Marino settles for silver
Zoi Sadowski Synnott captured New Zealand’s first gold medal in Winter Olympic history, stomping down a pressure-packed run on her last trip down the mountain Sunday in Zhangjiakou to win the title in women’s slopestyle.
American Julia Marino took the silver. Sadowski Synnott, 20, was one of the few to put down a clean run on a supersized course, where hardpacked snow and brutal wind chills made things difficult on all 12 finalists, including two-time defending champion Jamie Anderson, who finished ninth.
Sadowski Synnott went into her last of three runs trailing Marino but came up big. She landed a double-cork 1080 on the second jump, and while not repeating that jump the way she did when she won the Winter X Games last month, her backside 1080 off the final kicker was more than enough.
She raised her hands in the air after landing, knowing what she’d done. Marino and third-place finisher Tess Coady of Australia knew it, too. They tackled her at the finish line to celebrate.
Minutes later, the scoreboard confirmed it, and New Zealand had its first Winter Games victory — brought home by an Australian-born shredder whose family moved to her father’s homeland when she was 6.
FIGURE SKATING
U.S. team drops out of first place
The United States’ figure skaters fell from the top spot in the team competition. The powerful Russians moved into the lead 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., which had a couple of shaky performances from Karen Chen and Vincent Zhou to slip out of first place.
The team competition concludes Monday with the women and pairs free skate and the free dance.
HOCKEY
Hensley stingy in goal for U.S. women
Goalie Nicole Hensley was fine with the United States having difficulty finding its offense through two periods before finally pulling away with a 5-0 victory over the Russians on Saturday in Beijing.
So long as Hensley kept stopping every shot, the outcome wasn’t in jeopardy for the defending Olympic champions.
“They made it a really hard game, really frustrating for us,” said Hensley, who stopped 12 shots in her 2022 tournament debut at the Beijing Games.
SPEEDSKATING
Schouten snaps long-standing record
Irene Schouten gave the mighty Dutch team a gold medal in the first speedskating event of the Beijing Games, breaking a 20-year-old Olympic record in the women’s 3,000 meters. Skating in the last of 10 pairs, Schouten turned in a blazing final lap to post a winning time of 3 minutes, 56.93 seconds. That broke the previous Olympic mark of 3:57.70, set by Germany’s Claudia Pechstein at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
MOGULS SKIING
Wallberg stuns defending champ
Walter Wallberg of Sweden upset “The King” to take home the gold medal in the men’s moguls. Wallberg, 21, looked almost in shock when his score of 83.23 flashed on the board, edging defending Olympic champion Mikael Kingsbury of Canada. Wallberg picked up points for his speed over the Kingsbury’s smooth and technical style.