Today in a nutshell: Gu just misses out and Goggia makes incredible injury recovery amid a Swiss ski gold rush, while Valieva’s team make an astounding claim
Next up: Curling, bobsleigh and ice hockey wrap up today’s events. Tomorrow the men’s ice hockey quarter-finals take place, there is a women’s biathlon relay to enjoy and the prospect of some exciting-looking sprint cross-country skiing
Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud soared to gold in the Olympic women’s freeski slopestyle final after holding off another last-gasp charge by Eileen Gu, the American-born emerging superstar representing China, who settled for silver by the narrowest of margins but stayed on course for a historic treble at the Beijing Games.
Sheffield’s Katie Summerhayes put down three complete runs that pleased the British team by the finish area, but was unable to challenge the frontrunners and finished in eighth, one place ahead of the talented Aberdeen teenager Kirsty Muir.
Sofia Goggia, the Pyeongchang 2018 gold medallist and dominant force in downhill this season, injured the cruciate ligament in her left knee during a crash 23 days ago and it was touch-and-go whether she would be able to race in China. Against the odds she took the silver medal in the women’s downhill today for Italy. “Physically I’m not in shape, I couldn’t charge. I’m not able to move as I want. Sometimes things don’t work as you want. But I really gave everything I could ... I had no room for doubts,” she said afterwards. Gold went to Switzerland’s Corinne Suter, herself having recovered from injury at the start of the season.
Meanwhile, Kamila Valieva’s legal team has claimed that the figure skater’s positive drugs test may have come from a contaminated glass of water that contained traces of her grandfather’s heart medication. Sean Ingle has more.
Canada won 10 golds in Sochi and 11 golds in Pyeongchang, and have won plenty of bronzes in Beijing but it has been slim pickings at the top of the podium so far. The victory of their women’s team pursuit speed skating was only their second win in 2022. They set an Olympic record in the final as a tumble by Japan’s team they faced meant they finished over 11 seconds ahead.
In the men’s team pursuit, Norway became champions. Their opponents, ROC, had set an Olympic record along the way to reaching the final but had burnt themselves out with the effort and simply couldn’t reproduce that pace. The USA won the bronze medal race.
Convincing wins for Sweden and Switzerland in today’s set of women’s curling matches see them sitting at the top of the round-robin standings. They should go through, which leaves five countries vying for the remaining two semi-final spots. Three nations – Great Britain, Japan and USA – are tied at four wins and three losses apiece. Canada and South Korea are lurking with 3-3 records having played a match fewer. There are three more rounds of matches to go.
In the men’s curling competition, Sweden have confirmed their place in the semi-finals with a seventh straight victory on Tuesday morning. They will play Team GB later on, as Bruce Mouat’s crew look to book their final-four spot.
Things you might have missed
The US beat Finland 4-1 in the second semi-final of the women’s ice hockey competition yesterday to set up a USA-Canada gold medal clash on Thursday. Canada beat the US 4-2 in their group stage match earlier in Beijing. It is a rematch of the 2018 Pyeongchang final which the US team won in a shoot-out. It should be a titanic battle.
Slovakia pulled off a bit of an upset in the early men’s ice hockey match today, winning their play-off against Germany 4-0 to book a quarter-final slot against the USA on Wednesday. Denmark beat Latvia 3-2, and they will go on to play ROC. Switzerland will play Finland after defeating Czech Republic in their play-off.
“It’s a sense of honour, and a sense of mission fulfilled. I want to say the fans: You wanted an immersive games. Today, I gave you an immersive games,” said China’s Xu Mengtao after winning the women’s freestyle skiing aerials yesterday. Defending champion Hanna Huskova of Belarus took silver and Megan Nick of the US was a surprise bronze medalist. As noisy as it was, you can only imagine how Xu’s victory on home snow would have been greeted with a full crowd.
Austria took the men’s team ski jumping gold yesterday ahead of Slovenia in silver and Germany with bronze. Their sixth gold medal of the Games puts Austria fourth in the overall medal table.
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The briefing’s picture of the day
Biathlon can be a cruel sport. ROC were comfortably in the lead in the men’s 4 x 7.5km relay until anchorman Eduard Latypov went into the final shooting range and had an absolute nightmare. He picked up two penalty loops for his misses, allowing Norway to come through from 50 seconds behind for the gold. France picked up silver, with Quentin Fillon Maillet earning his fifth medal of these Games, and ROC had to settle for bronze.
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 – Tuesday 15 February
8.05pm Curling – four more matches in the men’s round robin including Team GB v Sweden 🥌
8.15pm and 9.50pm Bobsleigh – the final two heats for the two-men teams 🥇
9.10pm Ice hockey – Canada’s men beat China 5-0 in the final Group A match on Sunday, and due to the inexplicable way this tournament is organised, they now immediately face each other again as they play-off for a quarter-final spot against Sweden on Wednesday 🏒
Tomorrow – Wednesday 16 February
9.05am and 2.05pm and 8.05pm Curling – more round robin matches in a stage of the competition that appears to last forever but – especially in the women’s contest – has a lot at stake in each match 🥌
9.30am-10.26am and 7pm-8pm Freestyle skiing – the rescheduled men’s freeski slopestyle is in the morning, and the men’s aerials final is in the evening 🥇
10.15am and 1.45pm Alpine skiing – the men’s slalom in two runs on Wednesday 🥇
12.10pm and 2pm and 4.40pm and 9.30pm Men’s ice hockey – the four quarter-final matches. The US are up first 🏒
7.30pm Women’s ice hockey – the bronze medal face-off between Switzerland and Finland 🥉
3.45pm Biathlon – the women’s 4 x 6km relay 🥇
5pm-7.30pm Cross-country skiing – the women’s team sprint and men’s team sprint have their semi-finals and finals 🥇
7.30pm-9.18pm Short track speed skating – this session includes the women’s 1,500m contest and the men’s 5,000m relay 🥇
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 🥇 11 🥈 6 🥉 7 total: 24
2 🇩🇪 Germany 🥇 8 🥈 5 🥉 2 total: 15
3 🇺🇸 United States 🥇 7 🥈 6 🥉 4 total: 17
4 🇦🇹 Austria 🥇 6 🥈 6 🥉 4 total: 16
5 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 6 🥈 4 🥉 3 total: 13
6 🇨🇳 China 🥇 6 🥈 4 🥉 2 total: 12
Selected others
9 ◻️ Not Russia 🥇 4* 🥈 7 🥉 9 total: 20
13 🇨🇦 Canada 🥇 2 🥈 4 🥉 11 total: 17
16 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 1 🥈 2 🥉 1 total: 4
18 🇳🇿 New Zealand 🥇 1 🥈 1 🥉 0 total: 2
[*this total includes the team figure skating gold. which the IOC has said “will probably not be sorted out during this Games”]
I’ll be back tomorrow – by which time we will have all watched Kamila Valieva skate again. Don’t forget you can get in touch with at martin.belam@theguardian.com to let me know what you think of the whole affair.
The last word
Not so long ago the broken windows theory became popular among politicians. The idea is simple: if you allow damage in a community to linger, it only promotes more crime and disorder. Therefore problems should be eradicated immediately. This, to put it mildly, has not been an approach taken by global sport leaders. At every turn they have talked tough on Russia while applying a homeopathic approach and diluting potential punishments – Sean Ingle, the Guardian’s chief sports reporter.
