2022 Winter Olympics Day 14: Find out if Eileen Gu medaled once again
Here's what happened on Day 14 of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games:
Halfpipe
Even when Eileen Gu's simply taking a celebratory stroll through the halfpipe, she's still so stylish and makes it look so effortless.
The 18-year-old American-born freestyle skier who represents China captured Olympic gold in the women's halfpipe on a breezy and cold Friday morning to become the first action-sports athlete to pick up three medals at the same Winter Games.
With hands on her hips, Gu visualized her first two runs at the top of the Secret Garden halfpipe course. Then, she flawlessly executed her plan. She warmed up with a 93.25 on her first pass before going even higher and bigger to post a 95.25 on her second.
But this was the sort of run Gu visualized all along — a nice relaxed jaunt as the last competitor and with the contest sealed. She had fun with her victory run, too, going big off the walls one last time and bending back her skis — a high-flying, picture-perfect moment to culminate another successful day at her office.
"I feel at peace. I feel grateful. I feel proud," Gu said.
Curling
Sixteen years after he won the Olympic curling gold medal, Brad Gushue is going back to Canada with bronze.
The Canadians capitalized on a missed final shot by American — and reigning Olympic champion — John Shuster in the second-to-last end that turned a one-point edge into an insurmountable 8-5 lead.
Gushue won gold in Turin in 2006. Back then, he shared a podium with Shuster, who won bronze.
This time, the Canadian skip knocked his American counterpart off of it.
The Americans took a 5-4 lead with two points in the sixth, then Canada scored two in the eighth to take the lead. With the United States holding the last-rock advantage in the ninth, Shuster tried to knock loose two Canadian rocks in the scoring area but missed.
That gave Gushue two points, with one end to go. Canada’s third-to last shot cleared all of the American rocks out of the target area, leaving no chance for the U.S. to tie the match, and Shuster immediately conceded.
Speedskating
Thomas Krol has won gold in the 1,000 meters, giving the Netherlands its third straight Olympic speedskating title in the event.
Krol was timed in 1 minute, 7.92 seconds.
Laurent Dubreuil of Canada took silver. Haavard Lorentzen, the 2018 silver medalist, earned bronze.
The Netherlands earned its fifth gold medal in 12 events in Beijing with one day of competition remaining.
In 2014, Stefan Groothuis won the 1,000 and Kjeld Nuis followed with a victory in 2018.
Figure skating
Sui Wenjing and Han Chan of China shattered their own world record for a short program at the Beijing Games on Friday night, giving them the narrowest of leads over Russian rivals Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov heading into the free skate to decide the Olympic champion.
Sui and Han, who won the short program at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games before settling for the silver medal, scored 84.41 points to their orchestral suite from the film “Mission: Impossible 2.” That topped the record of 82.83 points that they set during the short program of the team competition earlier this month.
Tarasova and Morozov, who are coached in part by the controversial Eteri Tutberidze, also would have broken the record with their short program. Instead, the fourth-place finishers in Pyeongchang were 16-hundredths of a point behind.
Tarasova and Morozov also would have broken the record with their short program. Instead, the fourth-place finishers in Pyeongchang were just behind with 84.25 points.
World champions Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov were next with 82.76 points, and Aleksandra Boikova and Dmitrii Kozlovskii had 78.59, giving the Russian Olympic Committee three of the top four heading into Saturday night.
Their nation has won five of the past seven Olympic pairs gold medals, including the controversial shared one at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. Russian skaters have eight pairs medals overall since the 1994 Lillehammer Games.
Brandon Frazier and Alexa Knierim, who were instrumental in helping the U.S. win team silver to open the Beijing Games, threw down one of their best short programs after a nearly two-week wait to compete again.
Frazier, who withdrew from nationals after contracting COVID-19, and Knierim, competing in her second Olympics, were nearly perfect from their opening triple twist lift on to a rendition of “House of the Rising Sun.” They were the second team to perform and scored 74.23 points, a standard that stood through most of the night.
“We've trained so hard to endure whatever is brought to us," Knierim said, "and I feel like today we did a good job of staying focused, no matter how we felt, and just delivered the best we could with what we were given.”
Their teammates, Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc, were just a tenth of a point back after a marvelous short program set to “The White Crow” by British composer Ilah Eshkeri. Cain-Gribble literally danced her way off the ice with LeDuc, the first nonbinary American athlete to compete at the Winter Games.
