✍️ The Backward Games

Improvisation defined the Milan-Cortina Olympics -- and its limits were plain to see

In the most bizarre race I witnessed at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, Italian speed skater Pietro Sighel was clipped entering the home stretch of his 500-meter heat. Two skaters crashed to the ice. But Sighel lurched to one side, spun around, steadied himself with his fingers grazing the ice, and somehow crossed the finish line backward. He was just 0.008…