Today in a nutshell: Silver for Team GB in the men’s curling and New Zealand’s second gold makes it their greatest ever Winter Olympics
Next up: Women’s bobsleigh, and bronze-medal matches in women’s curling and men’s ice hockey wrap up today. Tomorrow, the final day of sport and the closing ceremony
You know what they say, you wait 70 years for a gold medal at the Winter Olympics and then two come along at once. New Zealand’s Nico Porteous won the country’s second ever gold and second gold of this Games in the men’s freeski halfpipe. Conditions were intense, with the air temperature down to -22C (-7.6F). Brrrrr. The rest of the podium was filled out with the US team – defending champion David Wise took silver and Alex Ferreira took bronze, describing the conditions as “super difficult”.
“Pretty gnarly,” was the verdict of Gus Kenworthy, the 2014 silver medalist, who finished eighth. Having previously competed for the US, this year he was representing Great Britain. Drawing the curtain down on his career he revealed a T-shirt saying “Openly British”.
He said: “This sport has changed my life in ways I could have never imagined. I’m gay. I felt like I didn’t fit in, in sport. To be out and proud, competing at the Olympics, and all of the opportunities that have come my way since the Olympics, I couldn’t be more thankful.”
He also had a swipe at the hosts and the International Olympics Committee (IOC), saying: “It was never that I thought China couldn’t put on a good Games – I absolutely knew that they could and they have. But when there are human rights atrocities happening in the country and a poor stance on LGBTQ rights, then those things need to be taken into consideration by the IOC.”
Team GB’s first medal of the Games came on the penultimate day and it was a silver for Bruce Mouat and his men’s curling team. They took Sweden to an extra end, but the Swedes had the hammer and the match ended 5-4 in their favour. They go one better than their silver in Pyeongchang.
Irene Schouten of the Netherlands won her third gold and fourth medal overall from Beijing in the women’s mass start as the speed skating competition drew to a close. Bart Swings justified me bigging up Belgium’s uniforms yesterday by winning gold in the men’s mass start.
Things you might have missed
We all missed the Alpine skiing mixed team parallel contest, which has been rescheduled until tomorrow thanks to the weather. It is unclear if all of the teams will be around to compete; some had planned to fly straight out of China tonight.
The weather messed with the men’s mass start 50km as well; it was delayed by an hour and shortened to 30km. The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and Norway staged a shut-out of the first six places. Alexander Bolshunov won his third gold of the Games for ROC. Teammate Ivan Yakimushkin was second, Norway picked up yet another medal with Simen Hegstad Krueger’s bronze.
Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang has ordered an investigation into a Taiwanese speed skater who posted a video of herself wearing a Chinese uniform shortly before the Games began. Huang Yu-ting put the video on her Instagram page but removed it after attracting fierce online criticism in Taiwan. Taiwan is forced to compete as “Chinese Taipei” in the Olympics due to China’s dispute over its sovereignty.
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The briefing’s picture of the day
Team GB are guaranteed a second medal in the women’s curling final tomorrow. But could there be a third? Brad Hall steered his four-man bobsleigh team to 0.31 seconds off Canada’s Justin Kripps’ time in the bronze medal place. Hall, Greg Cackett, Nick Gleeson and Taylor Lawrence sit in sixth position at the halfway stage, against what they say is quite an uneven playing field.
“The Germans have got three sleds, three times the amount of runs to test everything and find the best way down the track, and make sure the equipment works. We’re against it, we’ve got less resources to pull upon, so we’ve just gone with what we know and we’ll see how it turns out,” Hall explained.
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 – Saturday 19 February
8pm and 9.30pm Bobsleigh – the final two runs for the 2-woman combos will decide the gold 🥇
8.05pm Curling – the women play for bronze in the evening – Sweden v Switzerland 🥉
9.10pm Ice Hockey – the bronze medal play-off for the men is Sweden v Slovakia 🥉
Tomorrow – Sunday 20 February
9.05am Curling – the women’s gold medal match: Great Britain v Japan 🥇
9.30am and 11.20am Bobsleigh – the final two runs of the four-man competition 🥇
12.10pm Ice hockey – the men’s gold-medal match, Finland v almost defending champions Russian Olympic Committee. In 2018 the competition was won by the ‘Olympic Athletes from Russia’ team, as the Russian Olympic Committee was suspended at that point due to doping violations. 🤔
2.30pm Cross-country skiing– women’s 30km mass free start 🥇
8pm Closing ceremony – Oh, that’s it. Done.
Full Winter Olympics schedule | Results, sport by sport | Medal table
How things stand
Here’s what the emoji table looked like at 6.15pm Beijing time …
1 🇳🇴 Norway 🥇 15 🥈 8 🥉 12 total: 35
2 🇩🇪 Germany 🥇 10 🥈 7 🥉 5 total: 22
3 🇺🇸 United States 🥇 8 🥈 9 🥉 6 total: 23
4= 🇳🇱 Netherlands 🥇 8 🥈 5 🥉 4 total: 17
4= 🇸🇪 Sweden 🥇 8 🥈 5 🥉 4 total: 17
6 🇨🇳 China 🥇 8 🥈 4 🥉 2 total: 14
7 🇨🇭 Switzerland 🥇 7 🥈 2 🥉 5 total: 14
8 ◻️ Not Russia 🥇 6* 🥈 10 🥉 13 total: 29
9 🇦🇹 Austria 🥇 6 🥈 7 🥉 4 total: 17
10 🇫🇷 France 🥇 5 🥈 7 🥉 2 total: 14
Selected others
11 🇨🇦 Canada 🥇 4 🥈 8 🥉 13 total: 25
16 🇳🇿 New Zealand 🥇 2 🥈 1 🥉 0 total: 3
18 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 1 🥈 2 🥉 1 total: 4
24= 🇬🇧 Great Britain 🥇 0 🥈 1 🥉 0 total: 1 + 🥌 to come
[*this total includes the team figure skating gold, which the IOC has said will “not be sorted out during this Games”]
The last word
Yes, we have had some athletes that, of course, they’re going to be disappointed, they absolutely came here really hoping for that medal. But they’ll be going away now and looking at those performances. We’ve had some real promises for the future. People that came close, younger athletes that are looking to the future, that are looking to Milano Cortina, who had a good experience here” – Georgina Harland, Team GB’s chef de mission in Beijing.
