on. Tensions in the Middle East are simmering. And if the recent Australian Open is any indication, American athletes should expect to be asked about ICE raids and Venezuela and other actions by the Trump Administration generating international headlines.

There will never be an Olympics without political tension.

But all in all, it has been since Vancouver 16 years ago that a Winter Games was hosted by a Western country, in a true winter wonderland, without being served on a platter of cynicism.

Instead, this one comes on a big plate of pasta.

Eat up.