Team Canada won its first two medals of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games on Saturday, taking the silver in freestyle skiing and bronze in speedskating, while other athletes advanced in snowboarding and ski jumping and the women’s hockey team continued to dominate.
Here’s what you may have missed from the overnight competition.
Freestyle Skiing
Freestyle skier Mikael Kingsbury won the silver medal in the men’s moguls event, capping off a third consecutive Olympic podium finish for the Canadian.
Kingsbury, who captured gold at PyeongChang 2018 and silver at Sochi 2014, finished second behind Sweden’s Walter Wallberg and ahead of Japan’s Ikuma Horishima.
Speedskating
Isabelle Weidemann won the bronze medal in the women’s 3,000-metre speedskating race, marking Canada’s first medal of the 2022 Games.
Weidemann trailed Norway’s Ragne Wiklund through the middle of her heat, at one point lagging a full minute behind.
But she quickly made up ground to overcome the fastest time up to that point, putting her in the top spot and guaranteeing her a place on the podium.
Irene Schouten of the Netherlands and Italy’s Francesca Lollobrigida, who skated in the final heat right after Weidemann, proved to be faster and took the gold and silver medals, respectively.
Valerie Maltais and Ivanie Blondin, also racing for Canada, finished in 12th and 14th, respectively.
Hockey
Team Canada destroyed Finland 11-1 in women’s hockey, giving them a 2-0 record as they continue their quest for another gold medal. They bulldozed Switzerland 12-1 in their first game Wednesday.
The squad will next face Russia on Monday.
Canada won four straight Olympic golds before being forced to settle for silver in the last Winter Games in Pyeongchang back in 2018.
Snowboarding
Laurie Blouin finished in seventh place after her two qualifying runs in the women’s snowboard slopestyle event, sending her to the final on Sunday.
Fellow Canadians Jasmine Baird and Brooke Voigt finished outside the top 12 in 16th and 22nd place, respectively, and will not be moving on.
Curling
The mixed doubles team of Rachel Homan and John Morris defeated the United States 7-2 in the second of the day’s two matches.
Earlier, they lost to Sweden 6-2.
The duo finished with a 3-3 record on Saturday. They have three more matches to go in the round-robin stage.
Ski Jumping
Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes and Matthew Soukup advanced to the next round of competition in the men’s normal hill individual jumping event, which will take place Sunday.
Boyd-Clowes took 17th place within the top 50, while Soukup finished 47th.
Abigail Strate advanced to the final round in the women’s normal hill individual jumping event, where she came in 23rd. Alexandria Loutitt was also in action in the same event but was disqualified in the first round.
Cross-Country Skiing
Cendrine Browne was the top-ranking Canadian in the 7.5×7.5-kilometre skiathlon, finishing 20th overall.
Katherine Stewart-Jones, Dahria Beatty and Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt finished 23rd, 28th and 44th, respectively.
Biathlon
Sarah Beaudry, Emma Lunder, Christian Gow and Scott Gow were in action in the 4×6-kilometre mixed relay medal race on Saturday. They finished in the 14th position.
Short-Track Speed Skating
In the women’s 500-metre, world record holder Kim Boutin, Alyson Charles and Florence Brunelle qualified for the quarterfinal stage.
Boutin finished first in the qualifying heat, while Charles and Brunelle came second in their respective heats.
In the men’s 1,000-metre event, Canadians Jordan Pierre-Gilles and Pascal Dion also booked their place in the quarterfinal after finishing in second place in qualifying heats.
In the mixed 2,000-metre relay, the team of Courtney Lee Sarault, Florence Brunelle, Steven Dubois and Pascal Dion had a busy day on the ice.
They advanced to the final medal round after finishing second in the quarterfinal and first in the semifinal. However, they were unable to come away with a medal after being penalized in the final round.
Luge
Reid Watts had his first two runs in the men’s singles luge. He is currently in 17th place overall heading into the third run on Sunday.
Comments