Today in a nutshell: Actual real snow arrived suddenly in Beijing and disrupted events
Next up: There is still some curling and ice hockey to come today. Tomorrow we will get the rescheduled freeski slopestyle qualification with Eileen Gu, and the medals in the ice dance competition
One of the criticism’s of hosting the Winter Olympics in Beijing has been the negative environmental impact of the Games’ reliance on artificial snow. Well, not today at the men’s 4x10km cross-country relay, where the real-thing hampered the athletes – and the spectators – as the Russian Olympics Committee (ROC) team won a pretty slow race in difficult conditions. To put it into context, a winning time of 1:54:50 was over 20 minutes slower than the equivalent race at Pyeongchang in 2018. Norway were second, France third, on a gruelling course that includes 400m of climbing in the 10km. Rather them than me.
The snow also disrupted events elsewhere, with Eileen Gu’s much anticipated qualifying run in the freeski slopestyle postponed. Organisers said the storm had left too much loose snow on the freestyle course and that in order to ensure the safety of athletes, they decided to postpone the events.
The second training session for the women’s downhill race was cancelled, but the men’s alpine skiing giant slalom went ahead with delays. “Definitely, the light is more than skiable, it just makes it difficult. I like it,” Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen said after his first run. Jamaica’s Benjamin Alexander put it more succinctly at the end of one of his runs, as he was caught on camera saying “Frickin’ hell, that was hard!”
The gold eventually went to Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt who finished with a combined time of 2:09:35, putting him 0.19 seconds ahead of Slovenia’s Zan Kranjec. Saudi Arabia’s Fayik Abdi, his nation’s first ever Winter Olympian, finished 44th, two places ahead of Alexander. Richardson Viano, the first person to ever represent Haiti at a Winter Olympics, did not finish his first run.
Indoors and away from the elements, victories for both the British men and British women in the curling this morning have got their campaigns truly back on track. Sweden top the men’s round robin table at the moment, unbeaten after five matches. Great Britain and Switzerland are joint second with three wins and one defeat each. Team GB’s men face a Denmark team yet to win in the evening match.
Switzerland are unbeaten in the women’s contest. Japan, Great Britain, Sweden and the US are also in the hunt for semi-final places.
Marte Olsbu Roeiseland took the gold in the women’s 10km pursuit biathlon. It is her third gold of the Games so far, and she still has the 12.5km mass start race on Saturday to go.
The play-off and quarter-finals brackets in the men’s ice hockey will be finalised today. At the time of writing, the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) are the only team guaranteed a quarter-final slot. Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, Latvia and China are all destined for the play-offs. Finland will advance automatically as the winner of Group C after a remarkable 4-3 win over Sweden, who blew a 3-0 lead at the end of the second period and lost in overtime!
Things you might have missed
Jaclyn Narracott took Australia’s first ever medal in skeleton, finishing second behind Hannah Neise of Germany. “Indescribable, unbelievable, surreal,” Narracott said in an interview with Channel Seven. “It’s just everything that I’ve dreamt of. And to actually realise it ... it’s going to take a while to sink in. I would love this to be the catalyst to get more girls back into our sport. There’s no reason why we can’t be competitive at every Olympics and every World Cup.”
Australia now have a record medal haul for a Winter Olympics … but Team GB face the real prospect of going home empty-handed.
Slalom gold medalist Petra Vlhova is leaving the Beijing Olympics early due to an inflamed left ankle tendon and will miss the Alpine combined event where she had another medal chance.
Marius Lindvik won a thrilling super-massive-enormous-gigantic hill ski jumping competition for Norway yesterday, stopping Japan’s Ryoyu Kobayashi making it a double gold with an incredible second jump of 140m.
The briefing’s picture of the day
Kaillie Humphries of the US leads the first ever women’s monobob after the the first two heats earlier today. It is a brand new event introduced for women only. Humphries went just over a second faster than her nearest rival, Canada’s Christine de Bruin. She said: “I know what it means to represent the United States. I’m so proud and honoured to be able to be here because nothing in life is guaranteed.”
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 13 February
8.05pm Curling – Team GB play Denmark, the US face China, and Italy v Switzerland are the final men’s games of the day 🥌
8.14pm Short track speed skating – the men’s 500m final 🥇
9.10pm Ice hockey – China’s ringers face Canada and the US face Germany as Group A wraps up in the men’s competition 🏒
9.56pm Speed skating – the women’s 500m 🥇
Tomorrow – Monday 14 February
9.05am and 2.05pm and 8.05pm Curling – would you be surprised to learn that there is curling all day long? 🥌
9.15am Figure skating – have they put the most romantic couples’ dancing on Valentine’s Day on purpose? Your guess is as good as mine. Twenty couples will free dance for the medals 🥇
10am-11.01am and 7pm-8pm Freestyle skiing – weather permitting, the morning is the rescheduled women’s freeski slopestyle qualification, the evening is the women’s aerials final 🥇
9.30am and 11am and 8.05pm and 9.40pm Bobsleigh – the first two sessions are the conclusion of the women’s monobob, the final two are heats one and two of the men’s 2-man contest 🥇
9.30am-11am and 1.30pm-3pm Snowboard – big air qualification day, the women go in the morning, the men in the afternoon
12.10pm and 9.10pm Ice hockey – it is semi-finals day for the women, Canada v Switzerland and Finland v US 🏒
6pm-8.06pm Ski jumping – the men are doing their team competition 🥇
Full Winter Olympics schedule | Results, sport by sport | Medal table
How things stand
Here’s what the emoji table looked like at 8pm Beijing time … with Norway back on top
1 🇳🇴 Norway 🥇 9 🥈 5 🥉 7 total: 21
2 🇩🇪 Germany 🥇 8 🥈 5 🥉 1 total: 14
3 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 6 🥈 4 🥉 2 total: 12
4 🇺🇸 United States 🥇 5 🥈 5 🥉 1 total: 11
5 🇸🇪 Sweden 🥇 5 🥈 3 🥉 3 total: 11
Selected others
7 ◻️ Not Russia 🥇 4* 🥈 4 🥉 7 total: 15
8 🇨🇳 China 🥇 4 🥈 3 🥉 2 total: 9
14 🇨🇦 Canada 🥇 1 🥈 4 🥉 8 total: 13
15 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 1 🥈 2 🥉 1 total: 4
19 🇳🇿 New Zealand 🥇 1 🥈 0 🥉 0 total: 1
- 🇬🇧 Great Britain 🥇 0 🥈 0 🥉 0 total: 😱
[*includes the contested figure skating team event gold medal]
The last word
I think the intention is there but the execution has failed, the system has failed us as athletes ... we really need to take a step back and think about what the objective is. Sadly, it becomes that if you have money and you live in a certain area, you reap the benefits, and of course that it always going to happen, but how can we level a playing field enough so that people can at least try the sport? – Jamaica’s Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian, speaking about how the introduction of the monobob was supposed to widen participation in the sport.
