Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 day three: women’s giant slalom, curling semi-finals and more – live! – The Guardian

Three racers to come in the giant slalom, each with a second of time up their sleeves.

Back underway at the slalom, with O’Brien taken off for medical attention. Ragnhild Mowinckel loses time, makes up time, and ends up in second place for Norway. Her compatriot Stjernesund is still in third.

Over at the Big Air, the Italian skier we were looking at earlier, Leonardo Donaggio, has pulled out a big score on his third jump to get into the qualification bracket when he was out of contention. The top 12 scorers go through to the final.

There’s a long delay with the injury to O’Brien. It must be bad. Looked horrible in real time, right at the end when she was at her fastest. The cameras have cut away to scenic footage. Unnerving.

The final Canada-ROC hockey score is 6-1. I swear that it was 7-1 earlier. Maybe Putin got on the phone.

A couple of nasty crashes as the last few slalom contenders push for everything they can find. Tessa Worley of France gets her arm caught in a gate and goes down hard. She limps off under her own steam. Nina O’Brien from the USA is in a worse way. She loses control right towards the end, is on course for a fast time but can’t hold it together, and crashes right into the last flag before hitting the deck and sliding into the finish area. To add insult to injury she gets disqualified for not clearing the last gate. I’m not entirely sure but she might have been on track for third place if not.

At last, Stjernesund is knocked off. It was always going to be hard to hang on against the fastest racers at the bottom part of the field. Lara Gut-Behrami takes the lead for Switzerland.

In the Big Air, the third round has just begun. These guys do three jumps and take their two best scores. Birk Ruud is back to the top with a 93.25 to add to his 94.5.

So if you’re not clear, the slalom racers go twice, and their times are added together to form their final result. Stjernesund had a middling first run of 59.39, but blazed a 57.50 second time around. Her time sees off Michelle Gisin of Switzerland now, so that’s six skiers with a faster first round than Stjernesund who haven’t caught her.

We’ve had 17 racers of 30 so far in the giant slalom. Stjernesund still in front, after five faster first-rounders now.

As we get deeper into the field, these are the racers with the faster first-run times, meaning each of them starts with an advantage over Stjernesund. But so far four of them have failed to use that buffer to catch her second-run time.

Another leader in the giant slalom, Thea Stjernesund for Norway with 57.50, the fastest time of the day.

Hockey: The Canadians are leading 7-1 on goals. The Russians are leading 7-2 on penalty send-offs. Two minutes off the ice for each foul.

Wow! Paula Moltzan (USA) nearly crashes, ending up balancing on one leg with her ski waving around in the air, then somehow recovers to get through the next gate and finish the course. Not only that, she ties for first place! A dead heat.

If you don’t know how slalom works, they have to zigzag back and forth across a slope while going between flags that are placed here and there on the way down. Very fast, and if you miss a gate you’re gone.

Won’t be a shared gold though. New leader Ana Bucik puts the Slovenian flag up top. Frasse Sombet is suddenly out of the medals.

So there were 60 giant slalom skiers who got through the first run, of which the fastest 30 get to tackle the second run. Four of those have already crashed out second time around. Austria’s Ramona Siebenhoffer looks set to take top spot but loses her purchase with three gates to go. Tina Robnik of Slovenia goes second behind Frasse Sombet, then Norway’s Maria Tviberg passes them both.

Alex Tilley for Great Britain is ahead of the pace through the first half of her run, but slips just behind Aicher on time towards the bottom. Tilley is currently second but there are faster racers to come.

There’s a crash to follow, the Swedish skier Hilma Loevblom catching her wrist in one of the slalom gates and hurting herself quite badly by the look of it.

Coralie Frasse Sombet clocks the second-fastest run of the day, 57.69, to go top.

The women’s giant slalom second run has begun. These run times get added to their first run to decide the medals. Emma Aicher of Germany starts well with 59 seconds flat, far better than her first run of 1:01:52. But seven racers in the first round went under 59.

This is from Reuters.

New Zealanders were in ecstasy on Sunday when Zoi Sadowski-Synnott won their first-ever Olympic gold medal – none more so than her dad Sean, whose emotional and slightly profane TV interview has since gone viral. “I’m pretty fucking excited to be honest,” he said of his daughter’s victory in the Olympic slopestyle competition, adding another couple of spicy anecdotes in a joyous TV appearance.

“Yeah, I think really that he had a few too many drinks at that point, but you can’t really blame him, it was Waitangi Day in New Zealand (a national holiday) and his daughter just won the Olympics so…!” she told Reuters, laughing. “The last 24 hours has been a whirlwind, super-stoked to be standing here with gold around my neck.”

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Arden also got in on the act, sending a slightly more formal message of congratulations to the snowboarder.

“Honestly the reaction has been absolutely insane, I haven’t been able to keep up with all the support and love that I’ve got and then I got a shoutout from Jacinda. So yeah, I told her that we say hi from the whole team here in Beijing, and we hope to make them proud.”

Her dad’s reaction was a reflection of Kiwi delight all over the country, Zoi’s coach Sean Thomson said. “He’s amazing, it just was so cool to see the emotion coming out of him in that clip,” he told Reuters. “We loved it and we loved all the support from back home with friends and family. It’s just really special what Zoi has done here, and to see everyone react the way they have been doing is just something else.”

The victory comes just a few weeks after the 20-year-old won two gold medals at X-Games in Aspen, Colorado, and she will go for Olympic gold again in the Big Air event, which starts on Monday Feb 14.

And as soon as I type that, the Russians score! They finally get a breakaway from the siege at their goal, stream down the ice, and their captain Anna Shokhina puts a flick past the tender from the left side of goal. It’s 4-1.

Canada really monstering the Russian women in the hockey. In the whole time I’ve been watching the Russians haven’t got near goal. They’re spending the whole game in their defensive third, slapping the puck up the ice without much plan. Three minutes left in the middle third.

We’re on to the second run in the Big Air. Everyone gets three goes and then takes their best two scores. Birk Ruud from Norway was top in the first round. When you invert his name on the leaderboard is looks like Rude Berk. Unflattering. Can ski though.

Canada up 4-0 now in that hockey game, the Russian coaches looking very stern.

In the men’s downhill, it is the Swiss skier Beat Feuz who wins in a time of 1:42:69. He won bronze in this event in 2018, and silver in the Super G. Completes his set this time around.

And quite the story for second place: the 41-year-old Frenchman Johan Clarey, having qualified for three previous Olympics but having never finished higher than 18th, wins a silver medal in his fourth Games.

Previous winner Matthias Meyer takes bronze for Austria.

Canada go up 3-0 over the Russian team in the women’s ice hockey, after a frenetic period of attack.

On the Big Air, this skiing commentator’s favourite thing to say is “tweaking out the grab”. I don’t know what it means to tweak out a grab, but every competitor has tweaked out the grab at least once per jump. I wonder if he drops tweaking out the grab into conversation in his normal life? Ordering pizza, jumping in a taxi. “So just tweak out the grab and then take that next left.”

Here’s a line from the US figure skating team. For context, Zhou is the only skater to have beaten the juggernaut that is Nathan Chen in the last four years.

“As part of yesterday’s regular COVID-19 screening, Vincent Zhou tested positive. Under the guidance of the USOPC medical staff, Zhou is undergoing additional testing to confirm his status. If the results are negative, Zhou will be able to compete in the men’s short program, which begins Tuesday. At this time, we ask you respect his privacy as we await the results.”

Leonardo Donaggio, a young skier from Italy, has just nailed a 90+ score to go to second place in qualifying with five full spins and a decent landing. But Henrik Harlaut of Sweden goes one better with the next jump. Three qualifiers above 90 so far.

Since I don’t know all that much about winter sports, I’m going to describe them like someone who doesn’t know much about winter sports. Freeski Big Air? Does what it says on the tin. Some guys are coming down to a huge ramp and then spinning a lot. I would argue though that the conventional aerials comp, where they use that ramp that ends up as a vertical, gets bigger air. This is a flatter ramp, and the spins are mostly lateral corkscrew style rather than adding flips into the equation.

Now… the first dude as I switched over just went down the ramp backwards. Matej Svancer, Austrian. That seems bold. Wait, now some other guys are landing backwards. Is this a thing now? Backwards skiing just for extra flair? Sure, why not.

The snowboard slopestyle is quite the spectacle. If you liked the street skate event in Tokyo then this is the same idea but on ice. A long downhill run littered with jumps, rails, ramps, and even a snowy Chinese pagoda with a roof that competitors can get on top of and go flying off. Flips, spins, all the good stuff.

The Canadians go gold and bronze, China silver. Mark McMorris has won two bronzes in this event already, and he scorches his last run in an effort to knock off his countryman Max Parrot from the top spot. But needs a couple more points. Settles for his third bronze, Parrot gold, Su Yiming silver.

There’s also a women’s prelim round ice hockey match going on: Canada leading I Can’t Believe It’s Not Russia 2-0.

In the women’s Big Air qualifiers, Canada’s Megan Oldham finished top. For Great Britain, Kirsty Muir qualified but Katie Summerhayes missed out by one spot.

On-course news from the day so far: American favourite Mikaela Shiffrin crashed out of the giant slalom qualifying, missing her first shot in a program that was aiming for five gold medals. Alex Tilley for Great Britain is in the mix. That second run is due later today, not sure on time yet as strong winds yesterday meant another event has to be squeezed into today.

In other news related to China, sport, and the application of state power – our reporter Helen Davidson in Taipei is working on a story about Peng Shuai, the tennis player who has had the close attention of the Chinese government ever since accusing a prominent politician of assaulting her.