Winter Olympics briefing: Leerdam lights up the ice but Britain’s medal wait goes on

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You couldn’t move for orange jumpers and coats in Milan’s speed skating stadium on Monday. Even the king was wearing one. Many Dutch people live for this sport in winter, when their waterways can freeze over, making it often more convenient to skate than walk.

Femke Kok has won the last three world titles over 500m. In November she broke the world record over that distance. On Monday she lined up alongside the 1,000m world record-holder, the 37-year-old Brittany Bowe, leaving her trailing in her wake and broke the Olympic record for good measure. King Willem-Alexander pumped his fists like a madman.

Everybody’s favourite YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul was also in the stands, cheering on his fiancee Jutta Leerdam, who won 1,000m silver for the Netherlands in Beijing four years ago. She was last on the ice this time and down on Kok’s splits for the first couple of laps before storming back against Japan’s Miho Takagi. Leerdam emptied the tank and burst over the line, stripping Kok of her Olympic record and the gold in the process. The effort was exhausting. “I couldn’t really stand, I couldn’t really see, I couldn’t do anything,” Leerdam said.

Jake Paul (left) and Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands (right) celebrate.

With Milano Cortina officials investigating why Olympic medals keep breaking, Great Britain’s quest for one fell away again. The margins could not have been finer for Kirsty Muir, whose final attempt in freeski slopestyle landed her just 0.41 points adrift of Canada’s Megan Oldham and bronze. “I’m in a bit of a hole right now,” an emotional Muir said. There’s always the ski big air.

In the snowboard big air, Mia Brookes went all or nothing, attempting a backside 1620 on her final jump which would probably have won gold. She couldn’t quite land it and ended up fourth. There’s always the snowboard slopestyle. Kokomo Murase of Japan landed a frontside triple cork 1440 to earn the title.

Mia Brookes jumps next to the floodlights.

Over in Cortina, Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat were no match for Sweden’s brother-and-sister team of Rasmus and Isabella Wranå in the mixed doubles curling semi-finals. The British pair won eight out of nine round-robin matches, but can only hope for bronze now.

Heated rivalries: Swiss skiers see off noisy neighbours again

Having muscled in on the men’s downhill podium, Italy took the fight to Switzerland’s skiers again in the new combined team event on Monday. Giovanni Franzoni, the silver medallist on Saturday, threw down the gauntlet by going faster than the gold medallist, Franjo von Allmen, and Marco Odermatt in the morning session at Stelvio.

Switzerland entered four teams – one-fifth of the field – in the combined and where their downhill stars trailed, their slalom skiers prevailed. Tanguy Nef, in the words of Von Allmen, “nailed” his slalom and lifted them from fourth to top of the standings. It left Italy’s Alex Vinatzer, paired with Franzoni, to provide a grandstand finish but he could not rise to the occasion, his slalom time dropping them all the way down to seventh. There was no Italian representation on a podium that was two-thirds Swiss. Franzoni tried his best to hide his disappointment.

Franjo von Allmen runs towards Tanguy Nef.

As it stands

The emoji medal table has gained lots of new members. Norway didn’t even win a medal on Monday, by the way.

1 🇳🇴 Norway 🥇 3 🥈 1 🥉 2 – Total: 6
2 🇨🇭 Switzerland 🥇 3 🥈 1 🥉 1 – Total: 5
3 🇯🇵 Japan 🥇 2 🥈 2 🥉 3 – Total: 7
4 🇩🇪 Germany 🥇 2 🥈 1 🥉 1 – Total: 4
5 🇺🇸 United States 🥇 2 🥈 0 🥉 0 – Total: 2
6 🇦🇹 Austria 🥇 1 🥈 3 🥉 0 – Total: 3
7 🇮🇹 Italy 🥇 1 🥈 2 🥉 6 – Total: 9
8 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 🥇 1 🥈 1 🥉 0 – Total: 2
8 🇫🇷 France 🥇 1 🥈 1 🥉 0 – Total: 2
8 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 1 🥈 1 🥉 0 – Total: 2
8 🇸🇪 Sweden 🥇 1 🥈 1 🥉 0 – Total: 2
12 🇨🇳 China 🥇 0 🥈 1 🥉 1 – Total: 2
12 🇰🇷 South Korea 🥇 0 🥈 1 🥉 1 – Total: 2
14 🇳🇿 New Zealand 🥇 0 🥈 1 🥉 0 – Total: 1
14 🇵🇱 Poland 🥇 0 🥈 1 🥉 0 – Total: 1
14 🇸🇮 Slovenia 🥇 0 🥈 1 🥉 0 – Total: 1
17 🇨🇦 Canada 🥇 0 🥈 0 🥉 2 – Total: 2
18 🇧🇬 Bulgaria 🥇 0 🥈 0 🥉 1 – Total: 1

Picture of the day

Vladyslav Heraskevych trains for the skeleton wearing a helmet with images of victims of the war in Ukraine.

What to look out for today

Times are all in local time in Milan and Cortina. For Sydney it is +10 hours, for London it is -1 hour, for New York it is -6 hours and San Francisco it is -9 hours.

Cross-country skiing – 9.15am to 13.25pm🥇: Follow the sprint classic, both men’s and women’s, through the qualifying rounds all the way to the final. Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is in action.
Alpine skiing – 10.30am, 2pm🥇: The women’s team combined event consists of downhill in the morning and slalom in the afternoon.
Freestyle skiing – 12.30pm🥇: Rails, tubes and jumps await in the men’s freeski slopestyle final.
Biathlon – 1.30pm🥇: France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet is the defending champions in the men’s 20km individual event.
Curling – 2.05pm🥉, 6.05pm🥇: The mixed doubles medals are handed out, with Great Britain going for bronze against Italy. Sweden and USA contest the gold.
Luge – 5pm, 6.34pm🥇: Germany’s Julia Taubitz leads the way heading into the third and fourth runs of the women’s singles.
Ski jump – 8pm🥇: Brother and sister duo of Peter and Nika Prevc try to defend Slovenia’s mixed team title from 2022.
Ice hockey – 12.10pm, 4.40pm, 8.10pm, 9.10pm: The standout women’s fixture of the day is the heavyweight clash between USA and Canada at 8.10pm.

The last word

Italy’s substitutes pour on to the ice after their quarter-final place is confirmed.

We wanted to shoot for the highest. Quarter-finals was something on our radar and we believed that we could do it. Nobody else did. Nobody even thought we’d win a game here. And to be able to say: ‘Today we created history’, going to the quarter-finals is magical – Italy’s Laura Fortino revels in a 3-2 win against Japan that booked the hosts’ last-eight spot in the women’s ice hockey. Italy are ranked 17th in the world.

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