Day four of competition was full of ups and downs for Canada at the Beijing Winter Olympics, with another win in women’s hockey and close calls in multiple medal events.
Here’s what you may have missed from the Olympics on Monday night and Tuesday morning.
Women's Hockey
Team Canada triumphed over its chief rivals the United States 4-2 in a hard-fought women’s hockey matchup.
Brianne Jenner scored in the first period before the U.S. got back-to-back goals in the second. Jenner tied it back up seconds later before Jamie Lee Rattray made it 3-2 not long afterwards.
A penalty shot by captain Marie-Philip Poulin secured the win for Canada, which held off the U.S. despite giving its opponents two power plays in the third period.
Canada remains undefeated in Beijing as it seeks to reclaim the gold medal, which it lost to the U.S. at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang.
The team is now set for the quarterfinals on Friday against Sweden.
Speed Skating
Three Canadian Olympic rookies were also competing on the ice, skating in the men’s 1,500-metre speed skating final Tuesday morning.
Canmore, Alta., native Connor Howe, 21, had Canada’s best finish at fifth place. His teammates, Tyson Langelaar and Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu, finished 22nd and 23rd.
The Dutch dominated the event with its two skaters clocking in new Olympic-record times. Kjeld Nuis took home gold with a time of 1:43.21, beating the Olympic record of 1:43.55 set just moments before by teammate Thomas Krol, who finished with silver. Nuis also holds the world record for the fastest time in the event with 1:40.17 set in March 2019.
The Republic of Korea’s Minseok Kim won bronze after skating 1:44.24.
Men's 20km Individual Biathlon
Canada’s Jules Burnotte, Adam Runnalls, and brothers Scott and Christian Gow raced for a spot on the medal podium in the men’s 20-kilometre individual biathlon, but came up short.
Scott Gow had Canada’s best result, coming in fifth. He finished 14th in the same event at the 2018 Games in PyeongChang.
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Christian Gow finished 24th, Runnalls 33rd and Burnotte 36th.
France, Belarus and Norway took the podium spots, with France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet winning gold.
Luge
Canadians Makena Hodgson, Natalie Corless and Trinity Ellis qualified for the final run in the women’s singles luge, but did not finish in a podium spot.
Ellis had Canada’s best finish at 14th, while Corless and Hodgson finished 16th and 17th.
Natalie Geisenberger of Germany won gold, and her teammate Anna Berreiter took home silver.
Tatyana Ivanova of the Russian Olympic Committee won bronze.
Figure Skating
Keegan Messing did not disappoint in his Beijing debut, finishing ninth overall with a score of 93.24 in the men’s single skating short program to qualify for the free skating final on Thursday.
Messing, the ranking Canadian champion and a favourite for a medal, was forced to miss the team event due to a positive COVID-19 test, which prevented him from travelling to China with his fellow skaters. He finally arrived on Monday after getting the required four negative tests.
Fellow Canadian Roman Sadovsky finished 29th out of 30 skaters in the same event with a score of 62.77, and will not move on to the final.
Freestyle Skiing
Megan Oldham finished just outside the top three in the women’s freeski big air final, placing fourth with a combined best score of 178.
Fellow Canadian Olivia Asselin placed eighth overall with a score of 147.5.
Snowboarding
Megan Farrell managed to advance to the 1/8 finals in women’s parallel slalom, finishing in 10th place with a combined time of 1:28:37 in the qualifier.
But Farrell’s journey ended there when she narrowly lost to Austria’s Daniela Ulbing in the next round.
Kaylie Buck finished 21st in the qualifying rounds with a combined time of 1:30:14 after two runs, ending her Beijing journey.
None of the men were able to advance past the qualifying round in the same event. Jules Lefebvre fared best in 20th place with a combined time of 1:22:94.
Arnaud Gaudet and Sebastien Beaulieu placed 27th and 28th with times of 1:24:43 and 1:24:52, respectively.
Alpine Skiing
James Crawford’s blazing fast time of 1:20:79 was still not enough to earn the Canadian a medal in the men’s super-G skiing final, putting him in sixth place overall, while Trevor Philip placed 10th with a time of 1:21:34.
Fellow Canadians Broderick Thompson and Brodie Seger failed to stay within the lines of the course and did not finish their runs.
Cross-Country Skiing
Dahria Beatty fought her way into the top 30 in the women’s free sprint qualification, moving into the quarterfinals in 28th place with a time of 3:23:54.
However, she did not advance into the semifinals.
Cendrine Browne, Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt and Laura Leclair did not make it into the quarterfinals after placing 35th, 40th and 58th, respectively.
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