Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018: Day 3 Winners and Losers
Jamie Anderson and the figure skating team added to the United States' medal count on Day 3 of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Anderson overcame brutal conditions in snowboarding slopestyle to earn her second straight gold in the discipline. Key medal contender Mikaela Shiffrin wasn't so lucky with the weather, though. The USA star is still waiting to make her Pyeongchang debut because wind postponed the giant slalom.
Anderson was just one of many heavy favorites to win gold on Day 3.
In ladies' 1,500-meter speedskating, Ireen Wust of the Netherlands won the fifth Olympic gold of her career. Canada's Mikael Kingsbury took care of business in men's skiing moguls. And in the biathlon, both Germany's Laura Dahlmeier and France's Martin Fourcade won gold in the pursuit events as expected.
Read on for the rest of Monday's biggest winners and losers in Pyeongchang.
Winner: Canada Mixed Doubles Curling
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Since curling's official return to the Winter Olympics in 1998, Canada has never missed a medal opportunity in the sport.
Not even the debut of the mixed doubles tournament will stop that trend. Thanks to an 8-4 victory over Norway in the semifinals, Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris have guaranteed a gold or silver.
They stole two critical points in the fifth end of the semifinals matchup, and a picture-perfect hammer in the seventh end gave Lawes and Morris the final three points.
Canada will take on Switzerland in the gold-medal match Tuesday at 6:05 a.m. ET.
Loser: Slopestyle Conditions
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Even after initially being delayed for more than an hour, the women's slopestyle conditions were challenging because of gusting wind.
That appeared to affect Switzerland's Carla Somaini, whose massive air on her first run looked entirely unexpected. Several other competitors bailed on tricks because of a lack of speed, potentially caused by updrafts on the course.
Worst of all, Canada's Spencer O'Brien backed out during a promising final run because of the wind, prioritizing her safety over a medal. Smart, but majorly disappointing.
"It's a s--tshow," said Dutch rider Cheryl Maas, per Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (link contains NSFW language).
Enni Rukajarvi, the silver medalist at Sochi in 2014, shorted a jump and smashed a knuckle on her opening run. Slovakia's Klaudia Medlova had a terrifying crash and then landed a knuckle.
Additionally, 17-year-old Australian Tess Coady suffered a torn ACL during a training run. She blamed the wind, per Sean Ingle of The Guardian.
Yes, everyone dealt with the same problem. But to have weather play a major role in a medal event is unfortunate.
Winner: Jamie Anderson, USA
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As frustrating as the conditions were, Jamie Anderson put down the cleanest, biggest run in the slopestyle competition.
The American is now a back-to-back gold medalist.
She scored an 83.00 on her first run to claim a place atop the podium. Canada's Laurie Blouin finished with a 76.33 for silver, and Finland's Enni Rukajarvi earned bronze with a 75.38.
Anderson will attempt to win a second medal during the big air competition. The qualifying takes place Sunday, Feb. 18, at 7:30 p.m. ET, and the finals are Thursday, Feb. 22, at 7:30.
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Loser: Drama in Team Skate
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At both the individual and overall levels, the figure skating team event—while entertaining—simply lacked drama in the scoring.
On earlier days, Japan's Shoma Uno lapped the field in men's short, and then OAR and Canada both cruised in two events. That trend continued Sunday, especially when Russia's Alina Zagitova scored a 158.08 and won by 20.55 points.
Canada's Patrick Chan seemingly controversially earned a first-place finish, but he cleanly landed a pair of quads that others didn't attempt. That 10-point boost helped Canada secure the gold medal before the final program began.
Enjoyable, it was. Dramatic, though? Not so much.
Winner: Mirai Nagasu, USA
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Team USA repeated its bronze medal in the team event thanks to a boost from Mirai Nagasu, who made a little history in the process.
During her free program, the 24-year-old became the first American woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics. She posted a 137.53, edging Canada's Gabrielle Daleman by 39 hundredths for second place behind the dominant Zagitova.
Nagasu was visibly thrilled with her performance, as seen in a video shared by NBC Olympics.
Along with strong showings from Adam Rippon and the Shibutani sibilings (Maia and Alex), Nagasu locked up hardware for the USA.
Loser: The Field in Women's Halfpipe
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As halfpipe qualifying essentially confirmed, it is Chloe Kim vs. The Field.
Kim, the third rider of the event, scored a 91.50 that held up through the remainder of the first run. Only three other competitors—including Team USA's Maddie Mastro—finished in the 80s.
But that's not even the most ridiculous part.
"Could be down for some ice cream [right now]," Kim tweeted ... between runs ... at the Olympics ... before casually laying down a 95.50 to extend her lead in qualifying.
The field is in trouble during the finals at 8 p.m. ET on Monday.
Winner: Dahlmeier Double-Dip
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It's common for one biathlete to win multiple golds at a single Winter Olympics. In fact, the only time in the past 30 years that it didn't happen was in 1998. And it was close that year in Nagano, Japan. Norway's Halvard Hanevold earned gold in the men's individual, his countryman Ole Einar Bjorndalen won the sprint, and they worked together to take silver in the relay event.
Thus, when Germany's Laura Dahlmeier won the gold in the women's 7.5-kilometer sprint Saturday, it unofficially reinforced her position as the favorite to do the same in Monday's 10-kilometer pursuit.
She did not disappoint.
Dahlmeier won the sprint by a 24.2-second margin, and she finished 29.4 seconds clear of the field in the pursuit. She was one of just three biathletes to not miss any of the 10 targets in the sprint, and she was one of six to hit 19 out of 20 in the pursuit. (No one was perfect.)
Could she be headed for something similar to what she did at the 2017 Biathlon World Championships? One year ago in Hochfilzen, Austria, Dahlmeier won gold in four of the five women's events (individual, pursuit, mass start and relay) and took silver in the fifth (sprint). The year before that, she earned one gold, one silver and three bronze medals. She practically lives on the medal stand for biathlon.
As a side note, the women's pursuit was another disappointing event for Team USA. No American biathlete finished in the top 50 in the sprint, and none did better than Emily Dreissigacker's 47th-place finish in the pursuit. So much for this being the breakthrough year for USA's female biathletes.
Loser: OAR Mixed Doubles Curling
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There aren't many moments more dramatic in the Winter Olympics than a curling match decided by the final stone. And after roughly 90 minutes of sweeping and scheming, the mixed doubles semifinal between Switzerland and the Olympic Athletes from Russia came down to one throw.
The Swiss led 6-5 in the eighth end and were lying one, but Russian curler Aleksandr Krushelnitckii had the hammer and a chance to win.
Switzerland only had one stone in the house, while OAR had three. If Krushelnitckii could nudge the Swiss rock just a few inches, he would have scored multiple points for the immediate win. It was a near-impossible shot, though, so he went for the draw to force an extra end.
Under normal circumstances, that would have been an easy throw. Switzerland's stone wasn't even touching the four-foot arc, and there was nothing on the left half (when viewing from above) of the sheet. An uncontested draw to the button is about as easy as it gets for an Olympic curler.
But these weren't normal circumstances, and the pressure got to Krushelnitckii. He threw it the slightest bit too heavy, backing away in dejection before it even reached the hog line.
As a result, Switzerland is moving on to face Canada in the gold-medal match Tuesday night Korean time, and the Olympic Athletes from Russia will have to settle for battling Norway for the bronze.
Winner: Mikael Kingsbury, Canada
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The course for the men's moguls finals in freestyle skiing was unforgiving.
In the second finals—where the field of 12 skiers is reduced to six—three did not finish after wiping out in the middle of the ridges. And while everyone did complete the last run, Norway's Vinjar Slatten lost control in the moguls and went crashing to the ground, and Team USA's Casey Andringa was unable to stick the landing of the last jump, finishing in fifth place.
But Canada's Mikael Kingsbury was one man who had no problem with the course.
The silver medalist in Sochi, Russia, came out strong Friday with a qualifying run (86.07) that scored almost three points better than anyone else. (OAR's Aleksandr Smyshliaev scored an 83.93 in second place.) Kingsbury then placed fourth in the first finals and second in the second finals before wisely saving his best for last Monday night Korean time.
His final run was effectively flawless, taking gold with a score of 86.63. Silver (Australia's Matt Graham) and bronze (Japan's Daichi Hara) weren't even close, falling more than four points behind Kingsbury.
Loser: TV Viewers Wanting to Watch Live Ski Jumping
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The final round of the ladies' normal hill ski jump was riveting. The competitors were racing down the ramp in quick succession, each jump more incredible than the last.
Japan's Sara Takanashi was the third-to-last jumper, flying 103.5 meters with a score of 243.8 to go into first place by a margin of more than 13 points. Germany's Katharina Althaus was up next with a score of 252.6. And last but not least was Norway's Maren Lundby, who traveled 110.0 meters in the air with a gold-medal score of 264.6—obliterating the top score of 247.4 in this event in Sochi four years ago.
It was fantastic to watch but only if you were streaming it.
When the final round began, it was one of just two events still taking place on Day 3 in Pyeongchang. The other was a round-robin women's hockey game between Sweden and Unified Korea, which was an unwatchable blowout. For the second consecutive game, Korea lost 8-0. But rather than showing the ski jump, NBC Sports continued airing hockey.
Even after hockey ended and there were about a dozen ski jumpers remaining, NBC Sports switched to tape-delayed footage of women's luge and then to tape-delayed footage of men's moguls.
We're not expecting every single event to be live on television, but since nothing else interesting was happening at the same time, it's disappointing that those of us who haven't yet cut the cord were still required to watch the final round of the ski jump on a laptop or tablet.
Winner: Ireen Wust, the Netherlands
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As expected, the Netherlands is running away with most of the speedskating medals in Pyeongchang. The Dutch swept the ladies' 3,000 meters Saturday. Sven Kramer won gold in the men's 5,000 meters Sunday. And the country got two more medals Monday, with Ireen Wust winning the ladies' 1,500 meters, while Marrit Leenstra took the bronze.
Just for good measure, the Netherlands also had Lotte van Beek in fourth place, 0.01 seconds shy of a medal.
But the big story is Wust, who became the first Dutch athlete—summer or winter—to win five Olympic gold medals. She also has four silver and one bronze in her career for a total of 10, with at least one more potentially on the way in the next two weeks.
Wust fell 0.08 seconds shy of that fifth gold medal two days prior, taking silver in the 3,000 meters. But she edged out Japan's Miho Takagi by 0.20 seconds Monday to make history for her country.
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