Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018: Day 11 Winners and Losers
With just a few days remaining in the 2018 Winter Olympics, every medal is beginning to feel more important than the last. And on Day 11 in Pyeongchang, Germany and France were the big winners with three medals apiece—though the Germans only needed one Nordic combined event to get theirs.
North America had a strong showing, too. In the first two medal events of the day—ice dance and women's free ski halfpipe—Canada, France and the United States finished in that order. For good measure, Team USA even had the fourth-place spot in both competitions.
In the later events, Europe ruled the podium stand. Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and Norway took eight of the nine medals awarded in Day 11's evening session.
Read on for the full list of the day's biggest winners and losers.
Winner: Cassie Sharpe, Canada
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In a strong halfpipe field, Canada's Cassie Sharpe emerged as the best of the 12-woman group.
The 25-year-old qualified first and threw down a 94.40 on her opening run; she then increased that leading score to 95.80 on Run 2. That was all Sharpe needed, as the contenders below her—two Americans and France's Marie Martinod—couldn't top the Canadian.
Sharpe, the silver medalist at the 2015 Worlds and a two-time X Games medalist, can now add Olympic gold to her collection.
Martinod earned silver, and Team USA's Brita Sigourney edged teammate Annalisa Drew for bronze.
Loser: Maddie Bowman's Repeat Bid
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After winning the halfpipe at the 2014 Sochi Games, Maddie Bowman arrived in Pyeongchang with the potential to make history. She could've become the first woman to ever earn two Olympic gold medals in a career in freestyle skiing.
And she came agonizingly close to competing for a medal.
Bowman just couldn't land the final hit—a 900 each time—on all three runs during the halfpipe final. Her helmet actually cracked on the last fall, per ESPN's Alyssa Roenigk.
Had she executed that last trick, Bowman likely would've received a score in the 90s. But we'll never know for certain.
Winner: Ice Dance's Past, Present and Future
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If this was indeed the end, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir went out on the highest note possible. The Canadian pair earned its second Olympic gold in ice dancing and fifth overall medal at the Games.
The duo did it in record-breaking fashion, posting a world record-setting score of 206.07. Virtue and Moir needed every bit of it, since France's Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron had registered a new world record with 205.28.
Papadakis and Cizeron have been the pre-eminent competition for the Canadians throughout the last four years, winning twice at worlds and once at the Grand Prix Final. In short, they've already arrived—and at 22 and 23, they're not going anywhere.
The same can be said for Maia and Alex Shibutani, the American siblings who earned bronze in their Olympic debut.
Virtue and Moir will leave a remarkable legacy, but ice dance knows exactly who the sport's future stars are.
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Loser: Halfpipe Medal Hopes for Non-Americans
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The way these Olympics have gone, perhaps it would be fitting for the United States to struggle in what's expected to be the nation's signature event in Pyeongchang.
But if qualifying is any indication, Team USA is destined to put multiple athletes on the podium in men's ski halfpipe.
Not only did all four Americans advance to the final, Aaron Blunck, Alex Ferreira and Torin Yater-Wallace finished 1-2-3. Additionally, David Wise—the gold medalist in Sochi—bounced back from a fall on his opening run and qualified eighth.
Medals will be decided Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. ET, but the U.S. is positioned tremendously to earn two or three pieces of hardware.
Winner: Team USA Hockey
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After finding the net only four times in three games during the preliminary portion of the tournament, the United States finally woke up.
Harvard star Ryan Donato—who tallied a pair of goals in the earlier clash with Slovakia—again scored twice to help the USA earn a 5-1 win. He notched the first and fifth markers of the contest, which featured a three-assist second period by Denver standout Troy Terry.
The kids are all right.
Up next for Team USA is a showdown with the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals Tuesday at 10:10 p.m. ET. The Americans need that offensive explosion to continue opposite a team that has allowed just four goals in the Olympics.
Loser: Video Review in Short-Track Speedskating
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If you haven't had the pleasure of watching any short-track speedskating in the past 10 days, it's complete chaos. With everyone wanting to remain as close to the middle of the rink as possible, collisions are almost inevitable. Sometimes, it's just one skater losing his or her balance, but sometimes it's the result of intentional interference between racers jockeying for position.
It's up to the officials to determine whether a penalty needs to be given for interference, in which case the penalized party is disqualified. In the non-medal races, the skater or team that was affected by the penalty gets to advance to the next round—which means there are more skaters than usual in the following round, creating even greater likelihood for another collision.
Video review in this event is a necessary evil, and it takes an absurd amount of time. The final of the ladies' 3,000-meter relay race took a little over four minutes to complete. After it finished, everyone stood around at least that long, staring at the official and the big screen to find out if anything illegal happened.
South Korea crossed the finish line first, followed closely by China. Both Italy and Canada suffered a fall late in the race and ended up finishing much later, with the Italians initially in bronze-medal position.
And then they waited.
Several minutes later, the official determined that both China and Canada had committed penalties—if anything, it looked like the Koreans were the ones responsible for Canada's wipeout—which meant South Korea won gold, Italy moved up to silver and Netherlands won bronze by placing first in "Final B" a few minutes prior to the gold-medal skate.
Winner: Martin Fourcade, France
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France's Martin Fourcade is on some kind of hot streak in Pyeongchang.
He got out to a disappointing start in the men's 10km sprint biathlon, placing eighth Feb. 11 after missing three of his first five targets. Maybe it was just early jitters, because he bounced back to win the 12.5km pursuit the following day. Fourcade also took gold in Sunday's 15km mass start, edging out Germany's Simon Schempp in a photo finish.
Fourcade was the anchor for France in the mixed relay, leading his team to a come-from-behind victory.
The French were in third place and trailing by more than 30 seconds when his leg began, but they ended up winning by more than 20 seconds when he was done with his 7.5 kilometers and 10 targets.
Fourcade now has three gold medals in these games and will be seeking a fourth in the men's 4 x 7.5km relay on Friday.
Loser: Team USA Speedskating
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It was a rough day for the Americans on the short track at Gangneung Ice Arena.
First up were the qualification heats for the ladies' 1,000 meters. There were eight heats of four skaters each, with the top two from each heat advancing to the quarterfinals. Two American women took part in those heats. Jessica Kooreman placed third in Heat 4, and Lana Gehring was penalized in Heat 7. Thus, USA will not be represented in the quarterfinals on Thursday.
Heats for the men's 500 meters were next, and the result was the same for the Americans. Aaron Tran was penalized in Heat 1, Thomas Insuk Hong placed third in Heat 7 and John-Henry Krueger placed last in the final heat.
The only other remaining event in short-track speedskating is the men's 5,000-meter relay Thursday, but the Americans already failed to qualify for Final A. Their only chance for a medal is to win Final B and hope that multiple teams incur a penalty in Final A.
This means Krueger's silver medal in the men's 1,000 meters will almost certainly be the only souvenir the Americans take home from the short track.
Winner: Germans in the Nordic Combined
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We covered this earlier in the week, but if you've never heard of the Nordic combined before, it's a combination of ski jumping and cross-country skiing. Everyone jumps to determine who gets to start the skiing portion of the event first and how long after the leader each skier has to wait to begin his cross-country journey. First three men to cross the finish line get medals.
Tuesday was the second of the three Nordic combined events. Earlier in the Games, Germany's Eric Frenzel took gold in the normal hill/10km event, followed by Japan's Akito Watabe. For the first 90 percent of this race, it looked like Watabe was going to return the favor.
He had the third-best large hill jump and quickly took the lead in the cross-country ski. However, he ran out of gas in the final kilometer and fell well behind the lead pack, finishing 12.5 seconds back in fifth place.
Instead, Frenzel once again found the podium, earning the bronze this time. It was his fifth career medal at the Olympics and his first in the large hill event.
But that bronze merely put Frenzel in third place in his own country. Germany swept the medals, with Johannes Rydzek winning gold and Fabian Riessle taking silver. The trio departed in fourth, fifth and sixth place before gradually working their way to the front of the pack.
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