Elizabeth Swaney

Elizabeth Swaney
Personal information
Full name Elizabeth Marian Swaney
Nationality American, Hungarian
Born (1984-07-30) 30 July 1984[1]
California
Sport
Country  Hungary
Sport Freestyle skiing
Event(s) Halfpipe

Elizabeth Marian Swaney (born 30 July 1984) is a Hungarian-American freestyle skier. She competed for Hungary in the 2018 Winter Olympics in the women's halfpipe. Swaney graduated from University of California, Berkeley in 2007, where she briefly mounted a campaign for Governor of California at the age of 19. At Berkeley she served as coxswain for the university rowing team. She attempted to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics for Venezuela in both skeleton and freestyle skiing, and qualified for the 2018 Winter Olympics in the women's halfpipe, in which she placed last.

Athletic career

While at University of California, Berkeley Swaney was the coxwain for the rowing team.[2] She first thought she would try competing in bobsleigh as a pilot, but was told she was too small to be competitive in the sport. She then turned to skeleton and freestyle skiing,[3] in which she sought to represent Venezuela, her mother's homeland, at the 2014 Winter Olympics.[4][5] She started skiing for Hungary in 2015, based on her grandparents' country of birth.[6]

Olympic qualifying

Swaney qualified for the 2018 Winter Olympics representing Hungary in half-pipe skiing.[7] Beginning in 2013[8] she attended all the World Cup qualifying events over the two Olympic qualifying years, and the 2017 World Championship in Sierra Nevada, Spain. In order to qualify for the Olympics, athletes needed to place in the top 30 at either a FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup event or FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships, and score a minimum of 50.00 FIS points.[9] Swaney achieved this by attending competitions with fewer than thirty participants,[6] with one event in China having fifteen (in which she placed thirteenth). Thirteen of her top 30 finishes were a result of her showing up, not falling, and recording a score.[10] As a result of Swaney's selection of competitions, she was ranked 34th in her run up to the Olympics.[6] The Olympic quota system also aided in her qualifying. While 24 women were able to compete in half-pipe competition, there are limits on the number of skiers each country could send. The maximum a country could send was twenty six (with a maximum of fourteen men and fourteen women) across all freestyle skiing events.[11] So while the United States had six women ranked within the top 20 in the world in halfpipe skiing, only four were allowed to compete in the Olympics based on the quota system. Between the quota system and injuries, Swaney's ranking of 34 granted her qualification for the Olympics.[6]

2018 Olympics

At the 2018 Winter Olympics, Swaney competed in the women's half-pipe, in what was described as a "perfectly mediocre run", without falling. She scored 30.00 and 31.40, "barely attempting a trick" in either of her two runs. She placed last in the competition, 13.60 points behind Laila Friis-Salling of Greenland (representing Denmark), who had fallen in both of her qualifying runs.[10] While critics called her Olympic performance a "mockery", she received support from Canadian gold medallist skier Cassie Sharpe who said that Swaney deserved to be at the competition.[8][6][12] The incident prompted the Hungarian Olympic Committee (MOB) to reevaluate its selection process,[8] and possible changes to the quota system.[12]

Personal life

While studying at University of California, Berkeley (from which she graduated in 2007) she briefly launched a campaign for Governor of California.[2] After graduation she studied for and received a master's degree at Harvard University.[12] While at Harvard she volunteered as the assistant coach for their Track and Field team. She works as a software engineer recruiter for Thumbtack in Silicon Valley.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Elizabeth Marian Swaney". Olympic.org. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  2. 1 2 Reiss, Jaclyn (22 February 2018). "Here's what Elizabeth Swaney was like during her Harvard days, according to her mentor - The Boston Globe". Boston Globe.
  3. ↑ Bromwich, Jonah Engel (20 February 2018). "Elizabeth Swaney, Viral Olympic Skier, Says She Put Her Whole Heart Into Her Halfpipe". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  4. ↑ "Anastassia Smorodinskaya: American dual-sport athlete Liz Swaney chases Olympic dreams...for Venezuela". SI.com. Sports Illustrated. 5 December 2013. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  5. ↑ "How did average American skier Elizabeth Swaney make Hungary's Olympic team?". USA TODAY.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Blackburn, Pete (February 20, 2018). "Meet Elizabeth Swaney, the American skier who scammed her way to the Olympics". CBS Sports.
  7. ↑ Redford, Patrick (19 February 2018). "The Winter Olympics Feature 2,951 Of The World's Greatest Athletes, And Also This Woman". Deadspin.com. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  8. 1 2 3 "How An Average American Skier Managed To Scheme Her Way Into The Olympics". NPR.org. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  9. ↑ "QUALIFICATION SYSTEM FOR THE XXIII OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES PYEONGCHANG 2018" (PDF). FIS. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  10. 1 2 "Is Elizabeth Swaney the worst Olympian ever, or just one of the craftiest?". CBC. CBC Sports. 22 February 2018. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  11. ↑ "Never bet against Canada in moguls: Everything you need to know about Olympic ski and snowboard (judged events)". National Post. 7 February 2018. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  12. 1 2 3 4 "Underdog Liz Swaney from Oakland is talk of Olympics after her modest skiing in halfpipe". Mercury News. 20 February 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.