King of the hill
PYEONGCHANG, Korea, Republic Of Canada skated to the gold it had been dreaming about for four years.
The Canadians kicked off the third day of full competition at the Pyeongchang Olympics on Monday by winning the team figure skating competition, finishing with the medal they had set their sights on since taking silver in 2014. And, they clinched it before the ice dance — the third event of the day — even began.
“We think we’re the best in the world,” said ice dancer Scott Moir of Ilderton, Ont. “Winning this is like winning hockey and winning curling.”
The Canadians won the men’s moguls title for the third consecutive Olympics, with six-time world champion Mikael Kingsbury of of DeuxMontagnes, Que., filling the only hole in his resume.
Kingsbury, who wears a T-shirt that reads “It’s Good To Be The King” underneath his skiing gear and was a silver medallist in Sochi four years ago, posted a score of 86.63 to win his first Olympic gold.
Matt Graham of Australia took silver and Daichi Hara of Japan earned bronze, each picking up the first medal for their countries at the games.
In other night finals, Ireen Wust won her fifth Olympic title and the Dutch speedskaters picked up gold and bronze in the 1,500 metres, biathlon No. 1 Martin Fourcade won the 12.5-kilometre pursuit, and Maren Lundby of Norway won the women’s ski jumping normal hill.
American Jamie Anderson showed she's tops in women’s slopestyle, defending her title from the 2014 Games and becoming the first female snowboarder to win two Olympic golds.
That came despite some big-time weather concerns that caused a 75-minute delay, left the course unpredictable and sparked criticism from some competitors and analysts.
Laurie Blouin of Stoneham, Que., finished second, with Finland’s Enni Rukajarvi third.
The windy conditions postponed the women’s giant slalom until Thursday, the same day as the already-postponed men’s downhill at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
HIGH-FIVE FOR WUST
Wust won her fifth Olympic gold medal, using a stirring last lap to set a time of one minut, 54.35 seconds. She jumped into the arms of her coach when Miho Takagi of Japan finished 0.20 seconds behind in the last pairing to prevent another Dutch sweep of the medals. Marrit Leenstra picked up bronze for the Netherlands, which has six of nine medals awarded so far.
BACK IN BIATHLON
Fourcade bounced back from a disappointing eighth-place finish in the sprint race to hit 19 of his 20 targets in the pursuit to claim his third Olympic gold medal. Sebastian Samuelsson of Sweden took silver and Benedikt Doll of Germany earned bronze.
LUNDBY’S LEAP
Lundby turned World Cup ski jumping domination into Olympic gold with a jump of 110 metres for 264.6 points. It was Norway’s second gold medal of the games. Katharina Althaus of Germany was second, followed by Sara Takanashi of Japan.
AROUND PYEONGCHANG
— Switzerland will compete for an Olympic gold medal against Canada after beating a team of Russian athletes 7-5 in the mixed doubles curling semifinals.
— The combined Korean team conceded eight goals for the second time, this time losing to Sweden in the women’s hockey tournament. The fifth-ranked Swedes next play Switzerland, which followed its opening 8-0 victory of the Koreans with a 3-1 win over Japan.