Minnesota didn't take over the world at these Olympics, our reminder of how hard this all is

BEIJING — The last two Games gave us some complacency. They spoiled us. Minnesotans now expect Olympic excellence.

It was just a few months ago when an Olympic hero, wrestler Gable Steveson, and a heroine, gymnast Suni Lee, and several others from our Minnesota cities and teams became international stars for their stunning gold-medal winning efforts at Tokyo Summer Games.

And the last time, four years ago, we experienced a Winter Olympics? What a haul. Jessie Diggins brought home a gold medal in cross-country skiing. John Shuster and his merry curlers came out of nowhere to rock the Pyeongchang Games. Team USA took down mighty Canada for women's hockey supremacy.

Something this state could get used to, right?

Well, the 2022 Beijing Games is where the gold rush ended.

The totals for Minnesota-born athletes went from 12 gold medals and one bronze medal won four years ago in Pyeongchang to no gold, seven silver medals and one bronze in Beijing.

So how do we feel about that? I'm not calling it a down cycle for Minnesota — especially not after Diggins poured herself into her grueling last race Sunday in China for a silver medal. What a final Minnesota moment that was for these Games.

Calling these Games a letdown for Minnesotans would insult the athletes who have invested time and money and have sacrificed careers to realize their Olympic dreams. It's not fair for someone like Diggins to be relabeled as something other than a champion. She now has multiple Olympic medals and, oh yeah, has spent the last three-plus years dominating the World Cup circuit.

Anyone who earns a spot on a U.S. Olympic team is already a success. Different athletes go into the Games with different expectations, however, and in any kind of how-did-we-do evaluation, you can't forget that. Looking back at what we've seen here, I'll separate our local Olympians based on performance compared to expectations. Every Minnesota Olympian, either individual or the team they were part of, has been dropped here into a bucket: three stars, two stars and one star. Overachievers, met expectations, and those who fell a little short.

Here's what I saw after three weeks in Beijing:

A big salute here to Jessie Diggins. She now has a silver and a bronze to go with her 2018 gold. She took silver in the 30-kilometer mass-start race and earlier snagged bronze in the freestyle sprint. And what a bronze it was. Diggins, from Afton, became the first American to win an individual medal in the event at the Olympics. Simply put: she's the most accomplished cross-country skier in America. She didn't recreate the magic of 2018 in the team sprint, but she has finished no worse than eighth in her six events. That's right: six events — that is impressive alone. Her engine must be fueled by the Tesseract.

Another Minnesota praise-worthy effort came from Prior Lake's Paula Moltzan, who was the best American finisher in the giant slalom (12th place) and slalom (eighth), then barely lost out on a mixed team parallel medal Saturday night. More is coming from her in the future, no doubt.

Put Giorgia Birkeland, from White Bear Lake, officially on star watch. She finished 12th in the women's speedskating mass start — her first senior international level race. And she's only 19!

And here's a special recognition for Caitlin Nordgren, wife of biathlete Leif Nordgren of Marine on St. Croix. She gave birth to the couple's first child while Leif was competing more than 6,500 miles away. Memorable performances for both of them, but the final Nordgren household results are: Caitlin gold, Leif silver.

The U.S. men's hockey team didn't even exist a few weeks ago. We were all set for NHL players to be part of a best-on-best tournament to determine the kings of hockey. But the players and the NHL pulled out of the Games for pandemic reasons, and the kids were brought in. Team USA included 15 college players, nine with ties to Minnesota. They had to become a cohesive unit on the fly, and looked good during group play until being knocked out by Slovakia. They flashed some potential before being eliminated, and we'll see many of them in the pro ranks soon.

Chisholm's John Shuster and the men's curling team were the defending gold medal winners from 2018 but were not considered a favorite here. That label was stuck on Sweden, and it won it all Saturday. Team Shuster reached the semifinals but lost to Great Britain.

There weren't lofty expectations for the women's curlers, but Team Peterson, featuring Tabitha and Tara Peterson of Eagan, started out 3-0 in round-robin before falling short of the final four. It's still better than most of the Unites States' previous efforts at the Games.

The biathletes — Jake Brown (St. Paul), Paul Schommer (College of St. Scholastica) and Mrs. Nordgren's husband, Leif — weren't expected to challenge in any of their four events. Just getting to Beijing was their successful battle.

This was a two-country tournament all along, and the Team USA's women's hockey team had one team to beat. Powered by nine players with Minnesota ties, the U.S. squad looking for a gold-medal repeat instead fell 3-2 to Canada in the final game that drew the second-highest TV ratings for any hockey game watched in our country since 2019. It might have lost to the greatest Canada team ever, and coach Joel Johnson started to shorten his bench after group play, reflecting a lack of depth. Its top lines were darn good, including the all-Minnesota line of Kelly Pannek (Plymouth), Dani Cameranesi (Plymouth) and Grace Zumwinkle (Excelsior). But the loss wasn't the first time in the tournament that Team USA didn't sustain quality play for 60 minutes. "I don't think we scratched the surface with our ability to play," Hilary Knight said.

Individually, Vicky Persinger and Chris Plys are very talented. When the men's team played well, Plys was in the middle of it all. But the Persinger-Plys mixed doubles curling combo won just three games in round-robin play and crashed out.

Minnesota isn't going to hit the jackpot every Olympics. Form. Fitness. A formidable foe. Freak accidents. They all can stop success. You only had to watch the perils of alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, the favorite to win multiple gold medals who failed to finish in three events, to be reminded of how fleeting this all can be.

Our 30 Minnesotans were more solid than spectacular in these Games. Some reached the podium. No one embarrassed themselves. There are no zero-star performances. They represented us well and gave you all back home reasons to tune in at odd hours and cheer as they took on the world.

Many of our athletes will be favored to qualify for the Winter Games again in four years in Italy. Whether Minnesotans dominate as they did in Pyeongchang in 2018 and Tokyo in 2021 again at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games, or repeat the solid but not always spectacular performances seen in Beijing, we'll know this: They still will be Olympians, making Minnesotans proud.