Wise defends title, Ferreira takes silver for U.S. in halfpipe
Freestyle skier David Wise successfully defended his gold medal Wednesday night, breaking through on his final run to give the United States its third gold medal in the halfpipe at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Wise wiped out on his first two runs before sneaking past countryman Alex Ferreira on his third with a score of 97.20.
It’s the seventh gold medal for the U.S. at these Winter Games. The U.S. snowboard and freestyle skiing crews have accounted for 10 of the country’s 19 medals.
Ferreira took silver with 96.40 points, and Nico Porteous from New Zealand got bronze.
The Americans had eyed a podium sweep in the halfpipe, with Torin YaterWallace and Aaron Blunck also among the favorites. Yater-Wallace failed to complete a clean run, including a crash midway through his third try, and Blunck’s best effort was an 84.80 on his final run. Instead of waiting for his turn for this Olympic shootout, T.J. Oshie was sitting at home along with the rest of the NHL.
Four years after his shootout heroics in Sochi, Oshie could only watch halfway around the world as Chris Bourque, Ryan Donato, Marc Arcobello, Troy Terry and Bobby Butler got their chances against the Czech Republic with a berth in the semifinals on the line. And it was Ryan Zapolski in net instead of Jonathan Quick, who was on the bench for the Los Angeles Kings’ 60th game in an NHLregular season that rolled right through the Olympics.
Little-knownCzechRepublicgoaltender Pavel Francouz stopped all five Americans in the shootout and Petr Koukal scored as the United States was eliminated with a 3-2 loss Wednesday in the quarterfinals.
Mia Manganello, Heather Bergsma and Brittany Bowe teamed to give the U.S. women a medal in long-track speedskating, ending a 16-year drought with a bronze in team pursuit.
“It was just an uproar of emotions of screaming and cheering,” Manganello said.
The trio beat Canada by 0.45 seconds with a time of 2 minutes, 59.27 seconds.
Anna Gasser edged two-time gold medalist Jamie Anderson to earn gold in the Olympic debut of women’s Big Air snowboarding.
Anderson, who captured her second Olympic gold in women’s slopestyle last week, led going into the final round but sat down while trying to land her last jump. David Wise goes all out en route to winning the gold medal in freestyle skiing halfpipe for a 1-2 American finish.
The U.S. men’s curling team defeated Britain 10-4 to qualify for the semifinals Thursday against Canada. A win gets the Americans into the gold-medal match. ... Canada’s Brady Leman won gold in skicross. ... Norway beat South Korea to win the men’s speedskating team pursuit title. ... Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo and Martin Johnsrud captured gold in the men’s cross-country ski team sprint.