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Skiing in her first-ever Olympic downhill, Mikaela Shiffrin completed her run well off the pace in the event at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
(Looking for a recap of Monday’s events? We’ve got you covered.)
In bitter cold conditions, Shiffrin finished nearly two seconds behind the leader, putting her temporarily in 11th place with several skiers still to go.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist, who skied out in the giant slalom and slalom, is still planning to compete in all five individual disciplines.
Meanwhile, the off-ice drama has finally ended, and attention can now turn to the start of the women’s figure skating competition.
Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva has been cleared to compete in the short program after a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. A test that Valieva took two months ago was flagged for a banned heart medication, but CAS ruled that the 15-year-old Valieva, a “protected athlete” because of her age, can compete.
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BEIJING — The father of United States women’s figure skating Olympian Alysa Liu is not happy with the decision that allowed Kamila Valieva to continue competing at the Beijing Olympics despite testing positive for a banned substance Dec. 25.
“She tested positive for a banned drug. What’s not clear about it? She should be out,” Arthur Liu said, according to the Associated Press. “That is as simple as that. What kind of message are they sending to millions of young boys and girls in sports — particularly figure skaters? That cheaters are allowed to compete in the Olympics, the holiest competition on the planet. It totally destroys the Olympic spirit.”
The figure skating world, and Olympic movement at large, has been ablaze with criticism after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) determined that Valieva could keep competing at these Games.
Arthur Liu said he’s avoided giving his daughter medicine while sick to avoid a positive test, and was critical of Valieva’s controversial coach, Eteri Tutberidze. He also expressed regret of having his daughter compete in figure skating.
“I just simply can’t believe the ‘irreparable harm’ to her,” he told reporter Kalyn Kahler. “How about the irreparable harm to other clean athletes? You are depriving them.”
— Chris Bumbaca
On a team filled with stars, U.S. women’s hockey forward Hilary Knight is probably the most popular.
She has the endorsements, including with Visa and Ralph Lauren. She has posted on TikTok daily from Beijing. But U.S. coach Joel Johnson says to not pay attention to that side if Knight. He prefers to focus on who she is behind the scenes – a soft-spoken, quiet, intense leader off the ice.
“The one that people look to when they’re not sure where to look. The one who people trust in when they’re not sure who to trust,” Johnson told USA TODAY Sports. “I think the impact she has on her teammates is so meaningful.”
Knight already tied the U.S women’s hockey record for most Olympic selections with four, and with another medal now assured in Beijing — Team USA will play archrival Canada for gold — Knight’s hardware count (four) will be also tied for most all time.
“Consistency kills,” Knight, who won gold in 2018 and silvers in 2010 and 2014, told USA TODAY Sports before departing for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
At these Beijing Games, Knight has been a model of “consistent” production. She’s recorded at least one point in five of six games and leads the team with nine points overall. And if the U.S. wins its second consecutive gold, it will be hard to find someone in USA hockey history whose résumé matches that of Knight.
— Chris Bumbaca
While watching the women’s downhill, it’s hard not to notice the blue tape on the faces of many of the skiers.
Athletes in Beijing are using KT Tape to protect their skin from the freezing cold temperatures, but the CEO of KT Tape Greg Venner warns that the tape isn’t clinically tested for faces.
The KT Tape that athletes are putting on their faces is normally used as an elastic sports tape to provide support for muscles, ligaments and tendons to allow for full range of motion. The tape is sponsored and used by several athletes in the Beijing Winter Olympics as well as the summer Olympics season.
There’s no precedent for using the tape on faces or evidence that it protects people from the cold, and Venner says that athletes should be careful about using the tape on the delicate skin on their face.
“We’ve seen KT Tape used as protection against the wind in winter sports over the years, so although it isn’t a clinically approved usage, we appreciate the ingenuity. KT Tape doesn’t endorse the use of kinesiology tape on the face as it isn’t clinically tested,” Venner told USA TODAY. “However, we certainly applaud the creativity – we are proud to support Team USA!”
— Michelle Shen
BEIJING — Consider this preparation for the Alpine combined.
Mikaela Shiffrin raced the downhill for the first time at an Olympics on Tuesday. She won’t win a medal – she was 11th with more than 20 skiers still left – but it gives her more experience on the course ahead of Thursday’s combined, which features a run each of downhill and slalom.
Unlike her first few races in Beijing, Shiffrin was not expected to get a medal in the downhill.
But she had hoped to do all five individual races at the Beijing Olympics, something she couldn’t do four years ago after weather-related delays upended the schedule.
Expected to contend for multiple medals in Beijing, Shiffrin has instead had a tough time. The two-time Olympic champion skied off the course five gates into the first run of both the giant slalom and slalom, her two best events, and was ninth in the super-G.
— Nancy Armour
BEIJING – It’s come down to crunch time for the U.S. men’s curling team. With three matches to go in round-robin play entering Tuesday and a 3-3 record, winning out would almost surely guarantee a place in the semifinals.
Team Schuster took care of business in the first of those matches and defeated Switzerland 7-4. The Americans were tied with the Swiss for fourth place; the top four teams advance to the semifinals. The U.S. lost the first end, but battled back to take a 2-1 lead at the end of the second. Clutch shooting in the seventh and ninth ends helped secure the victory.
For the U.S., friendly scheduling will be a boon. The final two games of the round-robin are against the bottom two teams in the standings, Italy (later Tuesday) and Denmark (Thursday). In other good news, Russia – another team that entered 3-3 and tied for fourth – lost to Norway 12-5. That means the U.S. is currently in sole possession of fourth place to give them some room for error, depending on how the tiebreakers shake out.
A loss to Canada earlier in the tournament dropped Schuster and Co. to 2-3. But like they did four years ago in Pyeongchang, the Americans appear to be capturing momentum when it matters most.
— Chris Bumbaca
ZHANGJIAKOU, China – That it was expected made it no less remarkable.
Eileen Gu claimed her second freeskiing medal during these Beijing Olympics, setting her up for the unprecedented three medals she’s aiming for by the end of the week.
Needing to put down a big run to get in contention, Gu landed a double cork on her second to last jump, followed by a 900 to get on the podium.
Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud took gold and Kelly Sildaru of Estonia won bronze.
Gu already claimed gold in big air’s Olympic debut last week.
The American-born teen is competing for her mother’s native China, a decision that has made her beloved here but also drawn criticism.
— Rachel Axon
BEIJING – The first female snowboarder to ever land a cab double 1260 in competition did it again when it mattered most.
Austria’s Anna Gasser, sitting in second place before her final run of the big air competition and needing to pull off a big trick to pass New Zealand’s Zoi Synnott-Sadowski for the lead, didn’t just land the 1260 Tuesday – she absolutely stomped it for a monster score of 95.5. It turned out to be more than enough for Gasser to win her second consecutive gold medal in this event.
As Gasser landed cleanly at the bottom of the Big Air Shougang, she put her hands to her head, almost in disbelief. Even for someone who has been dominant over the years in this discipline, pulling that off under such immense Olympic pressure was a tremendous feat.
Synnott-Sadowski, who won the gold in slopestyle earlier in these Olympics and also took the big air title at the most recent Winter X-Games, had a shot to one-up Gasser and steal back the title. But her attempt at a double cork 1260 failed as she came in a bit too steep on the landing.
The way the competition set up, with snowboarders being scored on their two best jumps out of three, paved the way for a big dramatic finish and encouraged the riders to try for huge tricks towards the end.
Japan’s Reira Iwabuchi, who was sitting in fourth place, even tried a triple cork on her final run in an attempt to make the podium. Though she didn’t quite land it, the other snowboarders rushed to congratulate her at the bottom of the hill for the audacious attempt.
At that point, the only question was how the top three would finish. After Japan’s Kokomo Murase missed on her third run, the path was cleared for Gasser to make one of the most dazzling runs of her legendary career.
American Hailey Langland, who squeaked into the final by a quarter of a point, was not able to land either of her first two tricks. Eliminated from medal contention, she took the safe route down the jump on her third try and settled for 12th place.
— Dan Wolken
ZHANGJIAKOU, China – On Monday night the American women qualified three for the finals and two in the superfinals of women’s aerials.
“And that’s a quarter of the field so we all came out here and we put down our best jumps,” said the youngest member of the team, Kaila Kuhn, 18. “We really showed there’s a great future for the U.S. team.”
It spoke to the strength of the women’s Team USA and the team in general.
“I think the hard work that we’ve all put in – in the last few years, and Vladimir Lebedev became our head coach, that was a new shift for me as well,” said bronze medal winner Megan Nick Monday night. “And so that has really helped some of the athletes who have worked with him.
“But all around just having Ashley Caldwell on the triple and being such a great role model for how we can keep pushing our ability and our degree of difficulty has been really beneficial.”
Lebedev was born and raised in Uzbekistan, earned a bronze medal at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, and his uncle was president of the Uzbekistan Ski Association.
When Lebedev took over in 2019, he immediately set his sights on the new Team Aerials event, which debuted here at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, and which the Americans won. Caldwell was the woman on the mixed team which earned her a gold medal.
Nick’s bronze is the first medal for the U.S. women’s individual aerials in 24 years; Nikki Stone was the last to medal, at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, with gold.
“I know that interest in our sport in the U.S. has been dwindling,” Nick said, “so I just hope that our gold in the mixed team event and this medal – and hopefully another medal in the coming days – inspires kids around the nation to consider starting aerials.”
— Lori Nickel
Shortly after the Court for Arbitration in Sport issued its ruling allowing Russian teenager Kamila Valieva to compete in the women’s figure skating competition despite a positive drug test in December, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee issued a strong statement in opposition.
“We are disappointed by the message this decision sends,” USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland said. “It is the collective responsibility of the entire Olympic community to protect the integrity of sport and to hold our athletes, coaches and all involved to the highest of standards.”
That rebuke was mild compared to what other skating stars had to say. For example, NBC commentator and former U.S. Olympian Johnny Weir called the decision “a slap in the face to the Olympic Games, to our sport and to every athlete that has ever competed at the Olympics clean.”
Team USA finished second to Valieva and the Russians in the team figure skating competition earlier in the Games. Valieva will be the gold medal favorite when the women’s individual competition begins on Tuesday.
The U.S. men’s curling team is currently battling Switzerland, which you can watch here or on CNBC. The squad currently holds a 3-3 record after six of 10 round-robin matches.
As you’re watching maybe you’re like us, thinking: What was that move for? Why did they do that? And what is with all the sweeping?
Well we’ve got you covered. Here’s a reminder of the rules of curling and more information about the event’s schedule at the Winter Olympics.
BEIJING — Looking for a reason to stay up late? Mikaela Shiffrin is racing the Olympic downhill for the first time.
The downhill begins at 11 a.m. Tuesday Beijing time, so 10 p.m. Monday night on the East Coast. No doubt NBC was pleased with Shiffrin’s decision.
Shiffrin didn’t do the downhill at her previous two Olympics. She’d hoped to race it at Pyeongchang in 2018, but weather-related delays disrupted the schedule and she didn’t have enough time to train. Though she hadn’t been on downhill skis since December until the first training run Saturday, Shiffrin has decided to do the race.
“It’s going to be intense and a little bit of nerves but in general I think it’s going to be really cool to be able to race,” she said. “One of my biggest goals coming here was to start in every event. At least that dream may still be alive.”
Shiffrin is 12th on the start list, just in front of reigning Olympic downhill champion Sofia Goggia. Alix Wilkinson starts 21st and Keely Cashman will go 26th. The final American, Jackie Wiles, will start 30th in the 36-skier field.
It’s cold at the National Alpine Skiing Centre; the temperate forecast for the start of the race is minus-7 degrees. But it’s clear and sunny with light winds, so good conditions for a downhill race.
— Nancy Armour
There’s no great need or demand for permanent venues to host a sport as niche as big air, but the Chinese went ahead and did it anyway. It is a towering, dramatic structure rising above a former industrial park where they used to mill steel, flanked by cooling towers that evoke images of nuclear winters moreso than the Winter Olympics.
And yet it might just be the best idea the Chinese have had at these Beijing Games, writes USA TODAY Sports’ Dan Wolken.
But are those towers really part of a nuclear power plant, as many social media posts have suggested?
A USA TODAY fact check reveals they’re actually industrial cooling towers from a now-closed steel mill.
BEIJING — Kamila Valieva has been cleared to compete at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
In a momentous decision, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled Monday in favor of the Russian figure skating superstar and the country’s anti-doping agency, dismissing the provisional suspension that Valieva, 15, would have otherwise faced after she tested positive for a banned heart medication.
The CAS panel reasoned that the six-week delay from the time Valieva’s sample was collected to the time she was informed of the positive result was “not her fault” and noted her special status as a “protected person” under world anti-doping rules, because she is not yet 16.
– Tom Schad
After a stellar day for American women, the USA has moved into third place all by itself in total gold medals at the Beijing Olympics with seven.
Bobsledders Kaillie Humphries and Elana Meyers Taylor took gold and silver in the monobob, while first-time Olympian Megan Nick won a bronze in women’s aerials and the ice dancing team of Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue also won bronze.
Team USA now has a total of 16 medals, which ranks third in the overall medal count behind Norway’s 19 and the Russian Olympic Committee’s 18.
The Norwegians also lead the way with nine golds. Germany is second with eight.
The U.S. women’s hockey team is headed to the gold medal game.
Hilary Knight had a goal and assist, and Alex Cavallini stopped 25 shots to lead the Americans over Finland 4-1 in the semifinal.
Team USA will seek its second straight Olympic gold against Canada (11:10 p.m. ET Wednesday). The U.S. and Canada have faced each other in six of the seven Olympic women’s hockey finals. Canada has won gold four times.
“You know, I think it’s wonderful hockey. It’s the most beautiful rivalry in sports,” forward Hilary Knight said after scoring a goal and adding an assist in Monday’s win. “It gets the best and the worst out of both of us at the same time. And it’s just a wonderful game.”
