Diggins battles elements to earn another medal — this one silver
Norwegian great Therese Johaug won her third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics on Sunday and Jessie Diggins took silver for the best result by an American in an individual cross-country skiing event since 1976.
Fighting fierce winds and brutal temperatures, Johaug went out front early in the 30-kilometer mass start race and held on to win in 1 hour, 24 minutes, 54 seconds. Johaug also won the skiathlon — the first gold medal of the Olympics — and the 10-kilometer classic race.
“I'm born in a small place where there's a lot of wind and a lot of cold temperatures in the region, so this was nothing for me,” Johaug said.
Diggins, also skiing alone for much of the race, kept a steady pace behind the Norwegian as gusts whipped across the tracks and battered the skiers, many with tape on their faces to protect from the cold. She dropped to the ground after crossing the finish line, 1:43.3 behind Johaug.
“Every last drop of energy went into that race,” Diggins said. “The last two laps, my legs were cramping. We had amazing cheering out there, and I thought, I just can't give up, I have to put everything I had into the snow today and finish with nothing left. I did try really, really hard.”
Diggins said she was sick with food poisoning the day before, spending Saturday in bed and force-feeding herself.
“I was feeling pretty bad 24 hours ago,” the American said. “I was talking to my parents and my mom said, `Don't decide how you feel right now. Just go out there and ski because you love to race.' And she was right.
“That might have been the best race of my entire life, I'm not going to lie. It was also maybe the hardest race of my whole life.”
Kerttu Niskanen of Finland led a chase group to the line for bronze, 2:33.3 behind.
Diggins made cross-country skiing history for the United States at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics when she and Kikkan Randall won the team sprint — the country's first gold medal in the sport. Diggins set another U.S. Olympic record at the Beijing Games by being the first woman to win an individual medal when she took bronze in the sprint.
The silver matched the best result ever by an American in an individual cross-country skiing event. Bill Koch won silver in the men's 30-kilometer race at the 1976 Innsbruck Olympics.
Temperatures hovered around 6.8 degrees but the wind chill made it much colder. The women skied four laps on a 7.5-kilometer (4.6-mile) course.
Men's hockey
Hannes Bjorninen scored the go-ahead goal 31 seconds into the third period and Finland claimed its first Olympic men's hockey gold medal with a 2-1 win over the Russian Olympic Committee on the final day of the Beijing Games.
Ville Pokka also scored and Harri Sateri stopped 16 shots as Finland rallied from a 1-0 first-period deficit. The Finns' best finishes in 17 previous Olympic appearances were silver medals at the 1988 Calgary Games and 2006 Torino Games.
“We got what we came here for,” Finland defenseman Sami Vatanen said. “We battled hard, and we got the first Olympic gold medal in Finnish ice hockey history. It's something special, and nobody can ever take it away from us.”
Mikhail Grigorenko scored for the favored Russian team, the defending champions, in the second consecutive tournament without NHL players. The Russians won 4-3 over Germany in overtime in the gold-medal final at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
Ivan Fedotov stopped 29 shots for the ROC.
Finland completed the tournament with a 6-0 record.
Men's bobsled
Francesco Friedrich and Germany finished off an unforgettable show in sliding at the Beijing Olympics.
Friedrich won his second Olympic gold medal in Beijing and fourth of his career by driving to the win Sunday in the four-man event, the final sliding race of these games.
There were 10 sliding events in Beijing. Germany won gold in nine of them and took 16 medals overall. The rest of the world combined had 14 medals in sliding.
Johannes Lochner won silver for Germany on Sunday and Justin Kripps of Canada got the bronze. Hunter Church was 10th for the U.S. and Frank DelDuca tied for 13th.
Women's curling
Eve Muirhead led Britain to the Olympic women's curling gold medal — the first for the sport's homeland since 2002 — with a 10-3 victory over Japan.
One day after the British men took silver, losing to Sweden in the final, the women picked up two points in the first end and controlled the scoreboard from there. They essentially clinched it in the seventh after Japanese skip Satsuki Fujisawa failed to keep her last stone in the scoring area.