Ledecka seals snowboard and ski double
US curlers claim breakthrough victory
>> PYEONGCHANG: Ester Ledecka made history with an unprecedented snowboard and skiing double yesterday, while Norway’s all-conquering team set a new record for medals at a Winter Olympics.
As President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka descended on the Games in Pyeongchang, world champion Ledecka reigned supreme with a confident victory in the women’s parallel giant slalom.
It came after last week’s shock super-G win for Ledecka, daughter of a Czech rock star and composer, who has stunned ski purists and confounded logic by taking gold in two very different events.
With yesterday’s win, Ledecka joins Thorleif Haug and Johan Groettumsbraten as the only athletes to achieve a multi-sport double at the Winter Games. Both Norwegians won in cross-country and Nordic combined.
As Ledecka rewrote the rules, Norway took bronze in the inaugural alpine skiing team event to reach 38 medals, breaking the record of 37 set by the United States in 2010.
Norway, led by their peerless cross-country skiers, have enjoyed a barnstorming Olympics. One day before the closing ceremony, they top the table with Germany on 13 golds, but with a vastly superior overall medals total.
Norway’s haul was also boosted when Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten were promoted t o bronze in the mixed doubles curling, after Russia’s Alexander Krushelnitsky failed a drugs test.
In-form Wendy Holdener led Switzerland to victory in the new team ski event, with Austria taking silver ahead of Norway with the bronze.
With one day to go, Ivo Niskanen won Finland’s first gold medal in Pyeongchang in the men’s 50km cross-country skiing.
While neighbours Norway sit top of the table, it hasn’t been such a successful Games for the Finns, who started yesterday with a haul of four bronze medals.
But Niskanen attacked early — less than 20km into the race — and held off the competition to win by 18.7sec from Russians Alexander Bolshunov and Andrey Larkov.
“I wanted to win a gold medal over this distance and it has been a long four years,” said the Sochi 2014 team sprint gold medallist.
“But I handled the pressure and everything went perfectly today so that’s the result now.”
Finland’s Krista Parmakoski already has two bronze medals at this Games, while Enni Rukajarvi was third in the women’s slopestyle and the Finnish women were bronzemedallists in the ice hockey.
Trump’s whirlwind Olympic schedule included the men’s big air snowboard final, another inaugural event, where Canada’s Sebastien Toutant won gold.
America’s Kyle Mack took silver in big air but there was a bigger treat for Trump at the curling, where the men’s team — a surprise hit back home — beat Sweden 10-7 to win the title for the first time.
“It feels almost unbelievable, but we came out here with great intensity and just had to believe we could do it, and make our shots,” said America’s Matt ‘Ham’ Hamilton.
“It was a good game, I have no complaints about it. I’m just happy we were able to start strong and not allow them to get away from us early. We were able to find a rhythm and really start to put some pressure on them.”
RUSSIA AWAIT DECISION
Doping-scarred Russia’s bid to return to the Olympic fold in time for the Pyeongchang Winter Games closing ceremony will go down to the wire after the executive board of the IOC failed to reach a decision yesterday.
Star figure skater Evgenia Med– vedeva led a charm offensive to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board, hoping to convince them to let the Russian flag fly at today’s ceremony.
But after three-and-a-half hours of talks, the executive board failed to come to a decision about lifting the ban on Russia, and were set to resume discussions early this morning.
“The meeting is over tonight and no decision has been taken,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said, adding that talks will resume at 8am this morning (6am Thai time).
Russia’s national Olympic committee was suspended in December over mass doping, but 168 athletes who passed stringent vetting were allowed to compete in Pyeongchang as neutrals. However, two of them failed drugs tests.
Stanislav Pozdnyakov, head of the Russian delegation, blamed “negligence rather than malicious intent” for the positive tests from curler Alexander Krushelnitsky and bobsledder Nadezhda Sergeyeva.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport said Sergeyeva had been kicked out of the Games after failing a test for a banned heart medicine.
Krushelnitsky was stripped of his mixed doubles bronze medal for taking the banned substance meldonium.