OlympicTalk · Feb 25, 2018
Vic Wild finds much different welcome at PyeongChang
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — It was a feel-good love story about snowboarders that made Russia smile.
Four years later, Vic Wild and Alena Zavarzina are still married and still riding.
But boy did this get complicated.
Wild, the American-born rider who now competes for Russia, finished out of the medals, same as his wife, at the parallel giant slalom Saturday, closing a sad chapter to a journey that began as a fairy tale but turned into a drama about cheating, doping and figuring out who was to blame.
It was a small part of a much larger story about the strained, scandal-tainted relationship between Russia, the Olympics and the rest of the world.