Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018: Previewing What to Watch For on Day 11
If there's one place U.S. athletes seem to be at home in South Korea, it's the halfpipe.
Chloe Kim and Shaun White took home gold last week, while Arielle Gold took bronze. On Day 11 of the 2018 Winter Olympics, it's the skiers' turn, as the women have their final runs and the men have their qualifiers.
We'll also wrap up ice dancing, start the men's hockey playoffs and see medals at stake in biathlon (mixed relay), Nordic combined and the short-track women's relay.
Here are the storylines to follow.
To watch live Olympics coverage, including the events detailed below, visit NBC's Olympics site. Reminder: South Korea is 14 hours ahead of Eastern Time, so an event that takes place Tuesday morning in Pyeongchang will be on Monday night in the U.S.
American Duos Jostling for Ice Dance Bronze
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Ice dancing has two distinct tiers of medal contenders.
For gold, it's Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir vs. France's Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron. After the short dance, they are first and second, respectively, with a comfortable gap on the rest of the field.
Six teams are jostling for the bronze, three of which are American. The difference between second and third is 4.18 points. The difference between third and eighth is 3.42 points.
Two of those American duos are in the driver's seat. The Shib Sibs, Maia and Alex Shibutani, are in fourth place, just 0.02 points behind the couple that surprised them to win the U.S. Championships, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue.
Both teams have compelling stories. The Shib Sibs are charismatic social media phenoms, while Hubbell and Donohue hated and then dated each other before breaking up and focusing on becoming medal contenders.
All four of those teams will be in the final five (approximately 10:48 p.m. ET) in the free dance (8 p.m. ET), along with fifth-place Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte (Italy). The third U.S. duo, Madison Chock and Evan Bates, will be in the penultimate group along with the other two in the bronze-medal logjam.
Can the Americans Catch Cassie Sharpe in Ski Halfpipe?
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The U.S. women have every reason to think they can take at least one medal in the freestyle skiing halfpipe. Maddie Bowman is the defending Olympic champion and reigning X Games champion. Brita Sigourney is the X Games runner-up and World Cup leader.
Bowman, Sigourney and Annalisa Drew all qualified for the 12-skier final (8:30 p.m. ET). But in qualifying, they were looking up at one of the sport's pioneers, 2014 silver medalist and 2004 World Cup champion Marie Martinod of France.
And the top spot went to Canada's Cassie Sharpe, who has two World Cup wins this season and laid down two smooth runs in qualifying. She gets the advantage of going last in the final.
After the women's final, the men start qualifying (11:15 p.m. ET). The U.S. contingent is even stronger here and could sweep the medals.
U.S. Men's Hockey Starts Playoff Run
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The U.S. men came into this hockey tournament as distinct underdogs, cobbling together a team from players outside the NHL to face a bunch of teams that draw mostly from their national pro leagues or the hemisphere-spanning KHL.
But they made it through round-robin play in decent shape, with a win, an overtime loss and a regulation loss. They frittered away a lead against Slovenia but rebounded to beat Slovakia 2-1 behind two goals from Harvard player and Boston Bruins draftee Ryan Donato. The Olympic Athletes from Russia were a bit too much, however.
In the first of the elimination rounds, they'll face Slovakia again (10:10 p.m.). At stake is a quarterfinal game against the Czech Republic.
Goalie Ryan Zapolski, who plays for KHL team Jokerit (Finland), has saved 89.04 percent of the shots against him.
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European Powers Battle in Biathlon Mixed Relay
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The last three biathlon events of the Olympics are relays, which are typically among the most entertaining events to watch. Momentum can swing wildly with each missed shot.
The mixed relay (6:15 a.m. ET) is in the Games for the second time. Each team will have two men and two women covering the course. Norway won the first competition four years ago and can field a team of four athletes who have already won medals in South Korea. But Germany has six medals here, three from Laura Dahlmeier.
Watch out for Italy, Sweden and France as well.
USA and Canada Renew Women's Bobsled Rivalry
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In women's hockey, the USA and Canada almost always end up in the top two spots, and their rivalry occasionally turns bitter.
In women's bobsled, the USA and Canada usually end up in the top two, but their rivalry is considerably friendlier than their hockey counterparts. Elana Meyers Taylor (USA) and Kaillie Humphries (Canada) are good friends who have trained together and shared many podiums.
Humphries has won the last two Olympic golds. Meyers Taylor has won two of the last three World Championships.
Jamie Greubel Poser (USA) could make it a North American sweep, just as she did when she finished behind Meyers Taylor and Humphries in last year's World Championships.
The competition is four runs over two days. Day 1 starts at 6:50 a.m. ET.
Jamaican Women Get Extra Push to Make Bobsled Event
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The Jamaican women's bobsled team has been through plenty of ups and downs before navigating the curves of the Pyeongchang sliding track.
Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian, who had competed for the USA in Sochi with Lolo Jones on board, decided in 2015 to switch her nationality to Jamaica. It was a win-win all the way around. The USA still had two strong drivers, while Fenlator-Victorian had a chance to represent her father's country and build up the Games' diversity.
Even without massive resources, Fenlator-Victorian fared well internationally, working her way up through North American Cup competition to the World Cup and finishing as high as seventh in this season's World Cup races. Olympic qualifying went down to the wire, but Jamaica made it.
In South Korea, though, the Jamaican team has dealt with some controversy. After a dispute over her role, driving coach Sandra Kiriasis—a legendary German driver—abruptly left. Her departure threw ownership of the Jamaican sled itself into question.
Enter Red Stripe. The Jamaican brewing company sent the Jamaican federation the money it needed to keep its bobsledders in a sled.
Hooray, bobsled.
U.S. Curling Teams Aim to Stay in Contention
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By this time in most recent Olympics, we're wondering what went wrong for the U.S. curling teams.
In 2010 and 2014, John Shuster's men only won two games in each nine-game round-robin. The women won two in 2010, then one in 2014.
This year? Nina Roth won both of the games we mentioned in the Day 10 preview, beating Denmark 7-6 on a clutch shot and routing China 10-4. More surprising: John Shuster beat the heavily favored Canadians 9-7 to keep up a legitimate shot at reaching the four-team playoffs.
At 3-4, Shuster's men likely need to win their last two, first against Switzerland (6:05 a.m. ET). At 4-3, Roth's women are currently tied for fourth and would help themselves if they can beat the surprise leaders from South Korea (12:05 a.m.).
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