Goodbye and thank you
I think all that leaves me to do is thank you so very much if you have enjoyed the Winter Olympics with the Guardian over the past couple of weeks. I will speak for my colleagues and say it is an absolute privilege to bring the highs and lows and all the bits in between to you especially at such a historic Games for Team GB. Thank you for reading and we will see you again in 2030 or maybe tomorrow when you’re checking the latest headlines. Buona Notte!
Now the ceremony is over here is some reaction to the USA’s incredible gold in the men’s hockey. That Jack Hughes is different gravy.
Here he is! The trickster spirit of the closing ceremony, Rigoletto. He’s packing the arena away apparently. How cute. Cheers, Rigoletto. And that is all she wrote. Milano-Cortina is officially over.
Saying that I’ve been duped by our singers get up, not spying the slight giveaway of a face tattoo. Not saying opera singers can’t have them but maybe more likely it was an Italian popstar. Achille is belting out Amor. At least I think he is.
Back to the classy stuff. Get your opera glasses out quick if you have them. I’m replicating the effect with my hands curled round my eyes. Molto bene!
Ooh Diplo is filming on his phone too proving millionaire DJ/producers are human also! And here we go put your phones in the air for the light show timeeeee. It’s so pretty …
They keep cutting to the Italian athletes who are loving it compared to other nations who appear slightly unmoved. Am I detecting per chance that Major Lazer are inexplicably huge in Italy? An incredibly rapid google suggests they have had a No 1 on those shores.
Updated
OK IT IS MAJOR LAZER FINALLY! Phew, the party is saved. OH ooooohhhh ohhh oooohhhh ooooh ooooooo. Remember that from forever ago. Yeah they play it in my gym sometimes or they did.
And the TNT commentator agrees! “This is music they play at the gym, that is the genre.” Vindication!!!
Updated
JJ writes in on the topic of anthem standing or sitting …
“I’m watching the closing ceremony and, while the French anthem is feeling a bit indulgent, I’m surprised by how many of the crowd have remained seated as the French anthem is played. I was there at the opening ceremony of London 2012 and everyone stood for “God Save The Queen”
Boredom or decline in respect for anthems?”
From my perspective it is probably fatigue. That must have been the sixth or seventh that has been played in the stadium tonight and the gravitas surely wears a bit thin. Or they just forget.
Oof Gloria Campaner tinkling the ivories now with a certified banger in Ludovico Einaudi’s Experience. Rigoletto is feeling it.
“I now declare the Milano-Cortina Winter Games closed,” says the big boss.
Darn. Niccolo Pisilli has just put Roma 3-0 up as Kirsty Coventry finishes her big speech. “Thanks for sharing the best of Italy with the world,” the president of the IOC says. And for the food, don’t forget the food. Mine’s a polpo and chips.
Meanwhile in Jamie Vardy news he has come on as a substitute in Rome with 10 minutes to go as Roma lead Cremonese 2-0. C’mon Jamie, we’re having a party, join us, lead the big Cremonese comeback!
Updated
I hereby present the IOC with a gold medal in self congratulation. That said it has been a fantastic Games. Thank you Milano-Cortina.
Speech time. Aka get the kettle on!
Anthem no. 1,765 is the marseillaise as we raise the French flag and look forward to the 2030 Games in the Alps. A solemn, magnficient rendition belted out by an incredible opera singer giving it all its guts and glory. The modern music and light show are giving it some French edge too. Pretty cool all things considered. Vive l’Olympics Hiver!
I feel like I missed a trick with the ceremony for Ebba Anderson’s gold for Sweden in the women’s 50km skiing just now. But Peter has come to our rescue to remind us while some more anthems play …
More interpretive dance now with a piece called ‘the water cycle’. Assuming we are celebrating precipitation aka the forming of snow and ice because, hey, without it we wouldn’t be able to skate or ski now would we! Our dancers look to be water droplets coming together in motion to form, dare I say it, ice … maybe? That is how I am interpreting it.
Pat writes on his favourite moment at the Games …
“the last few jumps in the men’s big air final. The sheer joy of the medal-winning athletes celebrating each other’s astonishing tricks, the drama as first one skier and then another pulled off an incredible and mind-bending twist and cork and flip and landing to get into gold medal position, and the fabulous enthusiasm and fantastical analogies of Tim and Ed in the BBC commentary booth. It would not have been the same competition with anyone else on comms.”
Updated
Ah everyone’s favourite song Blue (Da Ba Dee) now is pumping after a montage to celebrate the volunteers. To their credit they are jumping about the stage enjoying their moment despite the dud choice of track. An American volunteer in particular is being championed for still helping out at every event since 1956. Stalwart.
And the men’s 50km. Norway’s anthem rings around the arena. The great Johannes Høsflot Klæbo atop of the podium just like Norway at the top of medals table.
A medal ceremony for the women’s 50km mass start cross-country skiing now. President of the IOC Kirsty Coventry will present gold to Sweden’s Ebba Andersson. The Swede finished ahead of Norway’s Heidi Weng while the bronze medal was quite the showdown with Switzerland’s Nadja Kaelin coming out on top in a sprint to the line.
Updated
Ah that’s nice one of the dancers has done a bit of show and tell and brought his trampoline from home. Look mum, I did a flip on the telly!!! This section of the show is called elevation, a tribute to that special effort an athlete has to find to reach the pinnacle. The interpretive dancers I think are very much elevating as well as they spin and twirl attached to a big rig in the sky.
Here comes the EDM (electronic dance music) because what’s a party without a wubwubwubwubwubwub SCRRREEEECH, dross music aside the dancing is rather special if a little freaky.
Updated
As we wait for the last of athletes to take their seats, I have some mail from a reader.
Karl writes … “Thank you to everybody at The Guardian (editors,writers,live bloggers,photographers & readers) for making this coverage of the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics possible. See you in Los Angeles where the 34th Olympics Games begin on Friday July 14 2028. 2 years 4 months 3 weeks and 1 day from today”
And my 38th birthday, Karl. Cheers to that!!
Jamie Vardy who of course now plays in Italy’s Serie A. Maybe she is a HUGE Cremonese fan. I realise I have strayed into Fast Show territory a little with my mishearing of a foreign language but it really did sound like it. Oh and the Japanese figure skaters who won gold are performing one of their routines as they pass by the stage. Nice touch.
The flags make their exit after a couple of laps of the stage and now it is officially party time, the athletes are coming through to take their seats. It is good to see that even world class athletes are not immune to filming things that are being widely broadcast around the world for posterity. They are human after all. Lots of waving, smiling and even some hands in pockets from a British athlete as he waits his turn to trundle on by.
I swear to god I just the singer in the centre of the stage say, “Oh Jamie Vardy …” I swear.
Updated
It is flag parade time! First in … Greece, of course! Oooh and is that Ennio Morricone I hear?! Yes it certainly was a Games that saw the good, the bad and the ugly of sport, I think …
Matt Weston comes in twirling the Union Flag this way and that. What a legend.
Updated
Quite a haunting rendition it is too, a slow, sweet almost whispered production until the final flourish you all know and love. A performance that seemed to really savour the final bit of national pride, wishing it wasn’t all finished but safe in the knowledge of a job well done.
And here are our Italian athletes entering the performance. All togged up in all white gear with medals proudly on display, what a moment for them it must be to stand after the powder has settled knowing you did yourself and your country proud. The Italian national anthem is on the way. Forza!
Speaking of transitions we have moved into ballet called ‘faces of Italy’. Our dancers prance across a giant video screen showing the faces of regular Italian folk like you or me … only Italian. Quite beautiful it is too. It is easy to forget how many non-athletes make an Olympic Games specifically the volunteers. People give up their time and presumably their leave at work to help produce all the action we get so excited about. So, thank you volunteers!
How Diplo’s Major Lazer figure into all this operatic wonder is anyone’s guess but I am excited to see a transition into club bangers as smooth as Bruce Mouat’s match-winning stone for Team GB against Switzerland in the men’s curling semi-finals.
Ah our first sighting of Rigoletto in the rafters looking down on the action. I’m informed we have tunes (can you call them tunes?) from Madame Butterfly and (naturally) the Marriage of Figaro also. I’m not going to lie I could really do with a little bar that comes up on the bottom of the screen to say what the tune is, like on MTV. Anyway our first number draws to a close with a big blast of pyrotechnics and Rigoletto is thrilled so I am too. Encore!
We start with a short film of our players getting ready for the closing ceremony in the bowels of the frankly epic Verona Arena. The venue is the first world heritage sight hosting a closing ceremony which is about as arbitrary as you can get for a stat/nugget but it is still fantastic to use such a beautiful monument for the proceedings. Looks like we are in for a lot of opera tonight and I am HERE for it … as they say.
Updated
Here we go, it is ‘beauty in action’ time. C’mon then Italy, blow our socks off!
And a final plug for this breathtaking moment. Team GB creating Winter Olympics history with a first gold in mixed skeleton relay. Could this Games be the beginning for a golden era in British sport on snow and ice? Let’s hope and while we are dreaming, how about we bring the mixed skeleton back in four years but let’s add a bobsleigh run from the pair too. Please!
Before we start our long goodbye here is a roundup of a final, magical day at the Games. Three cheers to the USA for a first men’s hockey gold since the Miracle on Ice match in 1980. Wow.
Eileen Gu defended her Olympic ski half-pipe title to make it six medals in six events over her Winter Games career. The 22-year-old Gu is already the most decorated freeskier in the short history of the sport at the Olympics. She won the event on the strength of her second run, a clean, technically sound pass and got even better in her final run to finish with a score of 94.75. Her teammate, Li Fanghui, took silver and Zoe Atkin of Britain was third, upping GB’s medal tally to five.
Sweden’s Ebba Andersson surged away from her rivals to secure a commanding win in the 50km classic cross-country ski race, winning the first gold medal in the event on its Olympic debut. It was redemption for Andersson, who suffered a series of falls in the relay that likely cost her team a gold medal. She also has three second-place finishes at Milano Cortina, one earned after an impressive comeback in the relay and individual silvers in the skiathlon and 10km freestyle event.
Germany’s Johannes Lochner collected his second bobsleigh gold of these Games in the four-man event, completing a hugely dominant week for the sliding superpower. Compatriot and double-defending champion Francesco Friedrich took silver but Germany’s hopes of a first-ever clean sweep in the event were spoiled when Michael Vogt snatched bronze for Switzerland on the final run.
Sweden beat Switzerland for women’s curling gold to conclude the sport’s competition at Milano Cortina. It was Sweden’s sixth curling Olympic gold and 13th medal overall the sport, trailing only Canada in both categories. After upsetting top-ranked Canada in the semi-finals Anna Hasselborg’s Sweden defeated Silvana Tirinzoni’s Switzerland 6-5. Canada beat the United States for bronze on Saturday.
The United States claimed their third Olympic men’s hockey title – and first since the Miracle on Ice team of 1980 – with a thrilling 2-1 overtime win over Canada in Sunday’s gold medal game at the Milano Cortina Games. In the third Olympic final meeting between the border rivals and the first since Sidney Crosby’s epochal golden goal in 2010, the Americans seized their moment to end a 46-year wait and dethrone the sport’s most decorated nation on its grandest stage.
It can’t be long now … about 20 minutes to go. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
Updated
Let’s keep it on the continent (and completely ignore Arsenal’s incredible 4-1 thrashing of Tottenham) with a quick roundup of the footballing action across Europe as we wait for the soiree in Verona.
TNT have just broadcast a montage of Italian commentators their homegrown athletes winning gold at the Games. I expect it fully but it is nice to know for definite that other countries follow their own athletes the way the BBC do. Steve Cram simply shouting “GET IN!” during yesterday’s men’s curling final after GB took a lead at one stage was a highlight for me. Definitely would be my approach to commentating, so cheers, Crammy!
Updated
Right, I’m doing it. I was intrigued by the blurb for one of our performers … Achille Lauro (real name: Lauro De Marinis). So let’s go, whaddya got, Achille?
Wikipedia informs me the real Achille Lauro (1887-1982) was an Italian businessman and politician. He is widely considered one of the main precursors of modern populism in Italian politics. Cool inspo!
And here is a look at the last day of action from Milano-Cortina. Beautiful.
And speaking of my brother, Adam, none other than his best friend at school Radzi Chinyanganya (once of Blue Peter) is presenting the closing ceremony from the Verona Arena for TNT Sports … I promise I planned that … yep!
We have gotten a little off piste so lets return to some moments of the Games. With all the success Team GB enjoyed there was disappointment too. Mia Brookes’s near miss in snowboarding big air was a incredibly emotional moment but hopefully she can be incredibly proud of giving it her absolute everything. That is what it is all about even if there was no medal this time. Hopefully she is back for the French Alps in 2030.
Updated
Can we all agree Montefiori Cocktail is one of the greatest band names ever? Good. Glad to have that settled. Just a quick word on how I came across the supreme elevator music easy listening champions. My brother and I sat down to watch the Marco Pantani documentary ‘The Natural” and the entire soundtrack was by the group. We then spent the next day doing DIY only listening to them so as you might expect we had gone slightly mad by the end of the day. I can’t recommend the documentary highly enough though for a unvarnished glimpse into life of Pantani and his trials and tribulations.
Updated
And to continue teasing the big send off, what or rather who do we have to look forward to entertaining us? Winter Games has laid on quite the spread …
“The star Roberto Bolle was the first performer of the evening to be announced. A symbol of elegance, energy, and dedication, the international dance star will bring his extraordinary sensitivity and mastery to the stage. The evening’s lineup will also feature Gabry Ponte, a global icon of dance and electronic music, who will transform the stage into an experience of shared energy; Achille Lauro, a Roman singer born in Verona and a contemporary pop icon, who transcends the boundaries of music to explore fashion, performance art, and symbolic imagery; actress Benedetta Porcaroli, who will contribute to the event’s closing narrative; and Major Lazer, one of the most influential musical groups on the global scene.
“With them, the Verona Olympic Arena will become a melting pot of cultures and sounds, where the solemnity of the moment will collide with an explosion of rhythm and colour. It will be a night of celebration to conclude the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, with thousands of hearts beating as one under the Verona sky.”
My eye is drawn to Major Lazer and am feeling quite old as I remember hearing them a lot on the d-floor of my student union 15 years or so ago. There seems to be big party energy flowing through the program so why don’t we start with something a little more sedate but equally Italiano! Buon divertimento!
Of course we also have the pomp and ceremony of the closing ceremony in a couple of hours to come from the OG pomp and ceremony production house … an ancient roman amphitheatre. The Verona Arena to be exact which was completed in 30 AD. That is 1996 years ago. Still standing, still showing off the world’s greatest athletes. What a lovely touch from the organising committee and thankfully no one will get eaten by a tiger but maybe I have watched Gladiator too many times.
The Milano-Cortina website has this to say:
“For the first time in the history of the Games, an Olympic Ceremony will be held within a historic World Heritage monument, transforming it into a boundless stage.
“The title chosen for the Closing Ceremony is “Beauty in Action”. It will be a tribute to beauty in motion in all its forms: it lives in sport, is reflected in art, is nourished by human relationships, and manifests itself in the places that frame the Games, celebrating the strong connection between mountain and plain, between nature and city.
Sunday evening will therefore see a story unfold, blending dream and reality, and weaving together tradition and innovation. A fusion of opera, music, dance, cinema, design, and technology, the show will draw inspiration from Italy’s rich cultural and artistic heritage. It will showcase the country’s powerful balance between classicism and modernity, and the creative ability of Italians to transform aesthetics into emotion.”
Good evening, winter sport warriors! I can’t quite believe it is all coming to an end, it feels like we have only just started learning the intricacies of a blanked end in curling or a whole new sport in ski mountaineering and then POOF it is all gone again and we have to wait another four years for the ultimate thrill seeker Games. Until we wave goodbye though I’d love to hear about your favourite moments of the Olympics and share them back with everyone … so please send them over! And yes it can be penisgate … obviously!
And with that, my stint on the blog for this Olympics is over. Here to see you the closing ceremony is Graham Searles.
The Great Olympic lie: untold story of Winter Games’ huge environmental impact
On the foothills of the mountains, by the banks of the river in Cortina, there was a forest. It was full of tall larch trees. Arborists said the oldest of them had been there for 150 years and dendrologists that it was unique because it was unusual to find a monocultural forest growing at such a low altitude in the southern Alps.
The locals knew mostly it was the place where the old wooden bobsleigh run was, where you went on your walks in summer or autumn, or when you wanted to play tennis on the small courts built near the bottom. They called it the Bosco di Ronco and it isn’t there any more.
Sustainability is the great lie of these Games. It was written all through the bid document and the International Olympic Committee has slapped it across all manner of promotional literature.
Cheating, Penisgate and boos for Vance: the 10 wildest stories of the Winter Olympics
Amid the triumphs, failures and broken medals in Milano Cortina, here’s our countdown of the outstanding moments that will live long in the memory:
USA stun Canada in overtime to win first Olympic men’s ice hockey gold since 1980
The United States claimed their third Olympic men’s hockey title – and first since the Miracle on Ice team of 1980 – with a thrilling 2-1 overtime win over Canada in Sunday’s gold medal game at the Milano Cortina Games. In the third Olympic final meeting between the border rivals and the first since Sidney Crosby’s epochal golden goal in 2010, the Americans seized their moment to end a 46-year wait and dethrone the sport’s most decorated nation on its grandest stage.
Canada had been chasing a record-extending 10th gold medal in men’s ice hockey, but it was the United States who delivered when it mattered most through Jack Hughes’ winner less than two minutes into the extra period and a superhuman effort from goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, capping an unbeaten run through the first Olympic tournament to feature National Hockey League players in 12 years.
And that brings up to this morning when Zoe Atkin won women’s freestyle skiing halfpipe bronze to claim Great Britain’s fifth medal of their record-breaking Winter Olympics as China’s Eileen Gu soared to win her first gold of the Games.
Atkin qualified for the final in first place and led after the first run, in which the single best score from three runs counts in the standings:
On the penultimate day of the Games Johannes Høsflot Klæbo completed his golden set and Andy Bull was at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium to see it:
At the end of one of the great races in the history of the Winter Olympics, there was the greatest athlete in the history of the Winter Olympics. After a little over two hours of racing Johannes Høsflot Klæbo won his sixth gold medal of these Games when he beat his Norwegian teammate Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget by 17.4 seconds to win the men’s 50km classic.
The triumph meant the 29-year-old set the record for the most gold medals in a single Winter Games, set by the US speed skater Eric Heiden when he won five at Lake Placid in 1980. In an age of exaggeration and in an industry that loves overstatement, it is entirely true to say that there has never been anything quite like it.
Klæbo now has 11 Olympic gold medals, which puts him one ahead of the entire country of India on the all-time table. Were he a nation, he would be ninth in the 2026 medal standings. In this past fortnight he has competed in 10 races across 115km, in six different events, in the space of just 14 days, and won every single one of them.
Nobody has ever swept all the cross-country events in a single Olympics before; truth is nobody has ever imagined it was possible in such a gruelling sport.
After watching the Norwegian great, Andy then got on the road to Cortina to see if Team GB could go one better than four years ago in the men’s curling. They couldn’t:
The cruel truth is that sometimes the silvers you win are more like golds you lost. After four years of thinking about this Olympics, and 11 days of competing in this Olympics, there is no doubt about how Bruce Mouat and his three teammates will weigh their achievement here after they were beaten by Canada 9-6 in the final. It was an excruciatingly tense game, which twisted and turned on its way to the very final stone of the 10th end. And when it was over, two of the British players were left in tears. Great Britain’s fourth medal of these Olympics was more bitter than sweet.
For the Americans, Milano Cortina 2026 was a battle for the soul of representing Team USA. Donald Trump called Hunter Hess a “real loser” after the US freeskier dared to admit that he had mixed feelings about representing his country.
Hess clearly maintained the support of his teammate as Sean Ingle discovered during the men’s freeski halfpipe final at the Livigno Snow Park on Friday:
As he swooped down the halfpipe on Friday morning, Hunter Hess delivered a neat riposte, flashing a L-sign with his hand before insisting his row with Trump was something “I definitely wear with pride”.
“Apparently I am a loser,” Hess said when asked about his gesture. “I am leaning into it.”
His spectacular run earned him a place in the men’s halfpipe final later in the day. However, the 27-year-old was unable to further rub Trump’s nose in it, as he failed to get a clean run and finished 10th.
The Estonian Henry Sildaru, who took silver, and the Canadian, Brendan Mackay, who won bronze, both had cases for gold. However, it was another American, Alex Ferreira, who emerged triumphant. And after collecting his gold medal he firmly backed his teammate. “Hunter is a member of our team,” he said. “He’s a great guy. Others may disagree. But I stand by my teammate.”
Afterwards, Hess admitted that despite abuse he had received from Trump – and the online attacks that followed – he had no regrets about speaking out about the problems back home. “I worked so hard to be here,” he said. “I sacrificed my entire life to make this moment happen. I’m not going to let controversy like that get in my way.
More as we continue our Winter Games lookback…
“That’s what I’m fucking talking about,” sad Alysa Liu as she left the ice following her gold medal winning routine. As the Winter Olympics began to draw to a close on day 13, Bryan Armen Graham was at the Milano Ice Skating Arena:
Alysa Liu completed a stunning comeback to competitive figure skating by winning the first Olympic women’s figure skating gold medal for the United States in 24 years on Thursday night.
The 20-year-old from Clovis, California, who vanished from the sport nearly four years ago uncertain if she’d ever return, delivered a career-best long program to overtake Japanese rivals Kaori Sakamoto and Ami Nakai. Skating in a shimmering gold dress to Donna Summer’s MacArthur Park Suite, Liu cleanly landed all seven of her triple jumps, including three in combination, and drew a standing ovation before finishing with 226.79 points overall.
Sakamoto finished with 224.90 points over both segments to take silver, her lone mistakes coming on her second triple flip and failing to add the planned triple toe on a combination. The 17-year-old Nakai, the youngest skater of the 29 entrants who came in first after the short program, made several errors in the second half of her program to finish ninth in the free skate and slip to bronze with an overall score of 219.16.
Liu, the surprise world champion a year ago and now a double Olympic champion after last week’s team event, became the first American woman to win individual figure skating gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002. The last US woman to reach an Olympic podium was Sasha Cohen in 2006.
Norway top the medal table
Norway has once again topped the Winter Olympics medal table, surpassing countries with far larger populations.
The Scandinavian country won more gold medals (18) and more total medals (41) than the US, who came second in both categories (12 golds and 33 total medals). Norway’s 18 golds were the most by a country in Winter Olympics history, while their cross-country skiing hero Johannes Høsflot Klæbo accounted for six golds on his own, more than the all but seven other countries at this year’s Games.
The achievements of Norway, which has a population of about 5.7m, are all the more remarkable given that they outperformed winter-sports nations with far larger populations such as the US (342m), China (1.4bn), Germany (84m), Italy (59m) and Canada (40m). The Netherlands, which excels in speed skating, also punched above its weight, finishing with 10 golds – the same as host nation Italy – despite its relatively small population of around 18m.
It was also a good Olympics for countries with modest winter sports traditions. Great Britain enjoyed its best ever medal haul at a Winter Olympics with three golds, a silver and a bronze, as did Australia (three golds, two silver and a bronze).
Updated
🥇 USA win ice-hockey gold!
Jack Hughes has scored the overtime goal to give USA a slightly fortunate win in a game where Canada certainly had the best of the chances. Beau Dure was watching this one:
Updated
Klaebo’s medal count hit five on the day that Mikaela Shiffrin stood at the top of the podium once again after an eight-year wait.
Bryan Armen Graham on Olympic redemption for the American:
Alot can happen in 12 years. If you’re Mikaela Shiffrin, as a teenager you can become the youngest ever person to win the Olympic slalom, stack a couple more medals at the next Olympics, become the most successful World Cup skier of all time with a record 108 victories, go 10 more Olympic races in a row over three Winter Games without reaching the podium, overcome the two biggest crashes of your career and subsequent battles with self-doubt and post-traumatic stress disorder and eroding trust in your own skiing, and then bring it all back home with a second Olympic slalom gold.
You can also lose your dad.
Shiffrin, considered by many the greatest alpine skier in history, saw her incandescent career come full circle on Wednesday beneath the jagged limestone peaks above Cortina d’Ampezzo, winning her signature race by 1.50sec – an eternity in slalom racing and the largest winning margin in any Olympic alpine skiing event in nearly three decades – to end an eight-year medal drought that had started to overtake the conversation. In 2014, at the age of 18, she became the youngest US woman ever to win Olympic gold in alpine skiing. Now, in 2026, she’s the oldest at 30.
With all the fun in the mountains, Milan needed some action to make you remember it was also hosting this Olympics. It was Italy’s blades of glory who delivered as the crowd powered the host nation to another gold medal.
Davide Ghiotto, Andrea Giovannini and Michele Malfatti thrashed the world record-holders, world champions and favourites Casey Dawson, Emery Lehman and Ethan Cepuran of the US to win the men’s team pursuit gold medal in speed skating. Buoyed by raucous cheering from the home crowd, the Italians won their country’s first Olympic title in this event since the Turin Games in 2006, beating the Americans by a whopping 4.51sec – a lifetime in speed skating.
As we continue our Winter Olympics lookback, there was to be more heartbreak for Kirsty Muir as she once again fell agonsingly short of a medal. Sean Ingle was in Livigno:
This time, Kirsty Muir must surely have believed that a Winter Olympic medal was in her grasp. But as a thrilling big air competition reached its denouement, an Italian with no anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee came down a 180‑feet ramp and drove a stake through the Briton’s heart.
It all looked so promising when the 21-year-old from Aberdeen landed a stunning left double 1620, with four and a half rotations, to move into the medal positions after two of the three rounds. However, with just four jumps of the competition remaining, Flora Tabanelli, who tore her ACL in November, did the same trick as Muir but only better to score 94.25 points to steal the bronze medal.
“It was a little bit bittersweet,” said Muir, who fell on her final jump and finished fourth. “I didn’t know what she did, but I knew it bumped my score by a decent amount and therefore I really did have to go for it. I gave it my all and I’m taking that with me.
Updated
We still have one more gold medal to hand out and it’s in the men’s ice hockey. We’re going to overtime after it finished 1-1 between Canada and the USA after three periods. Beau Dure is covering that one here:
Day nine was a golden one for Team GB:
Team GB chiefs have hailed Britain’s greatest day at a Winter Olympics after celebrating two gold medals, in the mixed snowboard cross and mixed team skeleton in Milano Cortina.
Super Sunday started with Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale storming to a surprise victory in Livigno, with Bankes dramatically overtaking the French team with four turns remaining to take mixed snowboard cross gold.
Less than five hours later, Tabitha Stoecker and Matt Weston added a second British gold in the mixed team skeleton in Cortina after Weston overturned a 0.30sec deficit following Stoecker’s run to beat Germany by 0.17sec.
Elsewhere the Johannes Høsflot Klæbo gold medal count was up to four as he led Norway to victory in the men’s 4 x 7.5km cross-country relay at the Milano Cortina Games on Sunday to win a record ninth career gold medal at the Winter Olympics.
The 29-year-old has won four gold medals at these Games and is widely expected to take another two in the men’s team sprint on Wednesday and 50km classic race on Saturday.
Klæbo took over for the final leg with a lead of 12.2 seconds and extended it to 22.2 seconds by the time he crossed the line. France took silver and the bronze went to Italy.
Updated
Sean Ingle has racked up some miles across northern Italy over the last few weeks, on day eight he was in Bormio where Brazil, yes Brazil, won an Alpine skiing gold medal:
As the snow fell in Bormio, and the fog settled in, Lucas Pinheiro Braathen made history by becoming the first South American to win a Winter Olympic medal. Then, as the realisation that he had won gold for Brazil in the men’s giant slalom, he collapsed to the floor and allowed the tears to flow.
“I just hope that Brazilians look at this and truly understand that your difference is your superpower,” he said, still sobbing away. “It may show up in your skin or in the way you dress. But I hope this inspires every kid out there who feels a bit different to trust who you are.”
Erin Jackson of USA competes in the women’s 1000m speed skating; Sweden’s Elis Lundholm competes in the freestyle skiing women’s moguls qualifiers; Philipp Raimund of Germany celebrates after landing during the men’s normal hill individual final
On the back of his helmet, Pinheiro Braathen has in big letters “Vamos Dancar” – “Let’s Dance.” And he certainly did that on his first run, establishing a stunning 0.95sec lead over the Swiss legend Marco Odermatt.
One week into the Winter Games and Team GB had its first medal, a golden one at that.
Matt Weston was the man to do it, in the skeleton. The 28-year-old broke the track record at the Cortina Sliding Centre four times in succession, and won in a combined time of 3min 43.33sec, which was almost a full second ahead of the runner-up, Germany’s Axel Jungk. “I’ve been fortunate enough to win world championships, and European championships and other things, and this blows them all out the water,” Weston said. “I almost feel numb. I keep touching this medal to make sure it is real.”
In Milan, American figure skating icon Ilia Malinin fell twice as Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov stunned the field to win Olympic gold. Bryan Armen Graham was at the Milano Ice Skating Arena:
For nearly two years, Ilia Malinin has made men’s figure skating feel predictable in the most spectacular of ways. On Friday night on the southern outskirts of Milan, the Olympic Games reminded the sport, and perhaps Malinin himself, that predictability is never guaranteed on its biggest stage.
The overwhelming favorite entering the free skate, the 21-year-old American instead saw the Olympic title slip away to Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov after an error-strewn performance that will go down among the biggest shocks in figure skating history.
Shaidorov’s season-best total of 291.58 vaulted him from fifth after the short program as one favored contender after another faltered. Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama (280.06) and Shun Sato (274.90) took silver and bronze respectively on a night where even the sport’s most reliable jump technicians struggled to hold their programs together.
Indeed a storm did brew and on day six, it hit.
Sean Ingle and Andy Bull were both across this one:
Vladyslav Heraskevych has accused the International Olympic Committee of doing Russia’s propaganda for them after he was barred from racing in the Winter Games because he wanted to wear a “helmet of memory” in honour of Ukraine’s war dead.
In one of the most controversial decisions in recent Olympic history, the Ukrainian skeleton racer was informed only minutes before he was due to compete that his accreditation had been rescinded.
It followed a last-ditch meeting in Cortina on Thursday morning with the IOC’s president, Kirsty Coventry, who left in tears after she failed to persuade Heraskevych to change his mind.
The IOC has maintained all week that the helmet, which shows the images of 24 athletes and children that died from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, violates its athletes’ charter because the field of play must be free from political expression.
However Heraskevych, who had a genuine chance of winning Ukraine’s first medal at these Winter Olympics, has insisted that the helmet is an act of remembrance for the friends he has lost and that it would be a “betrayal” to back down.
There was storm brewing on day five and it would be one that made the IOC look like the kind of out-of-touch sports body stuffed with dusty suits that everyone assumes it is. Here is Sean Ingle’s report:
The Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych says he is ready to be disqualified on Thursday because he does not want to betray his country’s dead athletes.
In what is likely to be an extraordinary scene in Cortina when the skeleton begins at 9.30am local time (8.30am GMT), Heraskevych has vowed to wear his “helmet of memory”, even though the International Olympic Committee has told him it will kick him out if he does so.
Heraskevych has continued to practise in the helmet, which shows 20 images of athletes and children killed since Russia’s invasion, despite the IOC banning it on Monday.
“I will not betray these athletes,” Heraskevych said after finishing first on the final day of practice. “These athletes sacrificed their lives and because of this sacrifice I am able to be here so I will not betray them.”
Day four and the big question for Johannes Høsflot Klæbo was could he win all six cross-country medals on offer? He was making other world-class athletes look as if they were chasing shadows. Klæbo cruised through the sprint classic and detonated the field on the final climb to claim his second gold of these Games.
However, Klæbo was not even the biggest story in the Norwegian team at this point. Sturla Holm Lægreid broke down in tears after winning bronze in the men’s 20km biathlon, apologising for having an affair and saying: “It has been the worst week of my life.”
Johan-Olav Botn won gold, with the Frenchman Éric Perrot in second, but it was Lægreid who stunned television viewers in Norway after opening up to the broadcaster NRK about his private life over the past six months.
“There is something I want to share with someone who may not be watching today,” he said. “Half a year ago I met the love of my life. The world’s most beautiful and nicest person. Three months ago I made the mistake of my life and cheated on her, and I told her about that a week ago. This has been the worst week of my life.
“I had the gold medal in life, and I am sure there are many people who will see things differently, but I only have eyes for her. Sport has come second these last few days. Yes, I wish I could share this with her.”
“I’ll be proud of myself in a minute,” the 21-year-old Team GB star Kirsty Muir told one reporter, through the sobs and the pain. “But I’m in a bit of a hole right now.”
Muir had finished fourth in the women’s freeski slopestyle competition, the first of several near-misses for the British contingent and Sean Ingle was in Livigno:
Everyone knows that fourth is the worst place to finish at an Olympics. But, for Kirsty Muir, this result stung like pouring a gallon of antiseptic on an open sore.
Coming into this final, Muir knew she was a strong favourite for a medal. She had won this event at the X Games two weeks ago with a score of 93.66, before qualifying third here. On this day, it just wasn’t to be.
Instead the Swiss star Mathilde Gremaud defended her Olympic title with a score of 86.96 points, while China’s Eileen Gu repeated her second place in Beijing with 86.48. While Muir knew she was not at her best, she felt that bronze was there for the taking.
Day two was dominated by one dramatic incident 13 seconds into Lindsey Vonn’s attempt to win a miraculous medal as she raced with a complete ACL rupture in her left knee, along with a bone bruise and meniscal damage sustained a week before in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Here was Andy Bull’s take from Cortina:
The Olympic career of Lindsey Vonn has ended in a sickening, split-second crash high on the side of the Tofane downhill run in Cortina d’Ampezzo. The American, one of the most successful skiers in history, had come out of a five-year retirement to compete in her fifth Games, and was hoping to become the oldest athlete, male or female, to win a medal in the downhill.
Vonn was just 12 seconds into the race when her legs gave way beneath her as she rode a bump. She twisted, fell, and tumbled and, after the first stunned screams and shouts, the crowd all around the mountain fell silent in shock and worry. The USA team confirmed later that she was in a “stable condition and in good hands” following surgery after breaking her left leg.
Her teammate Breezy Johnson was in the leader’s seat when Vonn went down. She covered her eyes because she couldn’t watch. Johnson, 30, was forced out of the last Olympic Games in Beijing after she had a bad crash here on this very same slope. She went on to win the gold in 1min 36.10sec, just four hundredths of a second ahead of Germany’s Emma Aicher in second. The home favourite Sofia Goggia, who lit the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony, was third. But the abiding memory of this race will always be the sight of Vonn on a stretcher, being evacuated from the mountain by air ambulance.
Updated
Continuing with our rewind, day one brought an early gold for hosts Italy with the remarkable story of Francesca Lollobrigida. The silver medalist from Beijing 2022, struck gold for the first time in her fourth Olympics in the women’s 3,000m speed skating. Lollobrigida’s two-year-old Tommaso was hurried towards the ice to celebrate with his mother.
In the mountains Franjo von Allmen was the last Swiss skier standing on the podium of the men’s downhill after an assault by an Italian team. Von Allmen won gold but the home crowd in Bormio enjoyed Giovanni Franzoni and Dominik Paris filling out the rest of the podium at the expense of pre-race favourite Marco Odermatt and Alexis Monney.
Sweden also made a big splash on day one, with a one-two in the skiathlon as Frida Karlsson and Ebba Andersson took gold and silver respectively.
What was your favourite moment of Milano Cortina 2026? Get in touch via the link at the top of the page.
Hello all, the players are back on the ice for the second period in the ice hockey. Follow that one with Beau Dure:
That is all from me today. Tom Bassam is back to take you through memory lane.
It began with an opening ceremony at San Siro that showcased Italy’s rich cultural history of music, art, fashion and dance. The overarching theme was harmony – brining together what was different.
Sean Ingle wrote:
In the buildup, the creative director, Marco Balich, had promised that his team of artists and performers had devoted 700 hours of rehearsals to ensure everything would be perfect. They delivered – and then some.
The show began with 70 dancers from Accademia del Teatro alla Scala, twirling and spinning in perfect time, across a background of classical statues. Soon there were also nods to Ancient Rome and the Renaissance, food and fashion, literature and design.
There were also genuflections to Verdi, Puccini, Rossini and Armani. There were supermodels in red, green and white, the colours of the Italian flag, walking down a catwalk before the Italian national anthem was played. There was even a surreal section devoted to hand gestures – although none of the ones that are usually seen in Milan rush hour.
Updated
These Games have been a joy to watch for winter sport experts but equally for those who tune in every four years and had to frantically Google: “What is ski mountaineering?” and “Why do Norway win every gold medal in existence?”.
Emma John’s questions include: “Are Ed Leigh and Tim Warwood actually a disguised Joaquin Phoenix and Timothée Chalamet, deep in character for an upcoming reboot of Wayne’s World?” and “Are Canadians not the nice guys any more?”.
Ice hockey: The Americans draw first blood against Canada! After breakaway and some deft puck handling, Matt Boldy puts his side ahead with their first shot on goal. Auston Matthews and Quinn Hughes assists.
Follow along below for full updates.
It was a slow start for Team Italy at Milano Cortina but once the hosts began to pick up medals in the second week, the public’s imagination was captured. Angela Giuffrida writes from Rome:
If the streets in the Italian capital felt largely bereft of Olympics fever, the numbers told a different story. More than 1.27m spectators who had bought tickets by the event’s midway point, filling venues to an average 85% of their available capacity.
For what has been the most geographically scattered Winter Olympics ever, that was no small feat. Held under the official banner of Milano Cortina, the Games stretched across almost 8,500 square miles, encompassing Alpine villages in Lombardy such as Bormio and Livigno, along with Anterselva and Val di Fiemme in Trentino-Alto Adige, before wrapping up with Sunday’s closing ceremony in Verona. The vast footprint presented complex logistical challenges for its organisers and athletes, and provided no single hub for its spectators to celebrate.
Speaking to reporters last week, Andrea Varnier, the Milano Cortina Games chief executive, said: “We know that this is not a walk in the park.” He added: “We are completely aware that we are pioneers when it comes to this edition of the Games. We knew that we had many challenges and, after one week, most of them seem to have been overcome.”
Read the full feature on how Italy fell in love with their home Games below.
The Milano Cortina Games surpassed expectations despite a large number of obstacles in the run-up to the world’s biggest winter multi-sports event, the International Olympic Committee said on Sunday, ahead of the closing ceremony.
The Games, which started on 6 February with a dazzling opening ceremony at San Siro in Milan, were under extreme pressure for years due to tight deadlines and a number of building delays, with the widely dispersed venues across northern Italy posing additional challenges for organisers. But when the curtain falls with the closing ceremony in the arena of Verona, organisers and the IOC can breathe a sigh of relief.
“They have been fantastic,” the IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, said in her address to members at the Olympic body’s session. “It could not happen without incredible teamwork … and we had it every step of the way.”
“Over the last two weeks we have seen and experienced incredible Games. I have no words really,” said Coventry, presiding over her first Games after her election last year. It was a completely different picture only a few weeks before the start, with organisers scrambling to complete the Santagiulia ice hockey arena as well as the newly built sliding centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo, a hotly debated project throughout preparations due to the cost and tight construction deadlines.
“These have been very challenging, difficult years for a series of circumstances,” the Games chief, Giovanni Malago, said. “We never tried to find alibis. But we are all satisfied.”
Despite vocal IOC opposition, Italy decided midway through preparations in 2023 to build a new sliding centre in Cortina. The IOC had suggested that organisers could shift the competition to another country and an existing sliding centre but the Italian government refused.
It opted instead to build a new one, piling more pressure on the embattled organisers and angering the IOC. A series of protests took place on the day the Games began in the Italian financial capital to oppose the presence of analysts from a department that falls under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while the US vice-president JD Vance, present at the opening ceremony, was booed when shown on the stadium’s big screens.
Such were the IOC’s concerns before the Games that when Malago, an IOC member, ran for a spot on the Olympic body’s executive board on the eve of the opening ceremony, he failed spectacularly.
Around 48 fellow members voted against him in a clear snub. It is extremely rare for an IOC member of a host nation to face such opposition from fellow members prior to staging the Games. But when the Olympics got under way most operations went off without any major problems, surprising organisers. While Olympics traditionally struggle with teething problems or more serious issues that can affect venue operations or even a lack of atmosphere, the Games in Italy did not face a major crisis while the winter weather played along to offer impressive snowy Alpine backdrops.
Initial transport concerns between Milan and the mountain clusters in the Dolomites eased almost instantly, mainly due to the limited number of spectators commuting between the two because of the long travel times that can reach six or seven hours. Most fans chose to stay in either Milan or in the mountains.
The European time zone of the Games also meant increased viewership across the continent and the key market of North America, compared to the previous two winter editions held in Asia.
The Games also got a major boost domestically with Italy picking up 30 medals, including 10 golds by Sunday morning, to make the top five on the medals table, and increased viewership and ticket sales during the Games with several hundred thousand sold during the competitions, to bring the total to about 1.5 million from 1.2 million at the start of the Games.
“Thank you for never ceasing to believing in us,” Malago said. “For supporting us in the most difficult moments and there were not a few. Together we were stronger than any challenge and any adversity.”
Here, we will be looking back at the last two weeks of sporting action and looking ahead to tonight’s closing ceremony. In the meantime, get in touch via the email at the top of the blog and send over your most memorable moment from these Games.
Ice hockey: I will be providing key moments from the men’s ice hockey final but if you want full updates, follow along with Beau Dure in our dedicated live blog.
Summary of the day
If you’re just joining us, here is what has happened so far on the final day of the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympic Games:
Eileen Gu defended her Olympic ski half-pipe title to make it six medals in six events over her Winter Games career. The 22-year-old Gu is already the most decorated freeskier in the short history of the sport at the Olympics. She won the event on the strength of her second run, a clean, technically sound pass and got even better in her final run to finish with a score of 94.75. Her teammate, Li Fanghui, took silver and Zoe Atkin of Britain was third, upping GB’s medal tally to five.
Sweden’s Ebba Andersson surged away from her rivals to secure a commanding win in the 50km classic cross-country ski race, winning the first gold medal in the event on its Olympic debut. It was redemption for Andersson, who suffered a series of falls in the relay that likely cost her team a gold medal. She also has three second-place finishes at Milano Cortina, one earned after an impressive comeback in the relay and individual silvers in the skiathlon and 10km freestyle event.
Germany’s Johannes Lochner collected his second bobsleigh gold of these Games in the four-man event, completing a hugely dominant week for the sliding superpower. Compatriot and double-defending champion Francesco Friedrich took silver but Germany’s hopes of a first-ever clean sweep in the event were spoiled when Michael Vogt snatched bronze for Switzerland on the final run.
Sweden beat Switzerland for women’s curling gold to conclude the sport’s competition at Milano Cortina. It was Sweden’s sixth curling Olympic gold and 13th medal overall the sport, trailing only Canada in both categories. After upsetting top-ranked Canada in the semi-finals Anna Hasselborg’s Sweden defeated Silvana Tirinzoni’s Switzerland 6-5. Canada beat the United States for bronze on Saturday.
Sidney Crosby is out for Canada in the men’s Olympic hockey gold medal game against the United States after a right knee injury. Crosby skated in a closed practice on Saturday. The 38-year-old left Canada’s quarter-final against the Czech Republic and missed the semi-final against Finland. Connor McDavid wears the captain’s “C” again. He leads the tournament with 13 points in five games.
Updated
🥇 Sweden claim women's curling gold against Switzerland
The final stone dislodges Switzerland’s red and there it is. Sweden win 6-5 to win their second Olympic gold eight years on. What a result for Anna Hasselborg and her team!
Curling: Sweden are just hitting their shots perfectly. Switzerland have one last chance to disrupt the yellow stone in the middle …
Curling: Huge end for the Swiss as they score two to level it all up against Sweden – 5-5 as we go to the 10th end.
Updated
Bobsleigh: The Great Britain pilot, Brad Hall, speaks to BBC Sport after a seventh-place finish in the four-man bobsleigh:
It’s very difficult to put into words to be honest. It’s pretty devastating to finish where we did today but we weren’t in the place we wanted to be overnight and we said we were going to come out fighting and do the best we can – and that’s what we feel like we did.
It didn’t work out the way we wanted it to but we have so much to be proud of over the past four years – world championships medals, European champions and World Cup medals as well so, it’s just sucks to end a four-year Olympic period with a result like this. It’s difficult to put into words right now.
Curling: Sweden steal one in the women’s final after an error from Switzerland’s Alina Pätz with the hammer. The Swedes now lead 5-3 with two ends left to make up for it.
Ice hockey: Some big breaking news for the men’s ice hockey final. Canada’s captain, Sidney Crosby is out of the gold-medal game against the United States.
The two-time Olympic champion, will play no part due to an injury sustained in the quarter-final win over the Czech Republic after a heavy hit from the defenceman Radko Gudas. The 38-year-old has two goals and four assists in four games this tournament.
Connor McDavid will continue to wear the ‘C’ in Crosby’s absence.
You can follow our dedicated live blog for the final with Beau Dure below.
Updated
🥇🥈 Germany win one-two in four-man bobsleigh
Gold for Johannes Lochner and his team, as the Beijing 2022 gold and silver medallist pilots swap places in 2026! That is a fifth Olympic gold for Thorsten Margis, part of Lochner’s crew. He won two-man and four-man gold in 2018 and 2022 as part of Friedrich’s team.
Francesco Friedrich (Germany) takes silver and it is bronze for Michael Vogt’s Switzerland sled!
Great Britain’s team comprising pilot Brad Hall, Greg Cackett, Leon Greenwood and Taylor Lawrence finish seventh.
Updated
Thanks Tom and hello all. Let’s see how those medals shake up then …
Right, to see you through to the conclusion of this one is Yara El-Shaboury. I’ll be back in a bit.
Ammour can’t go clean for the Germany third team and that guarantees a bronze for the Swiss! The third German team post a 3mins 38.68secs overall time.
The fourth-place Swiss put down their quickest start and Vogt delivers in the pilot seat. They’ve put the pressure on Ammour’s German unit in the bronze medal position, with an overall time of 3mins 38.64secs.
Big roar for Baumgartner’s crew go for Italy, but they’re losing time all the way down and can’t move up from fifth.
Unfortunately Hall can’t go quicker, it’s not his cleanest run and the British four finish in 55.03 for a total time of 3mins 39.12secs. It looks like a seventh-place finish for Team GB.
Follador’s team for Switzerland go down in 54.94 so their four-run total is 3mins 39.03secs. Brad Hall’s GB team were on the same time ahead of that Swiss run, can they go better?
Now we’re turning our focus back to the bobsleigh. Here’s the top five ahead of the final runs:
Germany (Lochner) - 2mins 42.86secs
Germany (Friedrich) - 2mins 43.34secs (+0.48secs)
Germany (Ammour) - 2mins 43.78secs (+0.92secs)
Switzerland (Vogt) - 2mins 43.87secs (+1.01secs)
Italy (Baumgartner) - 2mins 43.96secs (+1.10secs)
Switzerland and Team GB are joint sixth on 2mins 44.09secs (+1.23secs off the lead)
Quick update on the curling. We’re into the sixth end and the Swedes lead Switzerland 3-1.
For a full look at the updated medal table, hop over to our live page here.
Email from Chris Page:
Gutted for Zoe, but very proud. I think the judges were unnecessarily harsh. But my mind is now turning to the upcoming Paralympics, especially the Wheelchair Curling. It requires even more skill and finesse than the non-disabled variety, as there’s no sweeping involved.
Let me know your thoughts on the action via the link at the top of the page.
Cross country is a mad sport, 49km of gruelling skiing and then a sprint uphill. Super human athletes. Right, here are the final places in the cross country:
Ebba Andersson (SWE)
Heidi Weng (NOR)
Nadja Kälin (CHE)
Here comes Diggins, but she can’t get past Fosnæs on the climb. Kälin still leads this mini-race and is pulling away. It’s bronze for Kälin!
Updated
Nadja Kälin of Switzerland has a little lead going into the last climb and Kristin Austgulen Fosnæs of Norway is just behind her. Jessie Diggins of USA is on their tale, she could go past on this incline.
Norway’s Weng comes in to take silver, who will take bronze? This will comes down to a sprint.
🥇 Sweden's Ebba Andersson wins gold in the 50km cross country
Andersson goes into Klaebo mode on the final climb and enters the stadium all alone. She’s been the silver lady so far in this Games, but now gets her golden moment.
Updated
Taking a brief switch over the cross country, Sweden’s Ebba Andersson has a huge lead with less than 5km to go. She well away for gold and Heidi Weng has a decent gap for second, but the shake up for bronze could be interesting with five athletes all in with a shout.
🥇 Eileen Gu wins gold in the women's halfpipe!
So after a fall on her first run, Gu shows nerves of steel to improve with each of her next two runs. Zoe Atkin led after the first runs but despite improving her score to 92.5 on her final effort she falls just short of Li Fanghui, who bagged silver.
Here are the final standings:
Eileen Gu (CH) 94.75
Li Fanghui (CH) 93
Zoe Atkin (GB) 92.50
Updated
It's bronze for Atkin!
She put it all out there, the height was massive and she lands a switch 900 to finish but the judges only gave her 92.50, meaning she’s 0.50 short of silver. That’s Team GB’s fifth medal of the Games, adding to the three golds and one silver.
Updated
Zoe Atkin goes for gold..
Li Fanghui is guaranteed a medal, will this see her move into gold? It’s clean, technical and greater difficulty than her second run. That’s a 93, meaning Zoe Atkin needs slightly more to move up from bronze.
Indra Brown puts in her best run, she’s a long way off the medals at the moment, but will that change? She goes to 87, for fifth place.
Eileen Gu shuns the 1080 but her run is better than the one that scored 94 but it only improves her scored by 0.75. The task for Zoe Atkin and Li Fanghui is not impossible but is a little bit harder. The BBC boys are surprised that doesn’t score higher.
Zhang Kexin is yet to land a run, but she can put up big scores. Ooooo, that’s the first 1080 we’ve seen in this final and that was an impressive technical run. It wasn’t big on the height and the score of 83.25 reflects that.
What can Amy Fraser do? She’s fourth currently and that’s a big run. There was a lot of switch tricks in there but not a lot of height. It’s good enough for 88 and that won’t win a medal for the Canadian.
Updated
This is good, Svea Irving skipped the second run after a bang on the first run and I thought she was out, instead the American is going to give it a go. Unfortunately she calls it early after fighting the landing on her second trick.
Rachael Karker is next, but she falls coming off her jump. The Canadian’s 79.50 puts her in fifth for now.
There’s no improvement from Mischa Thomas, she finishes with a best of 77.75.
We’re into the third runs and Kate Gray get down her first full run. The American gets a 66.5. Liu Yishan is next and she improves her score to 71.75 but that’s not troubling the podium.
Gu leads after run two!
After getting a huge 5.4m on the first jump she takes a fall halfway down. Such a shame she was looking very good for an improved score. More to come on run three, you hope.
So after the second runs the medal positions are:
Eileen Gu (CH) 94
Li Fanghui (CH) 91.50
Zoe Atkin (GB) 90.50
Updated
Li Fanghui appears to take a bit of a slip coming off her first trick and also misses a grab but again the judges overlook those execution errors because of the technichality on show. The Chinese athlete goes second with a 91.50.
Indra Brown’s second run is better than her first, but only by ten points. Paying for a lack of airtime.
Updated
Gu makes it down this time and even though there’s a missed grab in there it’s still packed full of hits. It’s not got the height of Zeo Atkin’s run, but finishes with back-to-back alley-oops, so how will they score it? Wow 94. Gu goes into gold medal position. We have a final.
Updated
Zhang Kexin is next and is putting together something very impressive before she takes a huge fall. Eileen Gu is next.
Sadly, Svea Irving’s fall in run one has put her out of the rest of the competition.
Rachael Karker of Canada this time manages to land her run and the BBC commentary lads are suprised as she’s given a 79.50 to go ahead of Thomas into fourth.
Amy Fraser, the Canadian sitting second, puts down a similar run to the first and doesn’t improve her score.
Mischa Thomas seems like a character. The New Zealander doesn’t clock it’s her turn to go until the camera switches on to her, before she drops her phone halfway down the run. A camera man grabs it for her as the judges decide she didn’t improve on her first round 77.75.
Kate Gray falls on second run and doesn’t improve her score, then Liu Yishan puts down another clean run, but not one that is massively better than her first.
Zoe Atkin leads after the first run!
That is what the doctor ordered! Huge first trick from Atkin gets 4.5m of air and her average of 2.7m is higher than the peaks achieved by anyone else in the final! Do the judges love it? They do! It’s 90.5, easily the best score so far.
So after the first runs the medal positions are:
Zoe Atkin (GB) 90.50
Amy Frasher (CAN) 85
Li Fanggui (CH) 81.25
Updated
We lost Canada’s Cassie Sharpe to concussion before the final so we move next to Li Fanghui of China. It’s a good one, a lot of switch, which apparently the judges love. That’s an 81.25 and good enough for second. Only Amy Fraser has put down anything of top quality so far, but what can Zoe Atkin do?
Australia’s Indra Brown starts well but loses momentum, it’s a clean run but not the biggest. It’s only a 55.4, but that’s good enough for fourth with the amount of falls we’ve seen so far.
Wow! Eileen Gu goes off next and she pulls up after first trick. Pressure on for the Chinese athlete as she has to score with her second and third runs.
Updated
Zhang Kexin rides more of the pipe backwards than forwards before falling.
That’s better from Amy Fraser. The Canadian is clean and technically really strong, she misses a couple of grabs but that’s the best so far, 85.
We have more falls as Canada’s Rachael Karker and then Team USA’s Svea Irving both hit the deck. This final was postponed from last night due to heavy snow so these conditions are not easy.
Liu Yishan, the first of the four Chinese athletes, is clean but not the highest scoring at 70. Mischa Thomas is next for New Zealand, the BBC commentary boys like it (when do they not?), and it’s good enough for a 77.75.
It’s not her best, with a stumble on the last trick for a 44.55. She has two more runs to improve that score.
First to put down a run is America’s Kate Gray…
Updated
We’re heading over to Livigno shortly for the women’s halfpipe. Team GB’s Zoe Atkin qualified first but there is plenty of competition, not least from China’s Eileen Gu.
Some big news coming out of the 50km women’s cross-country skiing, with Frida Karlsson pulling out. The Swede was the gold meal favourite having won the skiathlon and the 10km intervals, as well as a silver in 4x7.5km relay.
The Americans have a disaster run there. They’ve lost more than a second, largely as a result of a huge tap and fishtail coming out of the start ramp. They’ll be tumbling down the rankings. I’ll have those standings in full later ahead of the fourth and final runs.
Updated
Brad Hall’s Team GB are next. They get off quick with 4.78 start but with perfection required this is a little short. There are a couple of errors in turns one and two, with speed not picking up further down the course.
The time of 54.66secs is much better than their second run (55.04) but Lochner’s team is further off in the distance, 1.23secs ahead. Team GB are only 0.31 seconds behind third-placed Ammour’s third-place German crew but that’s a lot to ask in one run.
Updated
The Swiss are less clean with their run, but they post their second-quickest time (54.69) which sees them lose ground on the team above them.
The Swiss are down in 54.55, quicker than Ammour’s sled in the third run but not quick enough to move up into the medal positions. Neither can the Italians, who get down in a tidy fashion but a lack of speed out of the gate sees them post a 54.57 and remain a couple of hundredths off bronze.
Next up… more Germans. Adam Ammour is the pilot for this one and that is (relatively) less impressive than his rivals. That run opens the door for the bronze medal spot, they’re 0.96 behind Lochner’s crew.
Lochner’s team start 0.6secs faster than Lochner’s team but he’s losing time further down the track and the 54.30secs finishing time means the time advantage for the leaders grows to 0.48secs.
Updated
We’re straight into it with the four-man bobsleigh. The leaders, the Johannes Lochner’s German crew are down in 54.25, not his best but not far off. Now what can Francesco Friedrich do with Germany’s second-place team?
Preamble
This is the end, sadly. Day 16 is here and with it, the closing ceremony. But that’s later and for now we still have a final few events to tick off, with medals to be handed out.
One of those medals may even go the way of Team GB’s Zoe Atkin, in the delayed women’s ski halfpipe final. Before that we have the final runs in the men’s four-man bobsleigh, where – unsurprisingly – Germany lead and also sit in silver medal position. Brad Hall’s British crew are seventh.
Later on we have what the second installment of what is argualy the most gruelling event in the whole Games, the 50km cross-country ski mass start. After Johannes Høsflot Klæbo won his sixth gold of the Games in the men’s event yesterday, today it is the turn of the women to push themselves uphill on skis for more than two hours (sounds fun).
Another high-profile event concludes today with a showstopper of a final in the men’s ice-hockey as the USA take on Canada in a re-run of the feisty Four Nations finale from last year.
Canada beat the USA for bronze in the women’s curling yesterday and the gold medal match starts just after midday, with Switzlerland facing Sweden.
I think that’s everything covered off, shall we get into it?
