Big short program for Virtue, Moir
Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir came out of retirement to win more Olympic gold. Only the free dance stands in their way.
The Canadian ice dancers broke their record for a short program at the Pyeongchang Olympics on Monday, piling up 83.67 points with a harmonious performance. That score edged their record set last year by nearly a point and left them more than a point ahead of their biggest rivals, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron.
The French couple appeared a bit thrown off by Papadakis’ costume, which came unhooked at the neck. They held things together despite the wardrobe malfunction and scored 81.93 points.
U. S. champs Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue were third, two- hundredths of a point ahead of compatriots Maia and Alex Shibutani. Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates were seventh and in medal contention despite an injury Chock aggravated in warmups.
U. S. men to face Slovakia
The U. S. men’s team will play Slovakia at 9: 10 p. m. Monday in the qualification round of the tournament, with a potential quarterfinal against the Czech Republic. The U. S. beat Slovakia 2- 1 last week.
The four teams that advance directly to the quarterfinals are group winners Sweden, Czech Republic, the Olympic Athletes from Russia and Canada, which led the second- place teams in points.
The other qualification- round games are Finland vs. South Korea, Switzerland vs. Germany and Slovenia vs. Norway.
† Danielle Cameranesi scored two goals to help the U. S. women’s team beat Finland 5- 0 to advance to the gold- medal game Wednesday.
Russians caught again
Russian curlers say a coach on their team told them that mixed doubles bronze medalist Alexander Krushelnitsky tested positive for a banned substance.
Russian Curling Federation president Dmitry Svishchev would not confirm the athlete’s name. Svishchev said it was possible that an athlete’s food or drink had been spiked with a banned substance.
Another 8 cases of norovirus
Another eight cases of norovirus have been confirmed at the Games, bringing the total to 283. Of those, 49 are still quarantined. Among the more recently diagnosed is U. S. hockey defenseman James Wisniewski’s father, Jim, 62, who is in quarantine.