2 hours ago
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High above the jagged peaks of the Italian Alps, Mikaela Shiffrin stood at the top of the podium once again. After eight long years without an Olympic medal, the American produced two sublime runs to win the women’s slalom by a commanding 1.50sec – the third-largest margin of victory in Olympic history for the event. In doing so, she became the first American skier to claim three Olympic alpine gold medals and further cemented her status as the greatest alpine skier of her generation.
The setting in the Dolomites was spectacular. The skiing was even better. Leading by 0.82sec after a blistering first run, Shiffrin held her nerve in the second, overcoming a brief wobble to deliver a performance no rival could touch. When she crossed the finish line, the release of emotion was immediate. The Swiss silver medallist Camille Rast and Sweden’s bronze medallist Anna Swenn Larsson embraced her before she shared a long, tearful hug with her mother and coach, Eileen.
The road to her third Olympic gold has been topsy-turvy to say the least, with many highs and lows on the snow since Pyeongchang 2018. Away from the sport, Shiffrin’s father died unexpectedly in 2020. He was in her thoughts as the gold medal hung around her neck in Milano Cortina.
“This was a moment I have dreamed about. I’ve also been very scared of this moment,” Shiffrin said. “Everything in life that you do after you lose someone you love is like a new experience. It’s like being born again. I still have so many moments where I resist this. I don’t want to be in life without my dad. Maybe today was the first time that I could actually accept this reality.”
In Livigno, the spotlight turned to snowboarding – and to a birthday celebration for the ages. Su Yiming delivered China’s first gold medal of these Games, capturing the men’s slopestyle title on his 22nd birthday.
His opening run score of 82.41 proved untouchable in an error-strewn final where he was the only rider of 12 finalists to complete all three runs cleanly. Japan’s Taiga Hasegawa took silver, while the American Jake Canter earned bronze.
The wait at the bottom of the course was agonising for Su. One by one, rivals failed to top his mark. Tears of sadness streamed down his face – thinking he had not done well enough – before they turned into tears of joy.
“I just started realising this is my last run of [these] Olympics,” Su said. “It just came into my head … today is my birthday, my parents and coaches are here to support me … the emotions came and I just can’t stop crying.”
China’s golden day continued just two hours later as Xu Mengtao defended her women’s aerials title. At 35 years old, the five-time Olympian produced a stunning final jump scored at 112.90 – ahead of Australia’s Danielle Scott and teammate Shao Qi – in a sport that demands gravity-defying acrobatics off a near-vertical ramp at speeds exceeding 60kmp/h.
“I have been practising this sport for 31 years,” Xu said. “I have always been confident, optimistic and with this fighting spirit. My coach and my team know that Mengtao usually thinks that being No 2 is not a good performance.”
On the curling sheets in Cortina, Bruce Mouat and Great Britain’s men’s team now play a waiting game. Facing elimination, they produced a commanding 9-2 victory over the US, capitalising on an early error from the American skip, Daniel Casper, to seize control.
With Italy and Norway losing their respective matches to Canada and Switzerland, GB now need results to go their way in today’s morning session, when Italy face Switzerland and Norway take on Canada.
“We’re doing a lot of good things, so we’re just having to hope for other results to go our way now,” Mouat said. “It’s looking all right for us at the minute but it’s hard to be in that position when you’re out of control.”
As it stands
The Dutch are back into the top five while China finally win a couple of golds.
1 🇳🇴 Norway 🥇 15 🥈 8 🥉 10 – Total: 33
2 🇮🇹 Italy 🥇 9 🥈 5 🥉 12 – Total: 26
3 🇺🇸 United States 🥇 7 🥈 11 🥉 6 – Total: 24
4 🇫🇷 France 🥇 6 🥈 7 🥉 4 – Total: 17
5 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 6 🥈 7 🥉 2 – Total: 15
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12 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 3 🥈 2 🥉 1 – Total: 6
13 🇬🇧 Great Britain 🥇 3 🥈 0 🥉 0 – Total: 3
14 🇨🇳 China 🥇 2 🥈 3 🥉 4 – Total: 9
Picture of the day
Further reading from the Guardian
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Mikaela Shiffrin overcame grief, crashes and self-doubt to win gold again
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Soft toys and a jagged edge: how Russia is circling the Winter Olympics
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From cursing curlers to comeback: is Canada on the turnaround after slow start?
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Ukraine officials to boycott Paralympics opening ceremony over Russian athletes
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Ukraine skeleton racer gifted $200,000 by Shakhtar owner after ban
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.
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Curling – 9.05am, 2.05pm, 7.05pm: the men’s and women’s round robin matches continue before the men’s semi-finals in the late session.
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Ski mountaineering – 1.55pm🥇, 2.15pm🥇: SkiMo makes its Olympic debut starting with the women’s and men’s sprint events.
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Nordic combined – 2pm🥇: in the team competition, two athletes each jump from the large hill before the 2 x 7.5km cross-country relay.
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Ice hockey – 2.40pm🥉, 7.10pm🥇: Switzerland take on Sweden in the women’s bronze medal match before the US and Canada fight for gold.
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Freestyle skiing – 2pm🥇: China are favourites in the men’s aerials finals as favourites after sweeping top three in the World Cup standings.
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Speed skating – 4.30pm🥇: Will Jordan Stolz of the US get a gold hat-trick in the men’s 1500m?
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Figure skating – 7pm🥇: the world champion, Alysa Liu is targeting gold in the women’s free skate but faces stiff competition from Kaori Sakamoto of Japan and Adeliia Petrosian of
Russianeutrality.
The last word
This is the Olympic Games. This is the best of the best. This is why all the players want to come to this, because they want to show who they are and they want to flex. If you think you’re rolling through this tournament, you’re sorely mistaken. Yes, we like the fact that we won the first three games and didn’t have to play a qualification game. Hell yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to keep on winning. It doesn’t mean, because you got the maple leaf on your jersey that, ‘Hey, oh my gosh, you’re gonna be first.’ You’ve got to work to that. The guys in there know it – Jon Cooper, Canada’s men’s ice hockey coach after his team rallied to secure a place in the final four. Mitch Marner scored the winner in overtime that lifted the favourites past the Czech Republic in a quarter-final thriller.
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