What is it about watching the Olympics that seems to improve with age? The events themselves seem more audacious and death-defying. Take slope style skiing — the rails and jumps, the sheer moxie needed to fling oneself down a mountain.

Or take figure skating, my favorite winter event. I watched hours of it over the weekend. I learned that the American men’s phenom, Ilia Melinin, grew up 20 minutes from my house, attended a local high school. Has everyone else in the world already heard of this man, who’s called the Quad God for all the quadruple axels, toe loops and salchows he can do? Probably!

No matter. He — and all his compatriots from the U.S., Japan, Italy, Georgia and Canada in the team finals — are all the better for being new to me.

The more inflexible my body becomes, the more I must exercise to keep it in working order, the more I admire youthful bones, muscles and tendons. These are treasures you do not recognize have until you do not have them. And Olympic athletes have them in spades.