I don’t know about you, but my favorite Winter Olympic sport is snowboarding. Besides the fact that they seem to be free of controversy, it’s one sport where the competitors seriously look like they’re having FUN! 

Here are 5 things I learned from their performances and culture:

1. Experience still matters. Man, it was fun to watch Lindsay Jacobellis and Nick Baumgartner. They’ve both struggled in the past, as one would with that kind of longevity—but they pushed hard to the very end to win the mixed team snowboard cross, adding to Jacobellis’ gold for the individual snowboard cross the night before. One of the announcers joked that they had 76 years of experience between them. Yep.

2. Life isn’t fair, and we may not always be adequately recognized, but that’s not a reason to give up. Ayumu Hirano showed us—even with a WTF gasp-inducing score after his first completion of a triple cork, which had never been landed in Olympic competition—we don’t go off and sulk. We get back up and do it again, if for no other reason than to give the judges another chance to get it right. Thankfully, they did.

3. We can step away from our career and not lose our edge. We all know Chloe Kim is a superstar, but I didn’t realize she’d taken time off to “discover who Chloe is outside of snowboarding and then come back and be in a better mental state.” Did this sabbatical give her the refresh she needed to win her second gold? Who knows. It certainly didn’t hurt. In any case, she reminded me that doing so doesn’t mean we have to forfeit our chances for continued success. 

4. Even if we compete in an individual sport, we can be part of a team. Nothing says community like a bunch of snowboarders. Watching the other snowboarders pile on top of Anna Gasser after she became the first female snowboarder to land the triple cork, or Baumgartner’s rival wrap his arms around him as Jacobellis rushed to the finish line was so darned refreshing, and another reminder that there’s always room to celebrate others—even if they’re our direct competition.

5. We can fall. We can fall in a messy way. It’s OK. It’s what we do afterward (and before!) that matters. That’s what legacies are made of. Thanks for a great run, Shaun White!