Have any of you been watching the Beijing Winter Olympics? The events have been very exciting. I think my favorite winter sport this year is curling. That's because the Japanese women's team members are really cute. Here is a photo of them from 4 years ago, when they won a bronze medal:
I like Chinami Yoshida the best. She is in the top left part of the picture. Her smile is always beautiful!!! This year, Japan has a chance to get another medal in women's curling. My country of Canada is also doing well so far. Right now, on Friday afternoon (February 18th), Canada is tied for 3rd with Germany in the total number of medals. They have 22. Russian athletes are next, with 26. And Norway is #1 with 29 medals. But Japan has 17 medals, which is tied for 6th place with Austria. So the Japanese athletes are very good this year! In the last Winter Olympics, Japan finished 11th with a total of thirteen medals. They have already done much better this time. Here are the 3 Japanese athletes who have won gold medals in Beijing so far:
This is Ayumu Hirano. He got first place in halfpipe snowboarding. His hair is so cool! Something very unique about him is that he also was in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (he did skateboarding there).
The women in this photo is Miho Takagi. She won a gold medal in speedskating earlier this week. Like a lot of Japanese athletes at the Winter Olympics, she was born in Hokkaido where winters are long and cold! It helps to be from a cold place if you want to be a speedskater, I think.
And finally, this here is Ryoyu Kobayashi. He was the winner of one of the ski jump competitions in Beijing. Before his victory, the last time a Japanese person won an individual ski jump event at the Olympics was in Nagano in 1998. Ryoyu is kind of our neighbor, because he's from Iwate Prefecture (just north of Miyagi)! I'm happy that we can cheer for Japan now. But the Winter Olympics will end on February 20th, so there are only a couple of days left. I hope you can enjoy watching some events from today until Sunday!!
- Peter 
