PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) — It was a feel-good love story about snowboarders that made Russia smile.
Four years later, Vic Wild and Alena Zavarzina are still married and still riding.
But boy did this get complicated.
Wild, the American-born rider who now competes for Russia, finished out of the medals, same as his wife, at the parallel giant slalom Saturday, closing a sad chapter to a journey that began as a fairy tale but turned into a drama about cheating, doping and figuring out who was to blame.
It was a small part of a much larger story about the strained, scandal-tainted relationship between Russia, the Olympics and the rest of the world.
“For 18 months, the IOC never told me anything,” Wild said after losing in the round-of-16 in a contest taken by Switzerland’s Nevin Galmarini. “No one would tell me if, somehow, some way, I was involved. That definitely put some gray hairs on my head.”