While you were sleeping: How Canada performed at the Beijing Olympics Thursday, Friday

Canada won four medals on day 14 of the Beijing Olympics — two silver and two bronze — as the competition begins to wind down.

The day was Canada’s third four-medal day of the Beijing Games, bringing its medal haul to 24 so far.

Here’s what you may have missed from the competition that began Thursday night and continued Friday morning.

Laurent Dubreuil’s fast start in men’s 1,000-metre speed skating final was what he needed to secure silver — the first Olympic medal of his career.

Dubreuil came up 0.40 seconds shy of the gold medal, which was won by Thomas Krol of the Netherlands with a time of 1:07.92 seconds. Dubreuil skated 1:08.32 for silver, and Haavard Holmefjord Lorentzen of Norway won bronze with a time of 1:08.48.

Teammates Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu and Connor Howe also competed for Canada, but did not contend for a podium spot.

Canadian skiers Cassie Sharpe and Rachael Karker won the silver and bronze medals in the women’s freeski halfpipe final.

Sharpe — the reigning gold medal champion from the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang — leapt into medal contention right away with her first run, and improved with her second and third runs to secure the silver.

Karker also held on to the bronze position throughout the final, where the best score across three runs determined the final rankings.

Neither of them could catch China’s Ailing Eileen Gu, however, who won her second gold of the 2022 Winter Games.

Fellow Canadian Amy Fraser finished eighth overall.

In the men’s ski cross, reigning gold medal winner Brady Lehman failed to get a repeat after getting relegated to the small final, where he finished second for a sixth-place overall ranking.

Three other Canadians — Reese Howden, Jared Schmidt and Kevin Drury — were eliminated in the quarterfinals.

Canada won the bronze medal in men’s curling after defeating the United States 8-5.

The win marked a welcome return to the podium for Team Canada, who placed fourth at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang after winning medals in five straight Winter Games, including three back-to-back golds in 2014, 2010 and 2006.

Canada was forced into the bronze medal game in Beijing after losing their semifinal match against Sweden 5-3 on Thursday.

The squad entered the playoffs with a 5-4 record in the round robin.

Jules Burnotte and brothers Scott and Christian Gow represented Canada in the final of the men’s 15-kilometre mass start biathlon event, but did not finish with a medal.

Canada had a strong start though, fighting for a top-three spot courtesy of Scott Gow in the first five kilometres.

But Canada eventually faded, and the best result in the event came from Christian Gow who finished 13th; Burnotte finished 18th, and Scott came 25th.

Canadians Vanessa James and Eric Radford, and Kirsten Moore-Towers and Michael Marinaro, took part in the short program pair skating competition and qualified for the final on Saturday.

The duo of James and Radford finished 12th with a score of 62.51, while Moore-Towers and Marinaro finished just behind them in 13th with a score of 62.51.

Cynthia Appiah, Christine de Bruin and Melissa Lotholz lead pairs in the first two runs of the two-woman bobsleigh.

After two runs, team de Bruin had the best combined time of Canada’s pairs with 2:03.21 for fourth place heading into the last two runs on Saturday. Team Appiah sits eighth with a time of 2:03.64, while the Lotholz pair is in 16^th place with a time of 2:04.21.

De Bruin is coming off a bronze medal win in the women’s monobob event on Monday.

Meanwhile, former Canadian Olympic Committee star Kaillie Humphries, who is now racing for the United States, sits in fifth with a time of 2:03.38.

Humphries won gold in the women’s monobob event, and won three medals during her Canadian Olympic Committee career – two gold and one bronze – all in the two-woman event.