Winter Olympics day 16: GB win women’s curling gold; men’s ice hockey – live! – The Guardian

A second New Zealand Gold, this time to 20-year-old Nico Porteous.

As we countdown to the Closing Ceremony, I’ll be recapping some of the more extraordinary moments of these Games. Here’s a good place to kick off..

Hockey Recap

The Finns had won four Bronze medals in Olympic Hockey, and two Silvers. They’ve been thereabouts in all the big recent tournaments. They conceded an early goal, but scored in the opening seconds of the third period and then hung on for dear life in an excruciating final few minutes. They were Captained by Valtteri Filppula, the former Detroit Red Wing who won a Stanley Cup in 2008. He and his teammates are about to receive their Gold Medals, the last awarded at these Olympics.

Finland 2 – Russia 1

They’ve done it! Finland’s first ever Olympic Hockey Gold. It was a chaotic final few minutes but the Finns stonewalled and repelled and were worthy winners. All that’s missing here is a decent crowd. The Finns are going bonkers and plenty of tears form the Russian lads.

ROC 1-2 Finland, 3rd period

Russia’s goalie Ivan Fedotov is keeping his country in this one. The Finns have had 30 shots on goal to the Russians 16, but it’s still anyone’s Gold.

ROC 1-2 Finland, 3rd period

Russia’s coach Oleg Znarok seems to be in a highly agitated state, pacing around like a nervous groom. We’re nearing the end of the third period.

ROC 1-2 Finland, 3rd period

Thank you Sir. It was a cynical, scrappy, defensive first half but things have opened up noticeably. The Russians are peppering the goal, to no avail.

Less than 30 seconds into the third period, Marko Anttila shoots only a few feet from the blue line. It deflects in off Hannes Bjorninen, and now the ROC will need to find some offense.

Anttila, incidentally, is 36 years old and has spent most of his career in Finland.

And with that, after all my nights of live-blogging, I’m handing off to Jonathan Horn. Thanks as always for following along through one of the strangest but most exhilarating Olympics of our lifetimes.

My favorite moments of the Olympics? Glad you asked. In no particular order:

• Nathan Chen and Eileen Gu showing off their tremendous talent on the world’s stage.
• Lindsey Jacobellis claiming the gold that slipped through her grasp (or grab) in 2006.
• The scintillating men’s curling final, with Niklas Edin and Bruce Mouat trading amazing shots.
• Jessie Diggins taking two medals at two vastly different differences.
• Mikaela Shiffrin’s extraordinary grace.
• Erin Jackson winning gold, followed a few days later by Brittany Bowe, who gave her 500m berth to Jackson, taking bronze.

I’ll have to stop there because …

How did Team GB take curling gold and silver in the Olympics? Sean Ingle has the story:

We end with another ruck and some face mask-pushing between the two teams.

This is not a classic.

ROC 1-1 Finland, 2:29 2nd period

Hockey is the winter sport that loses the most without a crowd. Discuss.

ROC 1-1 Finland, 10:15 2nd period

This is exactly like the USA-Canada women’s games. Finland keeps shooting. ROC defensemen keep blocking them.

Half-chance when the guy coming out of the box finds the puck on his own, but the Finnish defense scrambles into shape.

ROC 1-1 Finland, 12:29 2nd period

Finland is back on the power play. Last time, they generated a ton of shots and kept it in the ROC zone, but they didn’t manage a breakthrough.

Ville Pokka takes an opportunistic shot from the boards, and it looks like it takes a slight deflection through traffic and eludes Fedotov at the near post.

Pokka plays for Avangard Omsk in Russia and is facing three of his teammates. Because some leagues let their players go to the Olympics.

ROC 1-0 Finland, 17:01 2nd period

Long ruck (not a scrum, which is different) along the boards. An official keeps yelling at both teams to get the puck moving, like an MMA ref yelling a fighter to defend himself. Do they all speak English?

Remember when the US women kept outshooting Canada but couldn’t score? Same story here. Finland has outshot Not Russia 15-7.

ROC goalie Ivan Fedotov — born in Finland, believe it or not — has stopped all 15 shots. Also believe it or not, he’s 2 meters tall. That’s 6-foot-7, for those still awake in the USA.

Hey, look who’s back!

That’s right — Vincent Zhou, who won a … um … a medal in the figure skating team event but has not yet received it because no one has received a medal because you know the rest of the story, is back to open the exhibition gala.

Eighteen seconds into a power play.

A rare sprint-distance double medal, after her bronze in the spring, and Diggins’ face is full of joy, anguish, pain and probably some ice. She goes face-first into the snow, and it’s taking them some time to get her to stand and get away from the finish line.

That’s a full set for Diggins, who took that memorable gold in the 2018 team sprint.

Sweden’s Ebba Andersson couldn’t hang on to bronze and dropped back to eighth. Finland’s Kerttu Niskanen just managed to get away from Sweden’s Jonna Sundling to round out the podium, with the USA’s Rosie Brennan a couple of seconds back in sixth.

Brennan was so close multiple times. Fourth in the sprint. Fifth with Diggins in the team sprint. Now sixth here.

Gold in the 10km classical, gold in the skiathlon, gold here. As if Norway needed more medals.

Now we wait for Jessie Diggins and a heated battle for bronze.

The late, great Warren Zevon (with a surprising co-writer — journalist Mitch Albom): “There were Swedes at the blue line, Finns at the red. A Russian with a stick heading straight for his head.”

Our last event has started …

Finland vs. the ROC in the men’s hockey final. It’s a terrific matchup with Alex Ovechkin seeking that elusive … wait … what?

OK, so it’s a bunch of non-NHL players. But that’s the way it used to be, and it’s going to be a good one.

Also underway: the figure skating exhibition gala. I might put that on my second screen when the cross-country race is finished.

Great start for Friedrichs, but he went pretty high up on the first wall. That was his only mistake. He was steady the rest of the way with a lead between 0.37 and 0.40 seconds. He posted the fastest time in the second, third and fourth heats. GOAT?

Bobsleigh: All that said, the top two Germans were nigh uncatchable coming into the fourth heat, and Johannes Lochner has come down well ahead of Kripps.

Now it’s Francesco Friedrichs bidding for the double-double — two-man and four-man in 2018 and 2022 (though the 2018 two-man was shared with Kripps).

Bobsleigh: Phew! Exhale, Canadians. Kripps was going along nicely, with no noticeable errors, but he lost time in the middle section. 0.02 seconds ahead at one split. 0.01 at the next. But the finish is the one that counts, and he was 0.06 ahead.

No sweep for Germany, and unless Rosie Brennan pops up to take bronze while Diggins keeps silver in the 30km cross-country, Canada will finish with more medals than the USA.

Bobsleigh: Moment of truth now for Canada’s Justin Kripps. He shared gold in the two-man in 2018. He was second and third in the two-man and four-man on home ice in Whistler in the 2019 world championships.

Now he needs to finish fast enough to beat Germany’s Christoph Haber, who just finished the best run of the fourth heat so far.

Bobsleigh: Team GB’s Brad Hall will finish sixth, barring disaster for any of the top four. Latvia’s Oskars Kibermanis has crossed the line ahead of him.

We have only two events in which the medalists are not known. In men’s ice hockey, we don’t know the order of gold and silver, but we know who’s getting something shiny.

Canada currently has 25 medals to the USA’s 24. But if Jessie Diggins hangs on in the women’s 30km cross-country and Justin Kripps doesn’t hang on in the four-man bobsleigh, it’ll be a tie at 25.

Through 17.9 km, Diggins is 49 seconds behind Therese Johaug, who’s poised to extend Norway’s record haul of gold medals to 16 and take their total to 37. Diggins is 53.3 seconds ahead of Sweden’s Ebbe Andersson, who’s more than 30 seconds ahead of anyone else.

Kripps is third in the bobsleigh after three runs. He’ll be up in about three minutes.

Bobsleigh: The USA’s Frank Delduca will move up from 15th to at least a tie for 13th. The top 12 are getting ready to head out next.

Cross-country skiing: Norway’s Therese Johaug has put the hammer down. She leads by 16 seconds. Second place — Jessie Diggins, who’s more than 16 seconds ahead of everyone else. The USA’s Rosie Brennan is in fifth.

Still nearly 20km to go.

Muirhead, of course, makes the last shot for two, and it’s a 10-3 score. Japan concedes, and GB finally has a gold medal in Beijing.

Curling: Japan puts a couple of rocks in the back of the house, hoping to entice some mistakes. And Vicky Wright makes a rare one, missing a takeout to get at least one of those rocks away.

It’s still not a great-looking house for Japan. GB has the first- and second-best rock, both ahead of the tee line that bisects the house. Japan needs to eventually get rid of those yellow rocks without jamming them onto these red rocks in the back.

Fujisawa’s first rock taps a GB rock on the button. Muirhead knocks that rock away, along with one of the red ones in the back.

So that’s three yellow GB rocks clustered from the button forward in a staggered line. There’s one red Japanese rock in the back. Fujisawa tries to take out a bunch of those rocks. She gets two, but GB still has shot rock and a draw for two. Will the lead be six or seven?

Curling: The five-rock rule means that a team can’t start removing opponents’ guards from play until five rocks have been thrown. We have now passed the five-rock mark, which means Jennifer Dodds is sending granite out of play. Dodds also played mixed doubles in Beijing, placing fourth.

Cross-country skiing: The women’s 30km mass start is underway. The USA’s Jessie Diggins, gold medalist in the team sprint in 2018, is best in the sprints but also solid in longer distances. This year, she has bronze in the individual sprint, fifth in the team sprint, sixth in the skiathlon and eighth in the 10km classic.

Through 6.2km of this epic race, she’s firmly entrenched in a lead pack of four skiers led by Norway’s Therese Johaug.

Curling: I was expecting Japan to concede even if they scored two, which they did not. Fujisawa’s draw was too heavy, like my final shot today when I was in a tie game in the last end. Sniff.

Anyway, we play on …

8-3 GB after eight ends; GB has hammer

Curling: The two teams put a few rocks in play until Muirhead figures it’s time to just avoid giving up a score of four or six or 13 or whatever. (Eight is actually the maximum, and that requires a lot of mistakes.)

This game is being won at the vice position. Vicky Wright has been outstanding, even if she just didn’t quite make the double takeout on her second shot here. Chinami Yoshida has made too many mistakes. Her last shot just taps a GB guard in utter futility. Muirhead easily disposes of the only Japanese rock in the house, so at most, Japan will score two here.

Fujisawa responds with a wonderful shot, a draw behind all the rocks in play that nestles neatly on the button.

Muirhead’s last shot of this end follows the same path. Fujisawa still has shot rock, but she’ll have to go to the other side of the sheet and throw a really accurate shot to score two …

Bobsleigh: Only the top 20 drivers through three heats can compete in the last one, which means we much bid farewell to Jamaica’s Shanwayne Stephens. He was 8.25 seconds behind leader Francesco Friedrichs. The next-to-last driver, Italy’s Mattia Variola, was 5.48 seconds back.

But Stephens made it here. Some countries didn’t.

Top 20 will go in reverse order, starting in about 15 minutes.

Curling: It’s almost over, as Muirhead completes a relatively routine runback — throwing a yellow rock onto her own yellow rock, sending it flying into Japan’s lone red rock in the house. The red rock goes away, and Muirhead scores FOUR.

8-2 GB after seven ends; Japan has hammer

Curling: GB uses its timeout, which is a little surprising this early in the game. But this may be where they can turn a strong lead into a commanding one.

Facing two British rocks touching the button, Fujisawa slams one of her own rocks into the mixer. Muirhead comes back with a beautiful double takeout, though she leaves a rock exposed.

Fujisawa tries to hit and roll into the center to put pressure on Muirhead.

She whiffs …

Huge opportunity for Muirhead …

Yeah, not a surprise.

The blue and red courses were so lopsided that, by my count, only three races were won from the red course aside from DNFs or DQs. Two were in the Switzerland-China mismatch. The only other winner? Mikaela Shiffrin.

Curling: Game of inches …

Muirhead puts her last rock a few inches too deep, leaving Fujisawa a draw for two. But Fujisawa is just a couple of inches off target and scores only one. It’s a long way back now for Japan.

4-2 GB after six ends; GB has hammer

Alpine team event: Nope. Radamus wins but finishes in 24.04.

Just rotten luck for the USA. If Moltzan had kept her feet in the semis, they likely would’ve been going for … well, silver, because there’s no way they would’ve beaten Austria.

So that’s officially a full Olympics with no medal for Shiffrin, who’ll have to settle for all the hardware she already has and GOAT status.