ATHLETES TO WATCH
Kamila Valieva
FIGURE SKATING, RUSSIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE
Each time Kamila Valieva steps on the ice, she shatters records. The 15-year-old Russian figure-skating champion combines a balletic style with technical mastery of the most challenging jumps—which she performs with her arms high above her head, making the rotations more difficult to control upon landing, thus earning her extra points in a sport in which every degree of difficulty matters. Valieva holds the record for the highest scores recorded in women’s skating under the current judging system, which she could break yet again in Beijing.
There, Valieva’s stiffest competition is likely to come from teammates Alexandra Trusova and Anna Shcherbakova, both 17; the Russian squad could sweep the medals. All three train with Eteri Tutberidze in Moscow, and Valieva has said the atmosphere at the rink drives her to push herself harder as one skater after the other flies off the ice with quad jumps. “You can’t just stay on the sidelines,” she recently told the Olympic Channel. “Rivalry is always good, in all sports.” —Alice Park
David Wise
FREESTYLE SKIING, U.S.
An avid hunter and father of two young kids (ages 9 and 6), David Wise is the only halfpipe skiing gold medalist the Olympics have ever known: he stood atop the podium in the event’s 2014 debut in Sochi and four years later in PyeongChang. “How cool it would be to have a career where I won three Olympic gold medals in a row,” Wise said in October. “I don’t feel any pressure to do that. But man, that would be cool.”
Wise raises animals on his farm in Reno, Nev., and relishes pushing his limits that the most grueling workout he’s ever done was a “seven-day solo moose hunt in grizzly-bear country in Alaska,” a quest that seems to have helped him: Wise and U.S. teammate Alex Ferreira finished first and second in PyeongChang, and should duel for gold yet again in Beijing. “I’m still in a state in my career where I’m trying to find what the limits are for what I can do on a pair of skis,” Wise says. His relentless quest to find out could lead to yet another Olympic gold.
