FIGURE SKATING
Pair breaks own record
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were leading the ice dance competition Monday at the Pyeongchang Olympics after a record-breaking short program set to the rock music of the Rolling Stones, the Eagles and Santana. The Canadian duo scored 83.67 points to lead their training partners and biggest rivals, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, by more than a point heading into Tuesday’s free dance. The French couple appeared a bit thrown off by Papadakis’s costume, which came unhooked at the neck during their program. They held things together despite the wardrobe malfunction and scored 81.93 points, and now will rely on their stronger free dance Tuesday to track down the leaders. Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue of the U.S. are third, two-hundredths of a point ahead of their compatriots, Alex and Maia Shibutani. Fellow Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates are seventh.
MEN’S GIANT SLALOM
Austrian wins 2nd gold
Marcel Hirscher won the Olympic men’s giant slalom on Sunday. It’s his second gold medal at the Pyeongchang Games. The 28-year-old Austrian star extended his first-run lead to win by a huge margin of 1.27 seconds over hard-charging Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway. Kristoffersen rose from 10th-fastest in the morning. Bronze medalist Alexis Pinturault of France finished 1.31 behind Hirscher’s two-run time of 2 minutes, 18.04 seconds. Hirscher can complete a sweep of three individual titles in his best event, the slalom, which is scheduled for Thursday. Hirscher also won the Alpine combined Tuesday. Pinturault took silver in that race.
MEN’S BIATHLON
Fourcade wins photo finish
France’s Martin Fourcade beat Germany’s Simon Schempp in a dramatic photo finish in the 15-kilometer mass start Sunday to win his second gold medal of the Pyeongchang Olympics. Schempp caught Fourcade over the frantic final 100 meters and the two skiers came to the line neck-and-neck. Fourcade, the world’s No. 1 biathlete, reached out his left foot ahead of Schempp as both skiers slid through the finish line. Fourcade quickly slammed his ski pole to the ground thinking he’d lost the race, but replays showed he won by the narrowest of margins. It was something of a turnaround for Fourcade, who had taken silver in a dramatic finish to the same event in Sochi four years ago. Emil Hegle Svendsen took bronze.
MEN’S CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING
Norway races to top
Norway has continued its dominance in cross-country skiing by winning the gold medal in the men’s 4x10-kilometer relay. The team of Didrik Toenseth, Martin Johnsrud Sundby, Simen Hegstad Krueger and Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo won the race in 1 hour, 33 minutes and 4.9 seconds to beat the second-place Russian athletes by 9.4 seconds. France captured the bronze. Norway has now won five of the eight gold medals awarded in cross-country at the Pyeongchang Games, and 11 medals overall. The record for most gold medals in cross-country in a single Olympic Games is 13, set by the Soviet Union in Calgary in 1988. Krueger battled back from 24.5 seconds down at the midway point of the race to give Norway the lead. Klaebo took it from there, pulling away from Russian anchor Denis Spitsov in the final 1 1/2 kilometers to deny the Russians their first Pyeongchang gold medal.
MEN’S SLOPESTYLE SKIING
Norwegian victorious
Norway’s Oystein Braaten has captured the gold medal in ski slopestyle at the Pyeongchang Olympics, far outdistancing American Gus Kenworthy, who failed to land any of his three runs and came in last. Braaten edged out American Nick Goepper, who added a silver medal to the bronze he won four years ago in Sochi. Canadian Alex Beaulieu-Marchand took the bronze. The buzz for this event swirled around Kenworthy, who came out as gay about two years after capturing the silver medal in Russia and has since become a strong voice in the LGBT community. With family and boyfriend Matt Wilkas watching, Kenworthy bobbled all three runs in the finals. After the last one, he shrugged, shook his head and said “It’s OK” to the TV cameras before walking off the course.
MEN’S CURLING
Bad day for U.S.
After throwing his first shot of the eighth end, John Shuster began walking up the ice and slipped. The skip managed to avoid a spill, but that near-fall underscored how treacherous the ice was for the U.S. men’s curling team Sunday. The day started with an 8-2 loss to Japan, conceded by the Americans after seven ends. It ended in similar fashion, as Shuster’s team fell 8-5 to Norway and conceded after nine ends. That left the Americans (2-4) in a three-way tie for seventh place in the 10-team tournament, with only three round-robin games remaining to try and secure a playoff berth. The U.S. had Saturday off after going 2-2 in its first four games. It was overwhelmed by Japan in Sunday’s morning session, dropping its record to 2-3 when it could not get a good feel for the ice. Shuster struggled mightily throughout the game, shooting only 54 percent. Japan shot a red-hot 91 percent for the game, and the U.S. conceded after seven ends.
WOMEN’S SPEEDSKATING
Olympic record set
Nao Kodaira of Japan has won the women’s 500-meter speedskating gold medal in 36.94 seconds, an Olympic record. Kodaira became the first woman to race under 37 seconds at sea level, bettering her old mark of 37.07 set in November in Norway. Two-time defending champion Lee Sang-hwa of South Korea took silver in 37.33. Karolina Ervanova of the Czech Republic earned bronze in 37.34. Brittany Bowe was the highest U.S. finisher in fifth place. Teammate Heather Bergsma was 11th, while Erin Jackson finished 24th out of 31 skaters in her Olympic debut.
WOMEN’S CURLING
Canadians coming back
Canada’s women curlers are fighting their way back from a shocking string of losses at the Pyeongchang Olympics. The Canadians nabbed an 8-3 victory over Japan today in the women’s round robin. Japan conceded the game early after a strong performance from the Canadians left them with little chance of catching up. Canada’s women curlers are the defending world champions and came into the games as the favorite to win gold. But they fell to last place in the standings after losing their first three games. Today’s game marks their third consecutive victory, putting them in fourth place in the rankings. Korea and Sweden are now tied for first place in the women’s rankings, followed by Japan.
Brit hogs rock; Swedes win
Defending Olympic bronze medalist Eve Muirhead picked a bad time to hog a rock for the first time. On her final stone of the first extra-end in the women’s tournament on Sunday, the British skip failed to let go before the rock crossed over the hog line. It was removed from play, setting up Swedish skip Anna Hasselborg with a much easier shot for the 8-6 victory. Olympic curling stones contain a sensor that lights up green if the handle is released in time, or red if it isn’t. The rock was tested to make sure that sensor was working correctly, but there is no other review process. Muirhead said she doesn’t think she’s ever committed a hog line violation before.
WOMEN’S SPEEDSKATING
Olympic record set
Nao Kodaira of Japan has won the women’s 500-meter speedskating gold medal in 36.94 seconds, an Olympic record. Kodaira became the first woman to race under 37 seconds at sea level, bettering her old mark of 37.07 set in November in Norway. Two-time defending champion Lee Sang-hwa of South Korea took silver in 37.33. Karolina Ervanova of the Czech Republic earned bronze in 37.34. Brittany Bowe was the highest U.S. finisher in fifth place. Teammate Heather Bergsma was 11th, while Erin Jackson finished 24th out of 31 skaters in her Olympic debut.
MEN’S HOCKEY
U.S. faces Slovakia in qualification round
The U.S. men’s hockey team, which finished third in its preliminary-round group in the Olympic tournament, will face Slovakia in a qualification round game Tuesday at Gangneung Hockey Centre. The winner will advance to a quarterfinal matchup against the Czech Republic on Wednesday.
The winner of each of the three groups and the team with the second-best record received byes to the quarterfinals. The Czechs won Group A, the Olympic Athletes from Russia won Group B, and Sweden won Group C. Canada had the best record among the second-place teams.
Slovakia finished fourth, one place behind the U.S., in preliminary-round play in Group B. The two teams met in the first round, with the U.S. winning 2-1 on a pair of power-play goals scored by Ryan Donato, one of four college players on the U.S. roster. That was the U.S. team’s only victory in the first round; Coach Tony Granato’s team lost to the Olympic Athletes from Russia, 4-0, and lost to Slovenia 3-2 in overtime.
In the other qualification round matchups, Slovenia will face Norway, with the winner to face the Olympic Athletes from Russia in the quarterfinals; Finland will face Korea, with the winner to face Canada in the quarterfinals, and Switzerland will face Germany for the right to face Sweden in the quarterfinals.
The semifinals will be played on Friday. The bronze medal match is scheduled for Saturday and the gold medal game is scheduled for Sunday.
Sports on 02/19/2018