Today in a nutshell: Norway started as they mean to continue with two golds in quick succession, but the windy conditions have been an issue for several events
Next up: There is still some curling, speedskating, freestyle skiing and ice hockey left today, and tomorrow – conditions permitting – we should get the glorious sight of the men’s downhill Alpine skiing
The first gold medal of the Games went to Norway’s Therese Johaug in the women’s 7.5km + 7.5km Skiathlon. She has won 10 world championship titles and it was the fourth Olympic medal of her career, but her first individual Olympic gold. She absolutely bossed it, finishing 30 seconds ahead of Russian Olympic Committee athlete Natalya Nepryayeva in second and Austria’s Teresa Stadlober in third after a gruelling race.
The wind played havoc with the shooting in an exciting Biathlon mixed relay race, gusting up to 5.6 metres per second at some points. A gripping three-man finish gave Norway their second gold, France recovered from a dreadful first leg to claim the silver, while the Russian team took bronze.
The wind was also buffeting the snowboarders. Great Britain’s Katie Ormerod – who missed out in Pyeongchang in 2018 due to a horrendous injury – failed to qualify for the finals of the women’s slopestyle. New Zealand’s Zoi Sadowski-Synnott leads the pack going into tomorrow’s final. Jamie Anderson and Julia Marino of the US, and Australia’s Tess Coady are all safely through. “It’s cold! It’s hard to keep your core temperature warm and then doing tricks feels a little bit more intimidating as you are just, like, stiff,” said two-time Olympic gold medalist Anderson.
The Dutch have been a dominant force at Olympic speed skating for years, and there was no let-up as Irene Schouten claimed the Netherlands’ first gold in the 3,000m speed skating. She broke Germany’s Claudia Pechstein’s Olympic record that had stood since 2002. Incredibly, aged 49, Pechstein herself also broke a record today – becoming the oldest woman to compete at a Winter Olympics.
In the mixed doubles curling Team GB’s Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat continued to make progress with a convincing win over the Czech Republic. They’ve only lost one of their five matches so far. Later today they face Italy’s Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner. They are as yet unbeaten in their five. Something will have to give.
Things you might have missed
Shaun White, triple gold medallist and the oldest member of the US team in China has announced that the Beijing Games will be his final snowboarding event. He told a press conference that when he made the decision he was on a chairlift by himself. “I was watching the sun go down and it just hit me,” he said. “It was very sad and a surreal moment but really joyous as well.”
A total of 45 new positive Covid tests have been announced, with athletes and officials accounting for 25 of the cases. “In general we think the situation is under control. The cases within the closed loop have not spread and they do not affect the competition” said Huang Chun, the Games’ deputy director-general of the office of pandemic prevention and control.
Dutch journalist Sjoerd den Daas was dragged away by Chinese security officials in the middle of making a live broadcast for NOS last night. The IOC has rather blandly described it as “an unfortunate circumstance”. He was eventually able to continue broadcasting from the opening ceremony.
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The briefing’s picture of the day
Saturday’s men’s third downhill training run was cancelled due to high winds – but not before three runners – including favourite Aleksander Aamodt Kilde – had completed the course. This angered others who feel they have been given an advantage on a course that has never been competed on before.
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 – Saturday 5 February
7.30pm – 8.40pm Freestyle skiing – three runs of the men’s moguls culminating in the medal ceremony. Australia’s Brodie Summers came top in the first qualification round earlier today 🥇
8.05pm Curling – matches include the US v Canada and that crucial match-up of Team GB v Italy 🥌
9.10pm Ice hockey – the US take on Not Russia in the women’s preliminary round, which should have some bite, even if neither team is in jeopardy of not reaching the quarter-finals. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend. Canada laid down a competition marker earlier, beating Finland 11-1 🏒
9.26pm Short track speed skating – It is the final of the mixed team relay. Mixed relays were a source of joyous chaos at Tokyo 2020 on the track and in the pool. And now they’ve got added ice 🥇
Tomorrow – Sunday 6 February
9am and 2pm and 8pm Curling – more mixed doubles round robin matches 🥌
9.30am – 10.24am Snowboard – the women have three runs at the slopestyle to decide the medals. Jamie Anderson of the US aims for her third straight gold 🥇
9.30am and 11.50am Figure skating – the team event has two sessions, first the women single skating short programme, and then the men do their single free skating ⛸
11am Alpine skiing – the men’s downhill is one of the key events of any Winter Olympics – providing the wind holds off 🥇
3pm Cross-country skiing – the men’s 15km + 15km Skiathlon 🥇
4.30pm Speed skating – 5,000m of skating very fast from the men🥇
6pm – 8.40pm Freestyle skiing– it is the women’s turn on the moguls 🥇
7pm and 8pm Ski jumping – it is the men’s first round and then the final round on the normal hill, again, weather conditions permitting 🥇
7.30pm Luge – there are training runs in the morning but the real competition of the day is runs three and four of the men’s single, which will decide the medals 🥇
Full Winter Olympics schedule | Results, sport by sport | Medal table
How things stand
Here’s what the fledgling emoji table looked like at 6.10pm Beijing time …
1 🇳🇴 Norway 🥇 2 🥈 0 🥉 0 total: 2
2 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 1 🥈 0 🥉 0 total: 1
3 ◻️ Not Russia 🥇 0 🥈 1 🥉 1 total: 2
4= 🇫🇷 France 🥇 0 🥈 1 🥉 0 total: 1
4= 🇮🇹 Italy 🥇 0 🥈 1 🥉 0 total: 1
6= 🇦🇹 Austria 🥇 0 🥈 0 🥉 1 total: 1
6= 🇨🇦 Canada 🥇 0 🥈 0 🥉 1 total: 1
Do feel free to drop me a line at martin.belam@theguardian.com if there’s something you are particularly looking forward to or are enjoying so far. I very much enjoyed the opening ceremony myself yesterday – any production that includes a video interlude of small children falling over while trying to ski or ice skate gets my vote. Here were my 11 key moments from it, but it was certainly not without controversy.
The last word
On the selection of Uyghur athlete Dinigeer Yilamujiang as one of the people to light the Olympic flame
That was very, very much a deliberate choice. I think it should be read as China saying we are not backing away from our stance on what we’re doing in Xinjiang and we don’t really care what the world thinks about it – Darren Byler, assistant professor of international studies at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, who has written extensively about the plight of China’s Uyghurs.
