Svrluga: These Games will be defined not by

what was achieved but by what wasn’t. D13

Worth the wait, in gold: For Chinese pair, the
best kind of drama ends with record score. D11

MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Virginia burnishes its NCAA credentials with a win at

Miami; Georgetown’s woes continue at Villanova. D3

AUTO RACING

NASCAR’s years-in-the-making ‘Next Gen’ car debuts

today when the green flag drops at Daytona. D2

PRO FOOTBALL

The Steelers hire former Dolphins coach Brian Flores,

in legal action vs. NFL, as a defensive assistant. D2

KLMNO

SPORTS

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS M2 D

DEAN MOUHTAROPOULOS/GETTY IMAGES

Like a blur, the curtain drops on the Games today

American Erin Jackson captured gold in the women’s 500-meter speedskating event Feb. 13, just one of the

indelible images from the Beijing Olympics. Check out a page of some of the most memorable pictures. D14

BY LES CARPENTER

yanqing, china — It was almost 11 p.m.

Saturday, and a bitter winter gale howled

through the National Sliding Centre. As the

wind chill dropped below zero, American

two-woman bobsled driver Elana Meyers

Ta ylor stood on a wooden podium, never

seeming to feel the cold, and thought the

bronze medal around her neck might have

been the greatest thing she has ever won.

“So much emotion,” she later said. “I

wanted to cry, I wanted to smile, I wanted to

laugh. I wanted to do everything. Yes, I’ve

been on Olympic podiums before but none

that’s been harder to get on than here.”

Next to Meyers Ta ylor, her brakewoman,

Sylvia Hoffman, danced. Beside them, Ger-

many’s Laura Nolte and her brakewoman,

Deborah Levi, celebrated their gold, laugh-

ing with their teammates Mariama Jamanka

and Alexandra Burghardt, who took silver.

But Meyers Ta ylor was too worn out to dance

or laugh much. She watched the American

flag rise in the distance and shook her head

SEE BOBSLED ON D12

M eyers Taylor,

a woman ‘on fire,’

adds bobsled bronze

BEIJING OLYMPICS

BY MICHAEL LEE

Ja Morant’s flowing dreadlocks were almost

level with the hoop, his hands soaring above

the box on the backboard, when he catapulted

toward a layup attempt and smothered it

against the glass. The play was must-see, re-

peatedly, from every angle imaginable because

the feat seemed so implausible.

But a mid all the p raise a nd a ttention Morant

received for a moment t hat cemented his status

as a League Pass darling, there was his father,

Te e, ready to douse the e xcitement with a bottle

of Haterade.

“He called that a goaltend,” Ja Morant said

with a smile in a recent interview.

Morant might scrape the rafters whenever

he’s windmill-dunking an alley-oop lob, but he

has no p roblem staying grounded. Throughout

his 22 years, anytime he has started feeling

himself, Morant’s father has been there to tell

him what he got wrong, what he could do

better, what he wasn’t and what he was never

going to be if he didn’t correct himself.

“It’s nothing too much positive with him,”

Morant said, shaking his head.

Those c riticisms have g iven M orant his edge,

his purpose. Each area he has improved has

meant a little less chirping from Te e Morant,

his chief agitator and motivator. And in Ja’s

breakout third season — during which he has

converted critics who used to lose the sub-

stance of his game in the saucy highlights,

made some Stephen Curry fans in Memphis

swap Curry’s jersey for his and completed his

journey from overlooked prodigy to first-time

all-star starter — he has pulled off something

more inconceivable than that remarkable two-

handed chase-down block: He has made it so

the man he refers to as “my first hater” is

running out of nits to pick.

SEE MORANT ON D5

Love, hate and basketball

Morant has long been driven by his father’s criticism. But his first detractor is running out of material.

JUSTIN FORD/GETTY IMAGES

KEVORK S. DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES

Ja Morant, top, is a first-time all-star i n his third

season. Tee, above, has helped his son stay humble.

beijing — Two hotel
staffers, clad in white and
blue hazmat suits, wanted to
do something nice. It was
Valentine’s Day, and so that
afternoon they knocked on
the door. Upon seeing them,
I was startled. I thought they
were coming for me because
of a positive coronavirus test.
They laughed and handed me a small box
of chocolates and a note.
“Oh, Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too!” I
said.
I felt like an apprehensive fool. And then
I set an Olympic record for devouring
chocolate.
That was the Beijing Olympics from
inside this “closed loop” bubble: candy
accepted with fear, kindness cutting
through the tension.
The Games were here but not here, a
three-week visit to a cardboard replica of
China. The coronavirus dictated a level of
inauthenticity that only the authoritarian
SEE BREWER ON D13

Inside ‘closed loop,’

moments of kindness

brought us warmth

Jerry
Brewer

NBA All-Star Game Today, 8 p.m., TNT, TBS | Dud of dunk contest: Knicks’ Toppin wins g affe-filled event defined more by misses. D4

BY CHELSEA JANES

For the first time in nearly

three decades, labor unrest be-

tween Major League Baseball’s

owners and the players union

has postponed the regular

rhythms of baseball’s treasured

spring. MLB announced Friday

that spring training games will

not start until March 5 at the

earliest and has told the union

that regular season games will be

postponed, too, unless the two

sides agree to a new collective

bargaining a greement by Feb. 2 8.

That means MLB and the

players union have a week of

in-person meetings to hammer

out a deal and avert what Com-

missioner Rob Manfred recently

said would qualify as “a disas-

trous outcome”: the cancellation

of regular season games for labor

reasons for the first time since

the demoralizing strike of 1994.

It is a tight timeline for a process

SEE MLB ON D6

MLB tries

to dodge

‘disastrous

outcome’

Owners, players to meet

in hopes of avoiding

cancellation of games

BY MATT SCHUDEL

Charley Ta ylor, a Hall of Fame

wide receiver who finished his

career in 197 7 as the NFL’s all-

time leading pass catcher and

whose elegance and elusiveness

made him one of Washington’s

most acclaimed football stars,

died Feb. 19 at an assisted-living

facility in Northern Virginia. He

was 80.

The cause was not announced,

though the Commanders con-

firmed his death in a statement.

“He represented the organiza-

tion with excellence and class

over three decades as a player and

coach,” Commanders owners Dan

and Ta nya Snyder said in a state-

ment. “Charley was a great man

and will be sorely missed by all.”

Mr. Ta ylor joined Washington’s

SEE TAYLOR ON D6

CHARLEY TAYLOR, 80

Elusiveness

and grace

carried W R

to Canton