Today in a nutshell: Team GB’s curling pair failed to secure a medal, but Ester Ledecka remains on track for an historic double-double.
Next up: Unbeaten Italy go for curling gold, the women’s luge concludes and then tomorrow we get the Nordic combined and the start of the men’s ice hockey.
Eileen Gu is poised to emerge as the biggest American breakout star of these Games – while competing under the Chinese flag. She took gold today in the women’s freestyle big air putting down the first 1620 of her career – a four-and-a-half-revolution manoeuvre she admitted never even attempting in training before. France’s Tess Ledeux delivered a double 1620 – the largest rotation ever seen in women’s freeski – but could only take silver in the end. Team GB’s Kirsty Muir finished fifth in an event which was watched by the tennis star Peng Shuai, who was the guest of the International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.
There was a gripping day’s racing on the snowboards in the parallel giant slalom. Ester Ledecka took gold for the Czech Republic and retained her title in the women’s competition. In 2018 she became the first competitor to win gold in two different sports at the same Winter Games, and on Friday she will attempt to retain her Alpine skiing Super-G title. “It’s a little bit difficult because part of my head is still racing right now on that course, and the other side of my head is already trying to get through the line on the skiing course” the 26-year-old said afterwards. Benjamin Karl of Austria triumphed in the men’s race.
Quentin Fillon Maillet of France won the men’s 20km biathlon. A clean shooting round from Anton Smolski of Belarus propelled him to a surprise silver medal. He was one of only two of the 92 competing athletes to achieve it.
The British pair of Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat missed out on a medal after Sweden’s Almida De Val and Oskar Eriksson secured a convincing 9-3 victory with two ends to spare in the mixed doubles curling bronze-medal match.
Nathan Chen set a world record during his short programme, scoring 113.97 points to break the previous mark set by longtime rival Yuzuru Hanyu. The final is on Thursday. Mexico’s Donovan Carrillo has advanced too – a first for the country.
Canada will top Group A and be the No 1 seeds going into the women’s ice hockey knockout stage after they defeated USA 4-2 in the morning’s first game, which is likely to have been a dress rehearsal for the eventual final. Japan beat the Czech Republic in a shootout to top Group B as both sides progress. A regulation time win for either Sweden or Denmark in tonight’s final Group B match will enable them to seal the last quarter-final berth.
Things you might have missed
I can’t have been the only person hoping mixed team ski jumping meant people jumping simultaneously in formation, right? But that’s not how it worked at all. Late yesterday Slovenia took the inaugural gold. ROC were second, Canada third, and lots of people were left unhappy about how officials applied the rules and expelled jumpers for wearing the wrong suits.
There was a controversial end to the men’s 1,000m short track yesterday too. China’s Ren Ziwei appeared to haul back Hungary’s Shaolin Sándor Liu on the line. The Hungarian fell, still just about went over first and celebrated his gold medal. But then a video review penalised him for an earlier infringement, so China ended up with a Ren Ziwei-Li Wenlong gold-silver one-two.
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The briefing’s picture of the day
The Austrian skier Matthias Mayer defended his Super-G title, adding a third Olympic gold to his collection, but only by a whisker. Ryan Cochran-Siegle of the US finished only 0.04 seconds behind him. Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway finished third.
What to look out for next
Times are all in local Beijing time. For Sydney it is +3 hours, for London it is -8 hours, for New York it is -13 hours and San Francisco is -16 hours.
Later today – Tuesday 8 February
7.47pm and 8pm Cross-country skiing – after a gruelling day that started with qualifying in the morning, we’ll see the women’s then the men’s sprint free finals 🥇
8.05pm Curling – Norway are now the only thing that stand between unbeaten Italy and the gold 🥇
9.10pm Ice Hockey – ROC play Finland and Sweden face Denmark in the final group games 🏒
9.35pm Luge – the women will hurtle down on their final run 🥇
Tomorrow – Wednesday 9 February
9.30am – 3.45pm Snowboard – there is a lot of action on Wednesday, including women’s and men’s halfpipe qualification. The women’s cross final is the session finale 🥇
10.15am and 1.45pm – the women’s slalom is contested over two runs 🥇
11am Freestyle skiing – it is the freeski big air day for men 🥇
3pm, 4pm and 7pm Nordic combined – this should be great, as the ski jumping trial round and competition round are followed in the early evening with the 10km cross-country 🥇
4.40pm and 9.10pm Ice hockey – the men’s competition begins with two group B match-ups: ROC v Switzerland followed by Czech Republic v Denmark 🏒
7pm – 9.20pm Short track speed skating – for women there are 1,000m heats and the 3,000m semi-finals, for men the 1500m goes from quarter-finals all the way to the final 🥇
8.05pm Curling – the round-robin stage gets under way in the men’s competition 🥌
8.20pm Luge – two runs at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre will decide the doubles medals 🥇
Full Winter Olympics schedule | Results, sport by sport | Medal table
How things stand
Here’s what the emoji table looked like at 6.30pm Beijing time …
1 🇨🇳 China 🥇 3 🥈 2 🥉 0 total: 5
2 🇸🇪 Sweden 🥇 3 🥈 0 🥉 1 total: 4
3 ◻️ Not Russia 🥇 2 🥈 3 🥉 3 total: 8
4 🇦🇹 Austria 🥇 2 🥈 3 🥉 2 total: 7
5 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 2 🥈 2 🥉 1 total: 5
6 🇸🇮 Slovenia 🥇 2🥈 1 🥉 2 total: 5
7 🇩🇪 Germany 🥇 2 🥈 1 🥉 0 total: 3
8 🇳🇴 Norway 🥇 2 🥈 0 🥉 4 total: 6
Selected others
11 🇨🇦 Canada 🥇 1 🥈 1 🥉 4 total: 6
14 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 1🥈 0 🥉 1 total: 2
15= 🇳🇿 New Zealand 🥇 1🥈 0 🥉 0 total: 1
The last word
I’m so happy right now honestly, the level was insane. I couldn’t have hoped to have skied better today and I’m so proud of all the girls. I went for a switch misty 10 in the last jump which I’ve never tried before. I just wanted to go for it. I’m just so happy I went and tried it” – Kirsty Muir, the youngest British athlete in Beijing, who finished fifth in the freeski big air today.
