The Guardian’s photographer Tom Jenkins was at the Milano Ice Skating Arena to capture the ice dance session of the figure skating team event:
Up next are the US pair of Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea who are skating to a cover Hallelujah. Like the Brits, the US pair are let down on the Salchow and will be requiring powers from above now. It’s a 66.59, which keeps them in first, but up next are favourites Japan.
It’s a disappointing run from the British pair who started well but Digby and Vaipan-Law’s triple Salchow goes awry. Without the additional technichal elements to boost their score, it’s a below par 57.29 for the Brits.
Pope urges nations to respect Olympic Truce as ‘instrument of hope’
Pope Leo XIV on Friday urged nations to respect the tradition of the Olympic Truce as an ‘instrument of hope’, ahead of the opening ceremony of the Winter Games in Italy.
‘On the occasion of the upcoming Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, I wholeheartedly encourage all nations to rediscover and respect this instrument of hope that is the Olympic Truce, a symbol and promise of a reconciled world,’ the US pontiff said in a letter on the value of sport.
UN member states last November adopted a resolution urging international conflicts be paused during the Olympics – an ideal embraced in principle every two years yet regularly ignored.
In the eight-page document, released by the Vatican ahead of Friday night’s ceremony at Milan’s San Siro stadium, Leo reflected on the benefits of sport – and the risks of its corruption.
He stressed the importance of making sports accessible to everyone – and warned of the risks that it becomes solely about business, or exploited for political means.
‘When sport succumbs to the mentality of power, propaganda or national supremacy, its universal vocation is betrayed,’ the pope wrote.
‘Major sporting events are meant to be places of encounter and mutual admiration, not stages for the affirmation of political or ideological interests.’
Modelled on a millennia-old Greek tradition, the Olympic Truce has been introduced at the UN biennially since 1993 by the host country. In theory, for these Games it began 30th January and is in place until 15th March after the conclusion of the Paralympics.
Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has led to a range of sporting bans for Russian and Belarusian athletes, inluding at Milano Cortina 2026.
Reporting by AFP
With the live sport we’re still on the ice but this time from Milan with the figure skating team event. British skaters Anastasia Vaipan-Law and Luke Digby are out warming up currently, but it’s the US and Japan who are favourites for this event.
Ever wondered about the origins of curling stones?
The ancient sport of curling requires the best materials to make the best stones – the granite from an uninhabited island in Scotland. Check out this archive gallery from Andrew Buchanan who went to see how the stones were produced:
Anti-ICE protestors take to the streets in Milan
Hundreds of people are protesting in Milan against the presence of U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at the Winter Olympics.
Carrying banners reading “ICE out”, “Fuck ICE” and those criticising US vice president JD Vance and secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who are in Milan for the olympics, the protesters, mostly students, gathered in Piazzale Leonardo da Vinci, in front of a building of the Politecnico University in the eastern part of the city.
More protests are planned on Friday afternoon and again on Saturday involving a variety of activists groups, including pro-Palestinian, environmental campaigners and students fighting for affordable housing.
Vance is due to meet the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, on Friday.
The US state department said last week that several federal agencies, including ICE, will be at the Olympics to help protect visiting Americans.
Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, said ICE’s investigative arm would be involved in the security detail and not its operational unit. Piantedosi said on Wednesday that the agency’s role would be operational and that its presence “is certainly not a sudden, unilateral initiative squeezing our national sovereignty”.
Schools were closed in central Milan on Friday while access to traffic was blocked in some areas as Milan bolstered security in the city ahead of the opening ceremony at San Siro stadium on Friday night.
Team GB beat Sweden 7-4!
Unable to score in the final end, Sweden accept their fate and shake hands to give Team GB the win. Dodds and Mouat remain unbeaten ahead of their meeting with South Korea later.
The Canadian only managed to score a single in the eighth end, meaning they go down 5-7 to the US pair.
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Sweden have the hammer in the final end, but trail by three after GB scored a single. The Swedes will need something miraculous to take this one. Maybe the Wranå siblings should look across the ice at the US team who just managed a three-point end against Canada to take control of that match. The Americans now lead 7-4 going into the eighth and final end.
Unsurprisingly, Italy have won their match with Switzerland, that one finished 12-4. Sweden can only score a single with the hammer, so GB lead 6-4 with two ends remaining. US v Canada is 4-4.
A better end for GB with the hammer there, they picked up a couple of points with the hammer and now lead 6-3 in the sixth end. Elsewhere, Italy have a 10-4 lead over Switzerland, but it’s still tight in the US v Canada match, the Americans lead 4-3.
Team GB chief predicts ‘most potent’ Winter Games ever with sights set on eight medals
Team GB have never made anything more than the occasional ripple at the Winter Olympics. Which makes the prediction of Eve Muirhead, Britain’s chef de mission at the Milano Cortina Games, rather extraordinary.
“I believe that we are taking one of the most potent teams of athletes that we have taken to a Winter Olympic Games,” she says. “We have the capability to disrupt the norm.”
That norm, between 1952 and 2010, was just 12 medals in 16 Winter Games. Then came a surge, with five medals in Sochi in 2014 and five in Pyeongchang in 2018, before Britain won just two medals in Beijing. But Muirhead, who led the women’s curling team to Team GB’s only gold four years ago, senses that new ground will be broken by the 53 British athletes over the next 16 days.
“I see a set of athletes with a real pedigree in terms of recent results in the winter circuit,” she says. “And while we are a nation that already punches well above our weight, given the relative lack of snow and ice, I believe this team has the potential to really disrupt the natural order of big winter nations.”
Read Sean Ingle’s full story from Milan:
Sweden have struck back in the curling. Jen Dodds’ hammer stone clipped the guard and did not manage to get into a scoring position, giving the Swedes a two-point steal, it’s 4-3.
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Vonn ready for first Olympic downhill training run in Cortina
Lindsey Vonn inspected the Olympic downhill course with other racers early this morning as she prepared to take part in the opening training session despite tearing the ACL in her left knee a week ago.
The 41-year-old Vonn is planning to compete at the Milan Cortina Games with a large brace covering her injured knee.
She had a partial titanium replacement inserted in her right knee in 2024 and then returned to ski racing last season after nearly six years of retirement. She crashed during the final World Cup downhill before the Olympics in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Vonn, who holds the record of 12 World Cup wins in Cortina, has two sessions of open training remaining – Friday and Saturday – before Sunday’s downhill race. Thursday’s session was cancelled due to heavy snowfall.
Reporting courtesy of AFP
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There are a couple more matches currently on the ice in Cortina. Italy are narrowly trailing Switzerland 3-4 and the US have a 3-1 lead against Canada.
Isabella Wranå drops her final stone short and Sweden only score. Another missed opportunity and GB have a chance to extend their lead in the fourth end. The Brits lead 4-2.
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GB’s curling mixed doubles pair have started well against Sweden. Dodds and Mouat have raced into a 4-0 lead in the third end. The Swedes have a chance to score with the hammer here, but the sibling duo Isabella and Rasmus Wranå have struggled so far.
Struggling to understand ‘Penisgate’? The story first emerged in the German newspaper Bild and is gathering a head of steam. Natasha May has produced a helpful explainer to get to the bottom of it:
‘Penis injection’ claims in Winter Olympics ski jumping investigated by Wada
During its 26-year history, the World Anti-Doping Agency has faced thousands of questions about athletes using illicit substances. Thursday, however, surely marked the first time it was asked whether ski jumpers were injecting their penises with hyaluronic acid in order to fly further.
The Wada president Witold Banka’s reaction? “Ski jumping is very popular in Poland [Banka’s home country] so I promise you I’m going to look at it,” he said, with a wry smile.
As crazy as it sounds, there are broader concerns surrounding this issue – which has been dubbed “Penisgate” – after they were first reported by the German newspaper Bild.
Last year two of Norway’s Olympic medallists, Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang, were given three-month suspensions after the team was found to have secretly adjusted the seams of their suits around the crotch area at the 2025 World Ski Championships.
Norway’s head coach Magnus Brevik, assistant coach Thomas Lobben, and staff member Adrian Livelten were also banned for 18 months for their involvement in the scheme, which made the jumpers’ suits larger and therefore reduced their descent rate due to the bigger wingspan.
Is the new USA Dream Team a group of figure skaters?
This morning, inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena, the United States will launch their defense of the Olympic figure skating team title carrying something rare in a sport usually defined by individual brilliance: overwhelming depth. Which raises a question that, until recently, would have sounded almost absurd in figure skating.
Is the new USA Dream Team a group of figure skaters?
Not only because they could leave Milan with a medal haul worthy of comparison to the 1984 US boxing team or the 1996 US women’s track and field squad. But because of something more: the chance this group could push figure skating beyond its traditional audience and back into the center of the sporting conversation, much like the US men’s basketball team did at the 1992 Summer Olympics.
Bryan will be covering he events at the Milano Ice Skating Arena this morning and you can read the rest of his figure skating preview here:
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We are curling!
Team GB’s doubles match with Sweden is underway in Cortina. Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds have won their first three matches of the round robin stage already. They can add two more today as they also play South Korea later.
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You can follow all of our Winter Olympics coverage in a dedicated section of Big Website and the Guardian app too. One of the best features is the live schedule, which updates with all of the scores from the events currently taking place.
Find that here:
Preamble
Hello and welcome to our daily Winter Olympics live coverage. There is a smattering of action across the Olympic venues in northern Italy today, ahead of tonight’s opening ceremony at San Siro in Milan and we’ll be bringing you all of it. Team GB are on the ice in the curling with Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds in doubles acton against Sweden at 9.05am (GMT), then their second match of the day a bit later on South Korea. I’ll be providing updates on both of those matches.
Sean Ingle, Andy Bull and Bryan Armen Graham will be reporting from on the ground in Italy, but we would also like to hear from you too. Get in touch via the email link at the top of the page.
I’m a big fan of becoming a two-week expert in a sport I watch every four years, usually that’s one of the cross-country skiing events but I’ll go where the icy wind takes me. How about you, reader? What event are you looking forward to?
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