U.S. women rout Swiss; Canada rivalry game next
Palo Alto native Hilary Knight scored two first-period goals, Alex Cavallini stopped 12 shots, and the United States routed Switzerland 8-0 at the Beijing Olympics on Sunday in its final tuneup before facing archrival Canada.
Kelly Pannek and Jesse Compher also scored twice for the Americans, who close Group A play against Canada (2-0) on Tuesday (9:15 p.m. PST Monday).
The U.S. improved to 3-0 and had 13 of 19 skaters earn at least a point.
The goal eruption came against a Swiss team that had been outscored by a combined 17-3 in losing its first two games, including a 12-1 loss to Canada on Thursday. It also provided the Americans some momentum a day after they had 62 shots but struggled finishing in a 5-0 win over the Russian team.
Knight opened the scoring by driving to the net and converting her own rebound for a power-play goal 5:40 in. The game was essentially over after Compher, Knight and Pannek scored in a span of 2:11 to put the U.S. up 4-0 by the 16:15 mark of the first period.
Knight has nine career Olympic goals to tie Monique Lamoureux-Morando for fifth on the U.S. list. Knight increased her Olympic point total to 22, one behind Katie King, who ranks third.
“I was really happy with how we played. Just felt like we finally put together a full three periods,” defender Lee Stecklein said. “Looking forward to hopefully a practice day tomorrow and then excited for Canada as always.”
Alpine skiing: Defending Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin missed a gate early in the first run of the giant slalom and was disqualified. Coming around a left-turn gate, she lost control, slid and fell on her side.
The 26-year-old is trying to become the first Alpine ski racer from the United States to win three Olympic golds across a career. Her next race is the slalom on Wednesday.
Wearing bib No. 1, Truckee native Bryce Bennett was supposed to be the first skier on the course known as The Rock for the men’s downhill. Like everyone else, he was stuck hanging around before the first Alpine event of the 2022 Games eventually was pushed back for a day because of too-strong wind.
What did Bennett, 29, do through three hours of delays until a final “to race or not to race” decision arrived Sunday? Think about how best to attack the course? No, the 6-foot-7 mustachioed American kept tabs on the scene back home in Tahoe City.
“There was like 100 of my closest friends in my house with a keg. They’re having the Beer Olympics and they’re having a huge watch party going,” Bennett said. “They’re going to have to recuperate after the hangover and do it again tomorrow.”
Figure skating: The powerful Russians are in first place in the team competition after a winning performance from world champion Kamila Valieva and another strong skate from Mark Kondratiuk.
The team representing the Russian Olympic Committee has 45 points, two ahead of the U.S.
The biggest surprise on the second of three days of team competition was Japan. Wakaba Higuchi was second in the women’s short program before 18-year-old Yuma Kagiyama delivered a personal-best score of 208.94 points to easily win the men’s free skate, sending the Japanese team into medal contention with 39 points.
The team competition concludes Monday with the women and pairs free skate and the free dance.
Freestyle skiing: Jakara Anthony’s back flip with a grab at the bottom of the women’s moguls course sewed up the gold medal for the Australian. Her score of 83.09 edged American Jaelin Kauf, who had been poised to pick up the first gold medal for the United States.
Russian Anastasiia Smirnova earned the bronze.
Speedskating: Nils van der Poel gave Sweden its first Olympic speedskating medal since 1988, winning gold in the 5,000 meters. Van der Poel turned on the speed at the end to overcome Patrick Roest of the Netherlands with an Olympic record of 6 minutes, 8.84 seconds.
Roest had skated about an hour earlier, initially breaking the Olympic mark in 6.09.31. The bronze went to Norway’s Hallgeir Engebraaten in 6:09.88.
Briefly: Japan’s Ryoyu Kobayashi jumped last and best, clearing 326 feet and had 129.6 points in the men’s normal-hill ski jumping. Austria’s Manuel Fettner won silver and Dawid Kubacki of Poland earned bronze .... Johannes Ludwig of Germany won men’s luge, with Wolfgang Kindl of Austria second and Dominik Fischnaller of Italy third.