What a night for Team USA at the 2022 Winter Olympics. Figure skater Nathan Chen built on a near flawless world-record-setting short program performance (113.97 points) to earn his first Olympic gold medal in the men’s free skate.
Chen’s win came on the heels of snowboarder Chloe Kim‘s historic showing. Kim grabbed gold with an outstanding first run in the women’s halfpipe finals. With Kim’s victory, she became the first woman in Olympic history to win back-to-back gold medals in the event.
USA men’s hockey gets going
Team USA took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission of its preliminary round men’s hockey opener, but the real story here is China. The host nation, whose roster was ported over from the Kunlun Red Star in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League, hung very tough against the Americans, who had a shot advantage of 16-11. Goalie Jeremy Smith, a minor league journeyman in North America, played very well in keeping China in the game, but his teammates created more attacking zone time than the U.S. may have anticipated.
Remember when the Olympic hockey organizers were going to disinvite China to its own men’s hockey tournament, because they were worried the host team would be embarrassed by opponents like Team USA? How times have changed! (Well, the NHL not sending its players to populate said opponents certainly changed things, too.)
The Americans added a second goal early in the second period.
This no-look feed from @seanfarrell_21 🤯pic.twitter.com/77ggxtkRk2
— USA Hockey (@usahockey) February 10, 2022
The men’s @usahockey team has its first goal of the #WinterOlympics thanks to @brendan_brisson. 🇺🇸pic.twitter.com/vGzE8G91f3
— Team USA (@TeamUSA) February 10, 2022
Nathan Chen fulfills his Olympic destiny
Nathan Chen did it! After four long years, he finally earned his Olympic crown — and he had fun doing it. Chen nailed his five quad jumps, boogied to Elton John and would have brought down the house had there been a crowd. His total score was an unbelievable 332.60 points.
Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, 18, won silver with a huge total score of 310.05, beating out countryman Shoma Uno, the 2018 silver medalist.
Despite finishing eighth in the short program after an uncharacteristic mistake, Yuzuru Hanyu missed the podium by only one spot. He attempted a quad axel in his free skate but did not land it. American Jason Brown finished in sixth. — Elaine Teng
What a Free Skate from Nathan Chen!
Nathan is AN OLYMPIC CHAMPION. #WinterOlympics pic.twitter.com/5dxRkPjLLW
— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 10, 2022
That’s two-time gold medalist Chloe Kim, to you …
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Chloe Kim shares her feelings after winning gold in the halfpipe for the United States.
Chloe Kim placed her hands on her ears, screaming at the end of her first run. She had two more runs left to go, but she already knew that run could very well make her the two-time Olympic champion. A frontside 1080. A cab 900. A switch backside 540. A cab 1080. There was nobody in the competition who could outperform that run.
And, defend her gold medal it did.
The scoreboard read 94.00.
Relive the gold medal-winning run from @ChloeKim! #WinterOlympics pic.twitter.com/EP7RnV2qxf
— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 10, 2022
94.00.
CHLOE KIM. pic.twitter.com/LEaxoNsDkx
— Team USA (@TeamUSA) February 10, 2022
Kim fell in her second and third run, trying to compete with her own score, but it didn’t matter. Her score from her first run stuck, and the 21-year-old is now a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Spain’s Queralt Castellet took silver, and Japan’s Sena Tomita took bronze. — Aishwarya Kumar
LOVE YOU @ChloeKim ❤️❤️❤️
— Adam Rippon (@AdamRippon) February 10, 2022
Chloe Kim!!! 👏🏽 Maybe I should start eating churros before competition too? 😂
— Gabby Thomas (@ItsGabrielleT) February 10, 2022
I just ate churros to celebrate @ChloeKim!!!
— Alex Morgan (@alexmorgan13) February 10, 2022
New event, new gold
Team USA won the gold medal in the first-ever mixed team aerials skiing competition.
This run by @j_schoenefeld clinched gold for @TeamUSA in mixed team aerials! 🥇 #winterolympics pic.twitter.com/5ZaZCEpUrZ
— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 10, 2022
Blaming the mustache
Athletes are a superstitious bunch, and Canadian skier Jack Crawford decided the difference between potentially breaking the family curse of near-podium misses and winning an Olympic medal lay in his wispy brown mustache.
Crawford had already come in fourth in the downhill race and sixth in the super-G, so he decided to shave off his mustache ahead of Thursday’s Alpine combined and ended up taking the bronze medal.
“I’ve been searching for a podium so long,” he said. “I kept feeling it was right around the corner.”
When asked by reporters in Beijing whether his new fresh-faced appearance was perhaps the secret behind his elevation to bronze, he said, “I honestly shaved it because I felt it wasn’t getting me on the podium. It was a little bit of a juju thing. Maybe it was the reason, maybe not. I definitely look a lot younger.”
The Crawford family has a proud history of skiing. His older sister Candace Crawford finished ninth in the mixed team parallel slalom at Pyeongchang in 2018, while his aunt Judy Crawford Rawley finished fourth in the slalom at the 1972 Olympics. — Tom Hamilton
Shiffrin’s support system for the win
It’s no secret it has been a rough Olympic Games thus far for Mikaela Shiffrin. The 26-year-old arrived in Beijing with sky-high expectations but has recorded two DNF results in her first two races. After a good practice on Thursday, it was announced Shiffrin will compete in Friday’s super-G competition.
But thankfully for Shiffrin, she has a great support system — starting with her boyfriend and fellow skier, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde. Also in Beijing and having won the bronze medal earlier this week in the super-G competition, Kilde took to Instagram after Shiffrin’s disappointing slalom performance.
The pressure we all put on individuals in the sports are enormous, so let’s give the same amount of support back,” Kilde wrote in part. “It’s all about the balance and we are just normal human beings!! I love you Kaela.”
And, as if that wasn’t sweet enough, Shiffrin responded with a tweet of her own about what Kilde means to her. You might want to get the tissues ready because this is truly just the best. — D’Arcy Maine
My hope for every human is that they
find another human who finds a way to
love, understand, and heal them in the way @AleksanderKilde has done and
continues to for me ❤️ https://t.co/sDrTptur4R— Mikaela Shiffrin (@MikaelaShiffrin) February 9, 2022
Disqualifications rock mixed ski jump’s Olympic debut
The mixed ski jump team event was thrust into the limelight Wednesday, and not for the obvious reasons (its Olympic debut). Five women ski jumpers — all of whom were medal contenders — were disqualified after officials announced that their suits were “too big and offered an aerodynamic advantage,” TODAY reported. The athletes and their teams (Germany, Norway, Austria and Japan) responded strongly: Some were reduced to tears, while others expressed outrage.
🇸🇮 Slovenia won the mixed team #skijumping gold but the big talking point of the event’s first appearance at the #Olympics was a series of disqualifications that hit the favorites and meant world champions Germany failed to make the final https://t.co/hWR66nNZB5 pic.twitter.com/0whUb5aZSn
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 8, 2022
Germany’s Katharina Althaus, one of the disqualified athletes who won silver in the individual ski jumping event just days before, told Agence France-Presse that her suit has been checked innumerable times in her 11-year career and that she has always been compliant.
“We were looking forward to the second competition at the Olympics. FIS destroyed that with this action — they destroyed women’s ski jumping,” Althaus told reporters. “Our names are now [out] there, and we just pulled the crap card. That is how you destroy nations, development and the entire sport.” — Aishwarya Kumar
