Olympic roundup

WOMEN’S CURLING

U.S. loses to Japan

As the deficit kept growing, Becca Hamilton anticipated an early finish for the U.S. women’s curling team in its first game of the Pyeongchang Olympics. “If you would have asked me after the third end whether we were going to be playing until the ninth, I would have told you no,” she said. While Nina Roth’s team lost 10-5 to Japan in nine ends Wednesday, it settled down as the afternoon wore on at Gangneung Curling Centre. With a better feel for the ice, Roth, Hamilton, Tabitha Peterson of Eagan and Aileen Geving of Duluth hope to avoid another slow start in today’s games against Great Britain and Switzerland. The Americans fell into a 7-0 hole after only three ends. They didn’t score until the fourth, and it appeared they might concede after Japan’s lead swelled to 8-1. But a couple of sweet shots by Roth pulled the U.S. within 8-5, giving them the minor satisfaction of staying on the ice a little longer. Besides, there is no time to mope in the Olympic round robin. The U.S. has eight games yet to play, starting today with matchups against Britain’s Eve Muirhead — the 2014 Olympic bronze medalist — and Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY

Japan defeats Koreas

In their first and second games together at the Olympic Games, the players on the unified Korean women’s ice hockey team suffered humiliating shutout losses against Switzerland and Sweden. But for the only team to compete here with athletes from both North and South Korea, a 4-1 loss against Japan on Wednesday night was the most painful defeat. In what has been an Olympics rife with geopolitical undertones, the game between Japan and Korea was the most political of all, pitting the unified Korean team’s players against rivals from the country of their former colonial occupiers. “I would say the games against Japan, more than anything else, have been something that have brought the North and South Koreans together,” said Randi Heesoo Griffin, who scored the only Korean goal. “We’ve been saying we really need to win this game.” The colonial legacy lingers over any game

played between Japanese and South Korean teams. This one was played in an especially heated atmosphere: North Korea’s participation in the Pyeongchang Games has fanned Japanese insecurity that the North’s charm offensive will drive a wedge among the South, Japan and the United States. The volume in the stadium Wednesday exceeded the first two games that Korea played here, a pair of 8-0 losses. When Griffin scored her goal, midway through the second period, cutting Japan’s lead to 2-1, the crowd leapt to its feet and roared with joy. For many fans, the political and historic charge of the game was the point. “I am not very interested in hockey,” said Cho Young-kyu, 20. “I decided to come here because it is a game between Korea and Japan and it is a unified Korean team.”

WOMEN’S SPEEDSKATING

Bowe’s effort not enough Against a field of powerful Dutch and Japanese skaters that included world-record holder Nao Kodaira, a strong start and powerful first lap by Brittany Bowe’s Olympic career wasn’t quite enough Wednesday at the Gangneung Oval. The gap was narrow enough to be cruel, with Bowe finishing fourth in the women’s 1,000 meters — just 0.38 seconds off the bronze-medal winning time. Had Bowe’s legs held out just a tick longer, the United States’ eightyear Olympic speedskating medal drought would have ended. That’s what Bowe hoped so fervently after her torrid performance, paired in the 31-woman competition with Joriea ter Mors of the Netherlands. Ter Mors’ time, an Olympic record 1:13.56, held up with eight skaters yet to compete, giving the Netherlands a gold-medal sweep of all five speedskating events held thus far at the 2018 PyeongChange Olympics. Bowe, in a provisional second, was left to wait and watch, the outcome beyond her control, as a succession of competitors attempted to knock her from the podium, including her American teammate Heather Bergstra, who was in the final pairing. In the end, Japanese teammates Kodaira and Miho Takagi improved on Bowe’s time to take silver and bronze, respectively.

MEN’S NORDIC COMBINED

Frenzel surges to victory Eric Frenzel wasn’t about to let a half-minute deficit deny him of another taste of Olympic glory. Fifth after the ski jumping stage of the Nordic combined on Wednesday, the 29-year-old German started 38 seconds off the leader and surged ahead of Akito Watabe on the last uphill of the 10-kilometer cross-country race to defend his title in the normal hill event at the Pyeongchang Games. With just over 1 kilometer remaining, it looked like Watabe might give Japan its first gold of the games. But Frenzel powered ahead of the World Cup leader on the hill for Germany’s sixth gold in Pyeongchang. Watabe finished 4.8 seconds behind for the silver while Lukas Klapfer of Austria took the bronze.

MEN’S DOUBLES LUGE

‘Tobys’ take home gold Just about everyone in the international luge world refers to the German team of Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt as “the Tobys,” for obvious reasons. Call them two-time Olympic champions now, too. As most expected, a German team won the doubles luge title at the Pyeongchang Games. As few expected, it was Wendl and Arlt — the second-best team in the world all season, yet the team that stood highest on the Olympic medal podium. They held off Austria’s Peter Penz and Georg Fischler by 0.088 seconds for a second consecutive gold medal. Germany’s Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken, the heavy Olympic favorites after dominating the World Cup circuit this season, managed a bronze. It was a disappointing night for the Americans, who haven’t medaled in doubles since taking silver and bronze in both 1998 and 2002.