Today in a nutshell: Gold for Gisin as Shiffrin crashes out again, and Canada triumph over the US to take ice hockey title
Next up: Team GB’s fading hopes of any Beijing medals are in the hands of the curling teams. The men face the US in their semi-final tonight
Ester Ledecka briefly threatened to pull off another unlikely double-double, but in the end it was a one-two for Switzerland in the women’s combined Alpine skiing. Michelle Gisin retained her Olympic title ahead of compatriot Wendy Holdener. Afterwards, Gisin revealed the motto that has spurred Swiss skiers on at these Games – “Drink wine, ski fast”. Gisin enjoyed a glass of wine with teammates before her bronze in super-G, and “we drank wine again yesterday of course … it seems to work for me very well.”
Having got herself into a decent position after the first run, heavy pre-Olympics favourite Mikaela Shiffrin again missed a gate and skied out. The six-times world champion has not so much been skiing against everyone else at these Games, as skiing against herself. She tried to put on a brave face in a BBC interview, saying “if I can be the biggest joke of the Games, at least someone’s smiling!”
Canada are the women’s ice hockey gold medallists after a 3-2 victory over the US. The Canadians built a 3-0 lead and hung on for the win to capture their fifth Olympic title in seven tournaments, with four coming at the expense of the Americans. The Canadians outclassed the field in Beijing, going seven games unbeaten, for an aggregate score of 57-10, and beating the US twice. Finland overpowered Switzerland 4-0 late on Wednesday to claim their fourth women’s ice hockey bronze medal.
Team GB’s women curlers advanced to the semi-finals by a narrow squeak. Three teams tied at five wins and four losses each, so it went down to the draw-shot challenge to determine who went through - an average of the accuracy of each team’s last-stone draw in every match. By that measure, Great Britain prevailed. The semi-finals are tomorrow. Switzerland face Japan and GB face Sweden, while Canada missed out.
Miho Takagi of Japan had picked up three silver medals so far in this Games, but in the 1,000m speed skating today she finally has her gold, and a new Olympic record. Brittany Bowe of the US played a major role in Erin Jackson becoming the first Black woman to win an individual Winter Olympic gold earlier in these Games, and Bowe now has her own bronze. Jutta Leerdam of the Netherlands took silver.
Things you might have missed
If I ever get to time-travel back to before these Games I will be sure to bet a fortune on both the USA and Canada getting knocked out of the men’s ice hockey at the quarter-final stage on the same day. Friday’s semi-final lineup will be Finland v Slovakia and the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) v Sweden. It is the first Olympic semi-finals without the US and Canada since 2006.
South Korea’s Choi Min-jeong retained her short track speed skating 1,500m title on Wednesday as Arianna Fontana of Italy bagged a record-breaking 11th career Olympic medal with a silver. Fontana’s ongoing dispute with her national skating federation doesn’t seem to have eased, and she is still unlikely to compete in her home Games in Milano Cortina in 2026. “The season after Pyeongchang, I had male athletes targeting me on the ice, so it was not safe for me to stay with the team,” Fontana has said previously. She currently lives and trains in Hungary.
The International Testing Agency says Ukraine’s cross-country skier Valnetyna Kaminska has tested positive for doping with a steroid and a banned stimulant. It is the second doping sample taken at Beijing to test positive. The first involved Alpine skier Hossein Saveh Shemshaki of Iran.
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The briefing’s picture of the day
After what felt like one of the longest video reviews in the history of sport, Fanny Smith of Switzerland was yellow-carded and relegated from the bronze medal position in the ski cross. She then proceeded to drop the F-bomb on camera while talking to the race officials, and I couldn’t honestly find it in my heart to blame her.
In murky conditions at Zhangjiakou the final result was Sweden’s Sandra Naeslund with gold, Canada’s Marielle Thompson in second, and Daniela Maier of Germany promoted up to bronze at Smith’s expense.
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 – Thursday 17 February
8.05pm Curling – the only live sport left to start today is the men’s semi-finals – Sweden face Canada while Great Britain will play the US 🥌
9pm Figure skating – the women’s free skate is already under way but this is when the final group of six, including ROC’s Kamila Valieva, will compete 🥇
Tomorrow – Friday 18 February
9.30am-10.25am and 11.45am-3.10pm Freestyle skiing – the women fight for the freeski halfpipe title in the morning, then the men do their ski cross 🥇
12.10pm and 9.10pm Ice hockey – the men’s semi-finals will feature
the USACanadaFinland v Slovakia first, ROC v Sweden in the evening. 🏒2.05pm and 8.05pm Curling – in the afternoon, the losers of tonight’s semi-finals will play for the men’s bronze medal. In the evening it is the women’s semi-finals 🥉
4.30pm Speed skating – the men’s 1,000m 🥇
5pm Biathlon – it is the men’s 15km mass start race 🥇
6.30pm Figure skating – it is the short program in the pairs ⛸
8pm and 9.30pm Bobsleigh – the first and second heats of the two-women bobsleigh variety
Full Winter Olympics schedule | Results, sport by sport | Medal table
How things stand
Here’s what the emoji table looked like at 6pm Beijing time …
1 🇳🇴 Norway 🥇 13 🥈 7 🥉 8 total: 28
2 🇩🇪 Germany 🥇 10 🥈 6 🥉 5 total: 21
3 🇺🇸 United States 🥇 8 🥈 8 🥉 5 total: 21
4 🇸🇪 Sweden 🥇 7 🥈 4 🥉 4 total: 15
5 🇨🇳 China 🥇 7 🥈 4 🥉 2 total: 13
6 🇦🇹 Austria 🥇 6 🥈 7 🥉 4 total: 17
7 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 6 🥈 5 🥉 3 total: 14
8 🇨🇭 Switzerland 🥇 6 🥈 1 🥉 5 total: 12
9 ◻️ Not Russia 🥇 4* 🥈 8 🥉 12 total: 24
10 🇫🇷 France 🥇 4 🥈 7 🥉 2 total: 13
Selected others
11 🇨🇦 Canada 🥇 4 🥈 5 🥉 11 total: 20
17 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 1 🥈 2 🥉 1 total: 4
18 🇳🇿 New Zealand 🥇 1 🥈 1 🥉 0 total: 2
- 🇬🇧 Great Britain 🥇 🥌? 🥈 🥌? 🥉 🥌? total: ?
[*this total includes the team figure skating gold. which the IOC has said will “not be sorted out during this Games”]
I’ve got to put together my favourite moments of the Games for our roundup next week – let me know yours by emailing me at martin.belam@theguardian.com and I might try and squeeze some of those into Sunday’s final newsletter for these Games.
The last word
It is insane. I can’t stop shaking. It’s a dream come true. I don’t think I can find the words – Canada forward Sarah Fillier, the gold medal winning ice hockey team’s youngest player at 21.
