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On Day 15, two-time gold medalist David Wise leads U.S. podium threats in ski halfpipe, determine skating concludes with the pairs’ free skate and Mikaela Shiffrin races within the closing Alpine occasion.
All occasions listed under are Jap Time on the evening of Friday, Feb. 18, or the morning of Saturday, Feb. 19.
Freestyle Snowboarding
| Occasion | Time (ET) | How you can Watch |
|---|---|---|
| Males’s Closing 🏅 | 8:30 p.m. | NBCOlympics.com, USA (begin), NBC (end) |
As soon as once more, freeskiers and snowboarders have paced the U.S. Olympic group in medals. They’re not achieved.
The U.S. has an out of doors shot at a podium sweep in males’s ski halfpipe, the final freestyle occasion of the Winter Video games.
Aaron Blunck, Birk Irving and David Wise certified first, third and fourth into the ultimate. Alex Ferreira, the seventh qualifier, has been the highest American this season.
To personal the rostrum, they seemingly want an off-day from New Zealand’s Nico Porteous, who prevailed on the final two X Video games and the 2021 World Championships. People gained 5 of the six silver and bronze medals in these competitions.
Clever, who grabbed the primary two males’s ski halfpipe gold medals, can grow to be the third American to win the identical Winter Olympic occasion 3 times (Bonnie Blair, Shaun White).
He hasn’t gained a contest since shattering a femur whereas snowboarding on a slopestyle function in spring 2019. He spent 11 days in an Austrian hospital.
It took the 31-year-old Clever longer to qualify for this U.S. group than in previous Video games. Fairly than specializing in one other medal, he’s grateful to make it this far.
“There are actually issues I wish to have again, like actually rubbery cartilage between my knees, barely extra space between my vertebrae in my again,” he mentioned after making the ultimate, “however I wouldn’t commerce these issues for expertise.”
Traditionally, halfpipe skiers are extra susceptible to severe accidents than every other Olympic athlete group, save maybe downhill skiers.
Pioneering Canadian Sarah Burke died at 29 in 2012, 9 days after struggling a head damage in a coaching accident.
In 2019, Frenchman Kevin Rolland spent three days in a coma after crashing whereas making an attempt to soar almost 40 toes out of 1 / 4 pipe in a world-record try. Rolland returned to worldwide competitors almost two years later and certified tenth into this Olympic closing.
In October 2020, Blunck crashed in coaching, struggling six damaged ribs, a lacerated kidney, fractured pelvis and bruised coronary heart. Within the instant aftermath, he grabbed his coach’s hand and mentioned, “Don’t let me die.” He was bedridden for six weeks.
There have been extra harmful moments in Thursday’s qualifying. Finland’s Jon Sallinen collided with a cameraman atop the pipe and escaped severe damage.
“I cringe on the within, particularly after what I went via” mentioned Blunck, a previous X Video games and world champion. “I type of get that PTSD a bit of bit.”
SEE MORE: Aaron Blunck outscores Nico Porteous in halfpipe qualifying
Determine Skating
| Occasion | Time (ET) | How you can Watch |
|---|---|---|
| Pairs Free Skate 🏅 | 6:00 a.m. | NBCOlympics.com, USA |
Sui Wenjing and Han Cong recorded the very best quick program rating in historical past and might win China’s second Olympic determine skating title. Zhao Hongbo, one in all their coaches, gained the primary in 2010 together with his pairs’ companion,Shen Xue.
The ROC, which went medal-less in pairs in 2010 and 2018, has the second-through-fourth-place groups going into the free skate. Evgeniya Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, fourth in 2018, recorded the second-highest quick program rating in historical past and are simply 0.16 factors behind the Chinese language. World champions Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov are one other 1.49 factors again.
The U.S. put two pairs into the highest 10 of an Olympic quick program for the primary time since 1998 with Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier (sixth) and Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc (seventh).
SEE MORE: Several teams beat highest score ever recorded in stunning pairs short program
Alpine Snowboarding
Mikaela Shiffrin headlines the combined group occasion, the final Alpine snowboarding competitors of the Video games. It’s a bracket-style competitors the place two skiers race one another on quick, adjoining big slalom programs. Every spherical has 4 head-to-heads (two males, two ladies) between two nations, with the group that has the vast majority of wins (4-0 or 3-1) advancing. If it’s 2-2, the tiebreaker is the decrease mixed time of every nation’s quickest female and male skier.
The U.S. has by no means gained a group medal on the world championships (debuted in 2005) or Olympics (debuted in 2018). Shiffrin competed as soon as among the many earlier editions. The U.S. roster additionally consists of Paula Moltzan, who was fourth within the particular person parallel race at 2021 Worlds, and River Radamus, who was fourth within the big slalom earlier at these Video games.
The U.S., seeded sixth based mostly on worldwide outcomes throughout all disciplines, faces Slovakia within the Spherical of 16, then both No. 3 Italy or the No. 14 athletes from the Russian Olympic Committee.
Bobsled
Germany is primed to complete with 9 gold medals among the many 10 sliding occasions. In two-woman bobsled, Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi and Mariama Jamanka and Alexandra Burghardt may give Germany its fifth one-two end in sliding sports activities amongst seven attainable occasions up to now. Nolte, the reigning world junior champion driver, leads the 2018 gold medalist driver Jamanka by a half-second after the primary two of 4 runs. The U.S. is the lone nation to earn a medal in each Olympic ladies’s bobsled occasion (debuted in 2002). It’s more likely to prolong that streak with Elana Meyers Taylor and Sylvia Hoffman and Kaillie Humphries and Kaysha Love in third and fifth.
The four-man bobsled begins with the primary two of 4 whole runs. German Francesco Friedrich bids to grow to be the primary driver to take two- and four-man gold at a number of Olympics. Friedrich’s streak of 14 consecutive worldwide four-man victories was snapped by a Latvian sled piloted by Oskars Kibermanis within the final World Cup earlier than the Olympics. American sleds piloted by Hunter Church and Frank Del Duca will not be anticipated to be medal contenders.
SEE MORE: Meyers Taylor’s two-woman heats good for third at midpoint
Velocity Skating
U.S. velocity skaters ended prolonged medal droughts at these Video games. Joey Mantia can cease yet one more on the final day of racing. Mantia, a three-time world champion within the mass begin, can grow to be the primary American man to win a person velocity skating medal since Shani Davis in 2010. Already at these Video games, Mantia was a part of the group pursuit squad that claimed bronze, the primary U.S. males’s medal in any occasion since 2010.
The 2018 silver medalist Bart Swings, the top-ranked World Cup mass begin skater every of the final three seasons, eyes Belgium’s first Winter Olympic title in any sport since 1948. This occasion can be the ultimate Olympic race for Sven Kramer, in search of a tenth medal to increase his report for a male velocity skater.
The ladies’s mass begin may very well be the ultimate Olympic race for German eight-time Olympian Claudia Pechstein, who at 49 is the oldest feminine Winter Olympian in historical past. Pechstein isn’t anticipated to problem for a medal, however Dutchwoman Irene Schouten may win a 3rd particular person gold after taking the 3000m and 5000m. The final velocity skater to win three particular person golds at one Olympics was Norwegian Johann Olav Koss on the Viking Ship in Hamar in 1994.
Cross Nation Snowboarding
The cross-country rivalry between Norwegian Johannes Hosflot Klaebo and ROC’s Alexandr Bolshunov has been pretty uneventful at these Olympics. They haven’t completed one-two in any occasion and didn’t go head-to-head on any leg in group occasions.
However the 50km, the Winter Olympic model of the marathon, produced fireworks on the 2021 World Championships. There, Klaebo edged countryman Emil Iversen by 0.7 seconds after greater than two hours heading in the right direction. Bolshunov was 1.4 seconds behind. It appeared Klaebo turned the second man to win the dash and the marathon at one worlds. However Klaebo was disqualified minutes later for impeding Bolshunov whereas passing him close to the beginning of the ultimate straight. The contact triggered Bolshunov, who was main on the time, to interrupt a ski pole. Iversen then handed Bolshunov for the silver medal. Iversen known as Bolshunov the “ethical winner.”
Klaebo repeated as Olympic dash champion final week. Earlier, he positioned fortieth within the second-longest Olympic race, the 30km skiathlon, maybe saving power for the dash. There aren’t any extra cross-country occasions to relaxation up for after the 50km.
Curling
| Matchup | Time (ET) | How you can Watch |
|---|---|---|
| Males’s Gold: Nice Britain vs Sweden 🏅 | 1:45 a.m. | NBCOlympics.com |
| Ladies’s Bronze: Switzerland vs Sweden 🏅 | 7:00 a.m. | NBCOlympics.com |
Within the males’s curling closing, Sweden performs Nice Britain in a rematch of the 2021 World Championship closing gained by the Swedes. Within the 2018 Olympic closing, Niklas Edin skipped the Swedish group that was upset by John Shuster and the plucky People. Now Edin, who had 11 surgical procedures within the final 11 years (greater than half on his decrease again), can full an enchancment from fourth in 2010, bronze in 2014 and silver in 2018. No person has completed fourth, third, second and first in the identical occasion in consecutive Video games, in that order, in Olympic historical past, based on Invoice Mallonof Olympedia.org.
Bruce Mouat can skip Nice Britain (extra particularly Scotland, the house of curling) to its first males’s title for the reason that first Olympic match on the 1924 Chamonix Video games, the place three groups competed. Curling was not on the medal program from 1928 via 1994.
The ladies’s bronze-medal sport pits Sweden, the reigning Olympic champion, towards Switzerland, the two-time reigning world champion.
Hockey
| Matchup | Time (ET) | How you can Watch |
|---|---|---|
| Sweden vs Slovakia 🏅 | 8:00 a.m. | NBCOlympics.com, CNBC |
Sweden, which owns 9 Olympic males’s hockey medals, faces Slovakia, which has none since Czechoslovakia cut up up in 1993. Slovakia is 2-1-1 towards Sweden all-time on the Olympics, the lone defeat coming in group play final week.
In 2006, Slovakia earned a scrutinized 3-0 win over Sweden to finish group play. Earlier than that sport, Swedish coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson triggered a stir by suggesting his group may select to lose to get a extra favorable quarterfinal opponent (Switzerland). A Finnish hockey chief was despatched to watch the sport, and Swedish gamers mentioned afterward that they didn’t tank. The IIHF didn’t take any public motion towards the Swedes nor publicly mentioned there was any wrongdoing. In 2010, Slovakia knocked Sweden out within the quarterfinals in Peter Forsberg’s closing sport with the nationwide group.
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