Winter Olympics 2018 Schedule: Live Stream, Start Times for Every Friday Event
The 2018 Winter Olympics turns the page from Friday morning's opening ceremony to the start of competition in one event and the continuation of curling on Friday night.
With the 14-hour time difference between Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the Eastern Time zone, the events contested in prime time start in the middle of the morning locally.
The qualifying heats of the men's snowboard slopestyle competition will take the spotlight during the light schedule, with the United States looking to defend its gold from 2014 in a wide-open field.
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Inside at curling, the third day of mixed doubles play starts with a meeting between two of the favorites to win the gold medal.
Friday Schedule
All events can be live-streamed on NBCOlympics.com
Opening ceremony (Delayed TV coverage in prime time at 8 p.m. ET on NBC)
Curling mixed doubles round robin (7:05 p.m. ET)
Men's snowboard slopestyle qualifying (8 p.m. ET)
Wide-Open Field For Men's Slopestyle Gold
Not only will the men's slopestyle qualifying runs be exciting because of the nature of the event, it will provide a ton of intrigue given the many gold-medal candidates.
In the mix for the podium are two returning medalists from 2014, a pair of young Americans, a hungry 18-year-old Norwegian phenom and a Canadian looking to help his country dominate the event.
Stale Sandbech of Norway won the silver four years ago, and Canada's Mark McMorris took home bronze. McMorris is the more likely medalist of the two this time around as he continues to develop his runs while maintaining his place at the top of the sport.
McMorris is also coming back from a horrific injury in March in which he broke 17 bones after a collision with a tree in the Canadian back country.
Although he's been forced to be patient with his recovery, McMorris is excited to be ready to contend for a gold medal, as he told Rachel Axon of USA Today.
"I guess you could say I'm fully recovered, for sure," McMorris said. "I'm sore a lot, but (that's) to be expected," he said. "It's been a bit of a hard thing to deal with every morning as a 24-year-old feeling pretty beat up, but it's all worth it. It could have been a lot worse so I'm just really glad to be snowboarding and having fun again."
McMorris' countryman Max Parrot, Norway's Marcus Kleveland and the American duo of Chris Corning and Redmond Gerard will also look to place high during the two qualifying sessions in which competitors will have two runs to record their top score.
Switzerland and Canada Square Off in Curling Mixed Doubles
The eight participants in curling mixed doubles are already four matches into their Olympic experience.
The new event on the curling docket has seen Switzerland jump out to a 3-1 record along with Canada, Norway and the Olympic Athletes of Russia.
Switzerland's pairing of Jenny Perret and Martin Rios are the defending world champions in the event, and they'll receive their toughest test yet against Canada.
Canada's John Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes were expected to be 4-0 heading into Friday's clash with the Swiss, but they were upset by Norway on the first day of competition. Norway also handed Switzerland its first defeat on Thursday.
The winner of Friday's contest could end up in a great position for the No. 1 seed in the medal rounds, while the loser will be scrambling to qualify for the top four in a congested field.
Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90.
Statistics obtained from Olympic.org.
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