OLYMPIC RECORD IN SPEEDSKATING
Speedskater Jorien ter Mors set an Olympic record to win the 1,000 meters Wednesday night, earning a fifth gold medal for the Netherlands in five events.
Favorite Nao Kodaira slumped over the last half lap and had to settle for silver ahead of her Japanese teammate Miho Takagi.
No one has ever completed the race faster at sea level. Ter Mors crossed in 1 minute 13.56 seconds, beating Kodaira by 0.26 seconds and Takagi by 0.42 seconds.
She beat the 2002 Olympic mark of U.S. skater Chris Witty that was set at high altitude.
The victory came in an injurymarred season for Ter Mors, who will compete for another gold in the short track later in the Games.
“It was a perfect race,” said Ter Mors, who is not known for a fast start. Once she hit her stride, no one could match her. She punched the air after crossing the line, shouting “yes” between gritted teeth.
Then, she had to wait for another eight racers to finish.
“It was tough to wait for Kodaira,” said Ter Mors.
German pair wins free skate.
Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot were flawless as the rest of the top contenders fell, and their free skate was enough to give the German pair Olympic gold.
Savchenko and Massot scored 159.31 points in their program set to music by Armand Amar on the final day of pairs skating. That gave them 235.90 points, catapulting them from fourth place after a shaky short program to Germany’s first pairs gold since 1952.
China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, who led after the short program, recovered from a slow start to their free skate to score 153.08 points. But their early bobbles proved costly — they finished with 235.47 points, less than half a point off the top step of the podium.
Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford added a bronze medal after winning team gold with Canada.
Doubling up in luge.
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 straight gold medal.
“I can’t describe the words that I’m feeling, what the feeling is inside,” Arlt said. “We’re again Olympic champions and so happy, it’s just amazing.”
Germany’s Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken, the heavy Olympic favorites after dominating the World Cup circuit this season, only managed a bronze.
Wendl and Arlt are the first German team to win two straight doubles golds since Hans Rinn and Norbert Hahn in 1976 and 1980.
Frenzel defends gold.
CHANG» 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.
“I felt from the get-go that I could get the gold,” Frenzel said.
Watabe finished 4.8 seconds behind for the silver, and Lukas Klapfer of Austria took the bronze.
Footnote.
Olympic organizers say 16 people were treated for scrapes and light injuries caused when high winds whipped through some venues Wednesday. Most of the damage was in the Olympic Park area in Gangneung.