Who is the Messi/Ronaldo/Mbappe of the Winter Olympics?

Daniel Brown

Don’t pretend you don’t want to know who the Winter Olympics’ biggest shithouse is

Beginning in Beijing on February 4, this year’s Winter Olympics will feature a number of the Games’ most successful competitors, as well as a host of up-and-coming stars who are preparing to light-up the Chinese capital.

Four of the top 11 most successful athletes in Winter Olympic history are still in action and are set to compete at the Games – including Ireen Wüst, Sven Kramer and Claudia Pechstein.

Football fans are well aware of the best players in the world, supporters know which young stars are destined for greatness and they most definitely understand who the ‘shithouses’ of the game are. But who is the greatest Winter Olympian in history? Who is the young phenom? Who, maybe inadvertently, is the shithouse on the snow?

As the Beijing Winter Olympics draw nearer, we’ve tried to make it slightly easier for viewers to understand by comparing athletes competing at the games to their footballing equivalents.

The GOAT

Lionel Messi = Ireen Wüst

Before Cristiano Ronaldo fans moan that the Portuguese star isn’t listed as the ‘GOAT’, it really could have gone either way – but don’t worry, he still features – and for good reason.

The 34-year-old has scored over 750 senior career goals for club and country, and enjoyed early success in his decorated career, winning his first Ballon d’Or at the age of 22, as well as winning an Olympic gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

He is, for many people, the best player to ever grace the game.

So, with that in mind, what makes Wüst the ‘Lionel Messi of the Winter Olympics’?

Put simply, she is the most successful active athlete in the history of the Winter Olympics. Currently sitting fourth in the all-time medal table with five gold medals, five silver medals and one bronze medal, the Dutch speed skater has been there, competed and won everything there is to win in speed skating.

Similar to Messi, Wüst enjoyed success early, becoming the youngest Dutch Olympic gold medalist in the history of the Winter Games with her triumph in the 3000 metre event in 2006 at the age of 19.

Eight years later – at the 2014 games in Sochi – she won two gold and three silver medals, before writing her name into the history books at the 2018 Winter Olympics with victory in the 1500 metres event.

She recorded an eleventh medal – more than any other speed skater and more than any other Dutch athlete at the Olympics. Oh, and she is a seven-time World Allround champion and five-time European Allround champion.

De tijd van Ireen Wüst is uit de boeken. Marrit Leenstra rijdt een Nederlands record op de 1.500 meter en pakt zilver. https://t.co/wX0AVpAPKO pic.twitter.com/KYYtZjs0T3

— NOS Sport (@NOSsport) December 3, 2017

The winner

Ronaldo = Claudia Pechstein

See, we told you Ronaldo would come up, and classifying him as the ‘winner’ seems fitting to the career he has enjoyed so far. The Portuguese captain has become synonymous with that intangible ‘winning mentality’. Having won five Ballon d’Or awards and four European Golden Shoes – the most by a European player – it’s easy to see why he is many people’s GOAT.

Much like his career rival Messi, Ronaldo enjoyed success at an early age as he won first Ballon d’Or aged 23. Ronaldo has also dominated off the pitch, too. Named as the world’s most famous athlete by ESPN from 2016 to 2019, he is widely regarded as the first footballer to earn $1billion in his career.

Every Ronaldo needs their Messi, and Wüst’s is Claudia Pechstein. The German speed skater has won five Olympic gold medals, accumulating a total of nine Olympic medals – five gold, two silver and two bronze.

Much like Messi and Ronaldo going back-and-forth, bettering each others’ records, Pechstein and Wüst have been involved in a similar rivalry. Pechstein, 49, was once the most successful Olympic speed skater of all-time – until Wüst won gold at the 2018 games.

She is the most successful German Winter Olympian of all time and is the first female Winter Olympian to win medals in five consecutive Olympics (1992–2006).

Pechstein – a sergeant in the German Federal Police – will be desperate for more success in the upcoming games in Beijing. In what could potentially be her last Olympics, the 49-year-old will be hoping that she can secure a gold medal and overtake Wüst in the individual medal table.

The young phenom

Kylian Mbappe = Marcus Kleveland

If they could afford him, every club in the world sign Mbappé in an instant. Already considered one of best players in the world, the 23-year-old has raised eyebrows ever since his debut at the age of 16 in 2015.

Mbappé won the World Cup final with France in 2018, becoming the youngest French player to score at a World Cup and just the second teenager – after Pelé – to score in a World Cup final. He’s the real deal.

If Mbappe is football’s young phenom, then Norwegian snowboarder Marcus Kleveland is certainly the Winter Olympics’ version of the dynamic attacker.

The 22-year-old was the first person to complete a quad cork 1800 (essentially, an incredibly difficult move that involves multiple flips) in competition at the age of just 17. This led to him being awarded Rookie of the Year by Snowboard Magazine.

Kleveland also won the world cup of Milan in 2016, before securing gold in Slopestyle and silver in Big Air, where he was making his debut at the Winter X Games in 2017.

He is often discussed as one of the most creative, exciting and stylish snowboarders currently competing. The Norwegian has been in great form already this year – winning two golds so far at the Winter X Games in Aspen – and will be focused on achieving gold in Beijing.

.@MarcusKleveland 🇳🇴 wins gold in Men’s Snowboard Big Air at #XGames Aspen 2022! pic.twitter.com/ibtV15G9D2

— X Games (@XGames) January 23, 2022

The Shithouse

Giorgio Chiellini = Sven Kramer

It is really important to note that, while ‘shithouse’ or, more specifically, ‘shithousery’, is defined as ‘underhanded conduct or gamesmanship in a sport, with the intention of gaining an advantage’, I mean no disrespect to Giorgio Chiellini or Sven Kramer. You could even say it’s a compliment.

Chiellini, part of that infamous Italian side that broke the hearts of England fans in the summer, is a notorious shithouse. He’s been that way for years. Who else can picture that photo of him tugging Bukayo Saka by his collar? Or when he playfully threw Jordi Alba around before a penalty shoot out?

Lest we forget his ‘This is the history of the Tottenham’ comment after Juventus knocked them out of the Champions League.

Some people don’t like it, some people even deplore it. But it is hard to argue that his tactics haven’t been successful in his career.

Anyway, why is Sven Kramer a shithouse? A fair question, considering the long track speed skater has won an all time record nine World Allround Championships, as well as a record ten European Allround Championships.

He is also the Olympic champion of the 5000 metres at the Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics. Oh, and he has won a record 21 gold medals at the World Single Distance Championships.

However, he has been at the centre of one or two moments of controversy throughout his career. In 2010, Kramer finished first in the 10,000m speed skating event at the 2010 Winter Olympics, only to be disqualified for skating in the wrong lane for the last eight laps of the 25-lap race.

Prior to that, he won the 5,000m speed skating – but was involved in an awkward interview with an American television reporter in Vancouver. Kramer was asked to say his name, country and what he’d just won, to which he replied “Are you stupid? Hell no, I’m not gonna do that.”

The Dutchman deserves his place in this list purely for his refusal to say his own name, which, when you think about it, is a shithouse move.