Eddy Alvarez won silver in speedskating at the Sochi Games

Eddy Alvarez will become 3rd American to medal in Summer, Winter Olympics

Eddy Alvarez made Olympic history

A Miami native and former elite short-track speed skater, Alvarez will become just the third American to ever medal in both the Winter and Summer Games after Team USA punched its ticket to the matchup for Gold.

He will join a remarkably unique U.S. club that only includes Eddie Eagan, a 1920 boxing gold medalist and 1932 four-man bobsled champ, and Lauryn Williams, who won 2012 gold in the 4×100 relay and then 2014 silver in the two-man bobsled.

Alvarez was a member of the 5,000-meter relay team that captured silver in the 2014 Sochi games, shortly before trading in his blades for a glove and bat.

Alvarez has been toiling in the minor league systems of the Chicago White Sox and Miami Marlins organizations ever since. Before heading to Japan, he had been playing for the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, Miami’s triple-A affiliate. Alvarez made his Major League Baseball debut in last year’s pandemic-shortened season.

His parents and grandparents are Cuban. The Cuban-American became the first Olympic flag-bearer of his country. “As a first-generation Cuban American, my story represents the American Dream. My family has sacrificed so much for me to have the opportunity to wave this flag with pride,“ he said.

These Olympics are different from his experience in Sochi for one obvious reason: “All the [covid] protocols,” he said. “It’s different, but you still feel the energy. You still feel how powerful this Olympic movement really is and how special this is to the world. It doesn’t feel different in the [athletes’] village. It just feels a little different in the venues.”

For the 30-somethings such as Alvarez spread across the Team USA roster, that means this tournament is likely to be their last Olympic experience. That experience has one game remaining.

“This feels like a redemption trip for me,” Alvarez said of his return to the Olympics. “This is like a second chance and I’m going, with this, to absolutely leave it all on the field.”

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