Elizabeth Swaney
Last updated
Last updated
Elizabeth Marian Swaney is a US citizen and wanted to compete at the Olympics. With no chance in the world of making it into the US team, she found a loophole. She decided to compete for Hungary, the home of her grandparents. [1]
Through relentlessly showing up at international competitions she accumulated enough points to then make it to the Olympics, via a quota system designed to allow athletes from many different countries to make it to the Games. [1]
Needing to consistently finish in the top 30 at World Cup events to make it to South Korea, Swaney has persisted with easy runs, sometimes not even attempting tricks, to make sure she does not fall and always records a score. Her best finish came at Secret Garden in China when she finished 13th out of 15 athletes while a majority of her Olympic rivals were competing in the US Grand Prix at Copper Mountain or on the Dew Tour. [2]
“The field is not that deep in the women’s pipe and she went to every World Cup, where there were only 24, 25, or 28 women,” FIS halfpipe judge Steele Spence told the Denver Post. “She would compete in them consistently over the last couple years and sometimes girls would crash so she would not end up dead last. [2]
1. , (20 February 2018) BBC
2. , (19 Feb 2018) The Guardian