Olympic roundup
MEN’S HOCKEY
U.S. beats Slovakia Ryan Donato scored two power-play goals and Troy Terry dominated with his speed as college players led the United States to an important 2-1 victory over Slovakia early today at the Olympics. Donato, Terry and American Hockey League scoring star Chris Bourque were all additions to the U.S. after the pre-Olympic Deutschland Cup in November, during which the U.S. struggled to score, particularly against Slovakia goaltender Jan Laco. Goalie Ryan Zapolski made 21 saves for his first Olympic victory, which is crucial considering only the top four of 12 teams avoid the qualification round Monday. With the regulation victory, the U.S. vaulted to the top of Group B with four points. Slovakia was second with three, followed by Slovenia and Russia. The U.S. faces Russia in each team’s final preliminary-round game Saturday night.
WOMEN’S SLALOM
Shiffrin comes in 4th Frida Hansdotter held off Mikaela Shiffrin and the rest of a tightly bunched field to win the Olympic slalom title early today at the Pyeongchang Games. In second after the first run, the Swedish skier powered through the sun-splashed course on her final run to finish in a combined time of
1 minute, 38.63 seconds. First-run leader Wendy Holdener of Switzerland was second and Katharina Gallhuber of Austria earned a surprise bronze. Shiffrin wound up fourth. The American standout won the Olympic slalom title four years ago in Sochi when she was only 18. There were seven racers within a second of Holdener’s first-run time, with Hansdotter 0.20 seconds back. Gallhuber started her final run trailing by 1.23 seconds — a sizable gap to make up. On her final run, Shiffrin didn’t have her usual charge. Before her first run, she said she wasn’t feeling well. Shiffrin, who won the giant slalom Thursday, will skip the super-G race.
MEN’S SUPER-G
Austrian wins gold Matthias Mayer of Austria won the Olympic men’s super-G early today, breaking Norway’s 16-year grip on the title. Mayer won the speed race by 0.13 seconds ahead of Beat Feuz of Switzerland, who added the silver medal to his bronze from downhill on Thursday. Defending champion Kjetil Jansrud of Norway was third, 0.18 behind Mayer. It’s Jansrud’s fifth career Olympic medal after getting downhill silver. Norway had won the past four Olympic men’s super-G races, since the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Aksel Lund Svindal, the 2010 Olympic champion in super-G, placed fifth the day after taking Mayer’s downhill title. It’s been an interesting week for Mayer. He crashed into a course-side television cameraman Tuesday in the slalom leg of the combined event.
WOMEN’S CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING
3.3 seconds from bronze With their eyes locked on the video board, Kikkan Randall and Sadie Bjornsen stood in the finish area and felt the adrenaline rise. Their teammate, Jessie Diggins, was charging down the chute, racing the clock toward an Olympic medal in the 10-kilometer freestyle. “They showed on the screen that she was the leader,” Randall said. “We thought we were going to be bringing her in to the gold medal. Sadie and I were ready to rush out and grab her at the finish. She was so close.” Their hearts sank when they saw the timer: 25 minutes, 35.7 seconds — 3.3 seconds away from a bronze that would have been the first Olympic medal ever won by an American woman in cross-country skiing. Diggins, of Afton, Minn., finished fifth in Thursday’s race, marking her third top-six finish in three races at the Pyeongchang Games. She was 35.2 seconds behind winner Ragnhild Haga of Norway, with Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla second and a tie for third between Norway’s Marit Bjoergen and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski.
MEN’S BIATHLON
No American medalists Lowell Bailey, the only American to win a world championship in the sport of biathlon, fell short of the podium in the third try of his final Olympics. Bailey finished 51st in the 20-kilometer individual in Pyeongchang, just days after similar results in the 10-kilometer sprint and the 12.5-kilometer pursuit. Competing in the Olympics for a fourth time, the 36-year-old was hoping for the kind of surprise end that earned him a 20-kilometer title at the 2017 world championships. But finding consistent speed has been a problem of late, and his normally dependable marksmanship has deserted him in South Korea. Among the other Americans in the Thursday night race, Tim Burke finished 41st and Sean Doherty was 44th, meaning that biathlon remains the only winter sport in which the U.S. has never medaled.
WOMEN’S SNOWBOARDCROSS
Jacobellis places fourth Italy’s Michela Moioli won the gold medal in Olympic women’s snowboardcross Friday, overtaking American Lindsey Jacobellis about halfway down the course, then beating the rest of the field to the finish line. Jacobellis placed fourth, continuing her hard-luck career at the Olympics. The sport’s most decorated rider, Jacobellis has failed to return to the podium since settling for silver after an ill-advised jump in 2006 while she was clear in the lead. Julia Pereira de Sousa Mablieau of France took silver this time. Defending champion Eva Samkova of the Czech Republic got clipped from behind and skidded across the line for bronze. Jacobellis had about a two-body-length lead on the field when Moioli overtook her on a curve. Samkova drafted behind and pushed Jacobellis out to the edge of the course and, from there, she couldn’t gain any ground.
MEN’S FIGURE SKATING
Hanyu wins short program Defending champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan won the Olympic men’s short program with a games-record 111.68 points. Spain’s Javier Fernandez was second at 107.58. Hanyu’s countryman Shoma Uno was third at 104.17, followed by China’s Jin Boyang at 103.32. Hanyu missed two months of training with an ankle injury and only recently returned to full practices. No matter, as he hit every element of a highly difficult program with precision and grace. Two-time U.S. champion Nathan Chen, a pregames favorite, missed on all his jumps, plummeting to 17th place with a tentative and passionless showing. Fellow American Adam Rippon was seventh without attempting a quad in what was an intense jumping contest.
MEN’S SKELETON
Korean sets records
Yun Sungbin of South Korea is the new skeleton king. His four-run time of 3 minutes, 20.55 seconds was a staggering 1.63 seconds ahead of silver medalist Nikita Tregubov of Russia — the largest victory margin in Olympic skeleton history, and the largest margin in any Olympic sliding event since 1972. Someone, someday, might win a skeleton race at the Olympics by a bigger margin. But the totality of what Yun did here can’t be topped, only matched. He had the fastest start in all four runs. There are four spots on the course where split times were taken; he had the fastest one in all four of those, every time. So of course, he had the fastest finish in every heat as well. He set the start record Thursday and lowered his own track record in the final heat early today, going all-out even on his final slide and becoming the first South Korean to win a gold medal in any sliding event. Matt Antoine of the U.S. finished in 11th place, 3.84 seconds behind Yun. John Daly, the other American in the field, was 16th in his third Olympics.