Olympic roundup

WOMEN’S SUPER-G Czech takes gold

Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic made a stunning run from back in the pack to take the Olympic super-G title early today, with a mistake costing American Lindsey Vonn a spot on the podium. Ledecka, 22, the 26th racer to take the course, blazed through the course in a time of 1 minute, 21.11 seconds. Defending champion Anna Veith of Austria earned the silver, finishing 0.01 seconds back, and Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein captured bronze. Ledecka’s run shocked everyone, including her. She turned to someone and said, “How did that happen?” Vonn had a fast run before going too wide on a turn near the bottom. She finished in a tie for sixth. “It’s definitely shocking. I wish I had so much athleticism as she has and hop from sport to sport,” Vonn said of Ledecka, who is also a snowboarder. “I feel like in the Olympics a lot of weird things happen.” Vonn will have another shot to medal in the downhill. At age 33, Vonn is trying to become the oldest woman to win an Olympic Alpine medal. She won bronze in the super-G at the 2010 Vancouver Games — to go with her downhill gold — but missed the 2014 Sochi Olympics after surgery on her right knee.

WOMEN’S SLOPESTYLE Latecomer wins gold

Switzerland’s Sarah Hoefflin is the Olympic champion in women’s slopestyle skiing. The 27-yearold put together an electric final run down the demanding course at Phoenix Snow Park today, posting a score of 91.20 to edge teammate Mathilde Gremaud for gold. Gremaud scored 88.00 on the first of her three runs in the finals but couldn’t top Hoefflin. Hoefflin is a latecomer to freestyle skiing. She didn’t get serious about the sport until her early 20s after she failed to get into medical school. Isabel Atkin of Great Britain took bronze with a score of 84.60 in her final run. Defending Olympic champion Dara Howell crashed twice during qualifying and didn’t advance. American Devin Logan, a silver medalist in Sochi, reached the finals but wasn’t a factor after crashing or having execution problems in each of her last three runs.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY Russians top Switzerland

Anna Shokhina scored two goals and two assists as the Olympic athletes from Russia advanced to the semifinals against defending gold medalist Canada by beating Switzerland 6-2. They upset Switzerland, the 2014 bronze medalist who came into the quarterfinals undefeated in winning Group B. The Swiss also had given up only two goals in three games. With Russia banned from these games for revelations of a massive doping operation, these women are competing under the Olympic flag. The International Olympic Committee cleared 168 competitors, but the women were missing six players from this team. Yelena Dergachyova had a goal and two assists today. Viktoria Kulishova, Liana Ganeyeva and Olga Sosina had a goal apiece to set up a rematch with Canada on Monday. Canada beat the Russians 5-0 in its Olympic opener.

MEN’S FIGURE-SKATING Hanyu defends title

Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu become the first man to successfully defend his Olympic figure skating title since

Dick Button in 1952. He held off countryman Shoma Uno, who won silver, and Spain’s Javier Fernandez, who took bronze, in today’s free skate in Pyeongchang. Fernandez and Hanyu share the same coach, Brian Orser. American Nathan Chen rallied from a fiasco of a short program with a historic free skate and wound up fifth overall. Chen’s program today included an unparalleled six completed quadruple jumps. A two-time U.S. champion, Chen, 18, succumbed to the pressure and massive expectations in Friday’s short program. He fell on all of his jumps in the short, plummeting to 17th place out of 24 to advance to the free skate. But in the free skate he nailed virtually every element. He even tried a sixth quad, a loop, but put his hands down on the ice. Still, his 126.86 points for technical virtuosity put him in another stratosphere, and his 215.08 points for the free skate were a personal high.

WOMEN’S AERIALS Belarus takes gold

Belarus, the Idaho of the former USSR, picked up its second women’s aerial gold Friday when Hanna

Huskova won the event. Alla Tsuper won the gold in 2014 in Sochi for the country known for its potatoes and potato dishes. She was back and finished fourth on Friday. China took second and third, upping its total in the event to seven, but none of them gold. The final race was a bit of a mess as only two of the six competitors landed all their jumps cleanly. Madison Olsen of the U.S. finished sixth.

WOMEN’S SPEEDSKATING Netherlands back

The Netherlands has started its new streak in speedskating by winning the women’s 5,000 meters on Friday. The Dutch had won the first five golds in speedskating until Thursday, when a Netherlands expat won the men’s 10,000 for Canada. But Esmee Visser turned this world back on its proper clap-skate axis. The three-time champion Claudia Pechstein of Germany finished a very disappointing eighth. Carlijn Schoutens was the only U.S. competitor and finished 11th of 12.

MEN’S CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING Tongan cheered

Dario Cologna of Switzerland won the men’s individual 15-kilometer cross-country skiing race on Friday but all the cheering was for Pia Taufatofua, who finished 114th of 119. Taufatofua was the shirtless Tongan who marched in the opening ceremony. Taufatofua competed in the Summer Games in Rio in taekwondo with about as much success. There were two racers on the course when Taufatofua finished, one from Colombia and one from Mexico. The remaining places either didn’t finish or were disqualified. Scott Patterson was the top U.S. finisher in 21st.

MEN’S CURLING U.S. splits matches

The U.S. men’s curling team split matches on Friday, losing to Sweden, 10-4, and beating Denmark, 9-5. Canada and Sweden are both 4-0 while the U.S. is in a four-way tie for third. The U.S. women had the day off.

ODDS AND ENDS Korean man dies

Pyeongchang Olympics organizers said early today that a Korean man in his 50s died in one of the media villages at the games. Organizing committee spokesman Sung Baik-you said the man was working for a consortium of Japanese broadcasters during the games. The man was not responsive when he was found in his room by a co-worker. Sung said police were called and the Korean man was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. An investigation into the cause of death has begun. Sung said out of respect for the man’s family, organizers would not release his name.