I knew less about Olympic halfpipe skier Hunter Hess on Sunday than I did about Bad Bunny.
You couldn’t help but hear about Bad Bunny after months of debate over whether he would ruin the Super Bowl by singing in Spanish. Hess was an athlete in a sport I never paid any attention to, and didn’t really plan on watching, at the Milan Cortina Winter Games.
But by Monday morning, Hess was my second-favorite Olympic skier after Billy Kidd, just as Bad Bunny was my second-favorite Super Bowl performer after Santana.
Both Hess and Bad Bunny managed to get under the thin skin of America’s snowflake-in-chief for being themselves, and that’s something we can all be thankful for.
Hess, a 27-year-old halfpipe skier from Bend, Ore., was asked at a news conference Friday what it means to him “to wear Team USA gear and the American flag.”
Instead of saying he was proud of America, Hess told the truth.
“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the US right now, I think,” he said. “It’s a little hard. There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t … If it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I’m representing it, (but) just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.
“So yeah, I just kind of want to do it for my friends and my family and the people that support me getting here.”
Naturally, that sent President Donald Trump scurrying to his social media account Sunday, where he took a break from posting a racist video about the Obamas to attack Hess as a “real loser.”
Trump insisted Hess “says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it. Very hard to root for someone like this.”
Actually, it’s very easy to root for someone like Hess, who was only saying out loud what I’m sure a lot of his fellow Olympians think about the current state of the United States. Whether they’re brave enough to say it in public is another matter, and after their president called one of their teammates a “loser,” I’d guess even the ones who agree with Hess are more likely to keep their mouths shut for the duration of the Olympics.
But some courageous athletes have defended him, including the megastar, two-time gold medal-winning snowboarder Chloe Kim, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from South Korea. Kim said she was proud to represent the U.S., but added: “I also think that we are allowed to voice our opinions of what’s going (on) that we need to lead with love and compassion.”
This shouldn’t need repeating, but you can still love your country and criticize parts of it you think are wrong. Freedom of speech still exists in America, but now it comes at a cost if you disagree with the most powerful man in the world. Not only can he make your life miserable with a single social media post, siccing his lemmings on you in an attempt to intimidate, but he also takes perverse pleasure in the personal attacks.
Hess, however, didn’t back down on Monday when he reacted to the “loser” comment.
“I love my country,” he wrote on Instagram, adding an American flag emoji.
“There is so much that is great about America, but there are always things that could be better,” he continued. “One of the many things that makes this country so amazing is that we have the right and the freedom to point that out. The best part of the Olympics is that it brings people together, and when so many of us are divided we need that more than ever. I cannot wait to represent Team USA next week when I compete. Thanks to everyone for their support.”
Hess isn’t the first Olympic athlete to bring politics into the games. The first Olympics I remember watching were the Summer Games in Mexico City in 1968, when U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos made a statement on the medal stand by wearing black socks without shoes and one black glove. Both raised their arms — Smith’s right and Carlos’s left — and made a “Black power” salute in protest of racial discrimination.
Smith, who won the gold medal in the 200 meters, told ABC’s Howard Cosell afterward: “I represented Black America … I’m very proud to be a Black man, and also to have won a gold medal. And this, I thought, I could represent my people by letting them know I’m proud to be a Black man.”
It was one of the first political statements in the modern Olympic Games, and still resonates some 58 years later. Hess’s statement about having “mixed feelings” on the state of America was much more benign, and might have been forgotten by the end of the Olympics if Trump hadn’t decided to call him a “loser” and suggest Americans shouldn’t root for an American athlete who voiced an opinion he didn’t like.
This came on the same day Trump posted that Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl appearance was “the worst EVER!” and that “nobody understands a word this guy is saying.” His cult-like followers concurred, as though songs in Spanish were forbidden at the big game, and many opted for the alternative Turning Point USA halftime show featuring a lip-syncing Kid Rock.
They conveniently forgot that Santana performed “Oye Cómo Va” in Spanish before Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003. America didn’t have a meltdown over it, and even if they didn’t understand the words, most actually enjoyed hearing the classic rock song played by the iconic guitarist, with Beyoncé joining in.
At the establishment where I watched Super Bowl LX, the entire place stopped talking when Bad Bunny came on, even though the place was full of people unfamiliar with his music. Everyone wanted to see what the big deal was and why Bad Bunny made MAGA so angry. When they saw it was just another typical, big Super Bowl halftime production with lots of dancing, they realized the Trump-created controversy was much ado about nothing.
Hess’s freeski halfpipe event is scheduled for Feb. 19, so all his new fans have over a week to learn what exactly a freeski halfpipe is.
But we’ll all be watching and also waiting to see who the alternative freeski halfpipe performer will be on the Turning Point USA channel.
