Canada books spot in hockey quarters
GANGNEUNG, South Korea — Canada had a difficult time finishing off South Korea on Sunday, looking unconvincing for large parts of a 4-0 win over the host country.
Third-period goals by Maxim Lapierre and Gilbert Brule helped make the score look more flattering for Canada, which struggled for two periods to assert its superiority.
“They stick around,” Canadian winger Wojtek Wolski said. “They had some chances on the power play. The game was a lot closer than the score shows.”
Matt Dalton, a 31-year-old from Clinton, Ontario, who is one of seven North Americans on the Korean team, made 45 saves that included the first period when the shot count was 14-1 at one point.
The win, coupled with Sweden’s 3-1 victory over Finland in Group C, meant Canada finishes as the best second-place team and joins the three group winners in advancing to the quarterfinals.
The remaining eight teams face off to see which four joins them — and that includes the United States, which has a qualification match Tuesday against Slovakia for a quarterfinal spot.
The Czech Republic defeated Switzerland 4-1 earlier in the day to assure the top spot in Group A with eight points, one ahead of Canada.
The other group winners, which proceed directly to the quarterfinals, are Sweden and the Olympic Athletes from Russia.
Besides the U.S.-Slovakia game, the other qualificationround games are FinlandSouth Korea, SwitzerlandGermany and Slovenia-Norway. Biathlon: In a photo finish in the biathlon 15-kilometer mass start, Martin Fourcade of France edged Simon Schempp of Germany to win his second gold medal of the Games.
Fourcade was caught by Schempp over the frantic final 100 meters and the two skiers came to the line neckand-neck.
Fourcade, the world’s No. 1 biathlete, reached out his left foot ahead of Schempp as both skiers slid through the finish. The Frenchman 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 a reversal for Fourcade, who had taken silver in a dramatic finish to the same event in Sochi four years ago. Cross-country skiing: Norway won its fifth cross-country skiing gold of these Games, taking the men’s 4x10-kilometer relay.
The Norwegian team of Didrik Toenseth, Martin Johnsrud Sundby, Simen Hegstad Krueger and Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo won the cross-country relay in 1 hour, 33 minutes and 4.9 seconds.
That was good enough to beat the second-place Russian athletes by 9.4 seconds. France took the bronze.
Of the eight golds awarded in cross-country events in Pyeongchang, Norway has all but three. The Norwegians have won 11 overall medals in cross-country — two off the record set by the Soviet Union in Calgary in 1988. Aerial skiing: Oleksandr Abramenko was the winner of the men’s aerials, giving Ukraine its first medal of these Games and just its third gold ever at the Winter Games.
Abramenko scored a 128.51 on his third and final jump, edging China’s Zongyang Jia by 0.46 of a point. Ilia Burov, an Olympic athlete from Russia, got bronze. Speedskating: And, in the last medal event of the night, Japan’s Nao Kodaira won the women’s 500-meter speedskating title in an Olympic record.
Kodaira’s 36.94 seconds made her the first woman to race under 37 seconds at sea level, bettering her mark of 37.07 set in November in Norway.
Two-time defending champion Lee Sang-hwa of South Korea took silver in 37.33 and Karolina Ervanova of the Czech Republic earned bronze. Brittany Bowe was the highest U.S. finisher in fifth place.