Today in a nutshell: High winds put paid to the men’s downhill, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott secured an historic New Zealand gold and Kamila Valieva stunned on the ice
Next up: There are medals yet to be won today in the women’s moguls and men’s single luge, and tomorrow we’ll see the first ever Olympic mixed team ski jumping competition
After one hour and 16 minutes of gruelling cross-country skiing, Alexander Bolshunov crossed the finish line carrying a Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) banner, some 71 seconds ahead of compatriot Denis Spitsov. Iivo Niskanen of Finland had been instrumental in setting up the breakaway for the three men. He held off a late double Norwegian challenge to claim bronze in the 15km + 15km men’s skiathlon.
Zoi Sadowski-Synnott made history by winning New Zealand’s first-ever Winter Olympics gold, capturing the women’s slopestyle title with a dramatic final run that ended US dominance of the discipline. “I tried to think about it last night what it would mean if I managed to land my run and come away with gold, and honestly it feels unreal,” she said. Julia Marino of USA and Australia’s Tess Coady won silver and bronze, the first medals of these Games for their respective nations.
Australian curling duo Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt have had a rollercoaster of a day. They were originally told they were going home after a positive Covid test for Gill, only for health officials to say they could continue after all under “close contact” provisions. They then beat Switzerland 9-6 in the mixed doubles.
Italy’s unbeaten run in the curling stretched to seven with victory over China. That guarantees the Italians a semi-final spot. Canada, Great Britain and Sweden have five wins apiece, and Norway sit in fifth place on four wins. One of those four is going to miss out, and this evening’s match between Team GB and Norway could prove pivotal.
Patrick Roest of the Netherlands set a new Olympic record in the men’s 5,000m speed skating, then had to sit and watch another five pairs of skaters go to see if it was enough for gold. It wasn’t. Sweden’s Nils van der Poel shaved another 0.47 seconds off the record to snatch the win in the final race. Heartbreaking for Roest.
Things you might have missed
We all missed the men’s downhill in the Alpine skiing. It was postponed because of high winds. And lots of people missed the opening ceremony in the US – NBC reported only 16 million people watched its live coverage, the lowest viewership in history.
China’s first gold medal came late on Saturday in the chaotic mixed short skating relay. They had only appeared in the final after both the US and ROC were penalised in the semi-final.
Also towards the close of play on Saturday, Urša Bogataj won the normal hill ski jumping for Slovenia, while Walter Wallberg of Sweden surprised Olympic champion and hot favourite Mikaël Kingsbury of Canada to win the men’s moguls in the freestyle skiing.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it will proceed with a meeting with the former world No 1 doubles tennis player Peng Shuai, but details of the meeting will not be shared in advance.
A dramatic shootout victory for China over Japan in the women’s ice hockey means that both these sides and the Czech Republic have now each won two matches and the three nations must be strong favourites to progress to the quarter-finals.
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The briefing’s picture of the day
Fifteen-year-old Kamila Valieva delivered one of the highest-scoring short programmes in history to put ROC into a strong lead in the team figure skating. The Russians sit three points ahead of the US and six clear of Japan in third place going into Monday’s final three events.
What to look out for next
Times are all in local Beijing time. For Sydney it is +3 hours, for London it is -8 hours, for New York it is -13 hours and San Francisco is -16 hours.
Later today – Sunday 6 February
8pm Ski jumping – the men’s final round on the normal hill if the wind complies 🥇
8.40pm Freestyle skiing – the third and final run of the women’s moguls 🥇
9.10pm Ice hockey – the US face Switzerland in group A of the women’s preliminary round with *checks notes* nothing at stake because all the teams in that group qualify for the quarter-finals anyway 🏒
9.15pm Luge – 20 men will go for their fourth and final run 🥇
Tomorrow – Monday 7 February
9.05am and 8.05pm Curling – the day starts with the final pool matches in the mixed doubles, including USA v Team GB. The evening session is the two semi-finals 🥌
9.15am – 11.35am Figure skating – the Russian skaters look all set to take team gold 🥇
9.30am and 1.30pm Freestyle skiing – it is free ski qualification day for women in the morning and men in the afternoon
9.30am and 12pm and 2.30pm Alpine skiing – this has all been rescheduled. We will get two runs of the women’s giant slalom to enjoy with Mikaela Shiffrin of the US expected to take centre-stage – and sandwiched in between is the men’s downhill that should have been on today 🥇
12pm Snowboarding – the men’s slopestyle final 🥇
4.30 Speed skating – the final of the women’s 1,500m 🥇
5pm Biathlon – sure to be a highlight, it is the women’s 15km of cross-country skiing and shooting 🥇
6.30pm Ski jumping – it is the mixed team competition, with the final round due at 8.51pm 🥇
7.30pm Short track speed skating – Monday sees the concluding rounds and finals in the women’s 500m and the men’s 1,000m🥇
Full Winter Olympics schedule | Results, sport by sport | Medal table
How things stand
Here’s what the emoji table looked like at 6.15pm Beijing time …
1 🇳🇴 Norway 🥇 2 🥈 0 🥉 1 total: 3
2 🇸🇪 Sweden 🥇 2 🥈 0 🥉 0 total: 2
3 ◻️ Not Russia 🥇 1 🥈 2 🥉 1 total: 4
4 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 1 🥈 1 🥉 0 total: 2
5 🇸🇮 Slovenia 🥇 1 🥈 0 🥉 1 total: 2
6= 🇨🇳 China 🥇 1 🥈 0 🥉 0 total: 1
6= 🇳🇿 New Zealand 🥇 1 🥈 0 🥉 0 total: 1
Selected others
9 🇨🇦 Canada 🥇 0 🥈 1 🥉 1 total: 2
10= 🇺🇸 United States 🥇 0🥈 1 🥉 0 total: 1
13= 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 0🥈 0 🥉 1 total: 1
It is always my aim not to have to run a regular errata column here, but yesterday I got so excited by the tight finish of the biathlon relay that I got the silver and bronze medals mixed up. France won the silver, the team representing the ROC were third, not the other way round. Apologies to all concerned. Don’t forget you can get in touch at martin.belam@theguardian.com to point out what I’ve inevitably got wrong today.
The last word
We need to get this next win and then we can start figuring things out about the knockouts. We’re doing a lot of things right, the dynamic we’ve created has been great, and we’re very happy with our result” – Bruce Mouat, one half of Team GB’s mixed doubles curling team, who are one win from a semi-final berth.
