If you managed to stay awake last night, it was action packed.
MIXED DOUBLES’ CURLING
Lawes and Morris avenged their round robin loss to Norway to move into the Gold Medal match. Switzerland sent OAR to the Bronze medal, guaranteeing another medal for Canada and the Swiss. Colour for each TBD Tuesday morning.
The big event of the night in ET (midday in Korea) was TEAM FIGURE SKATING.
10 countries were reduced to 5 (Top 5 made it through to the second half of competition). The evening started with the Men’s Free Skate. Would Patrick Chan stay on his feet this time? If you’re not holding your breath every time he sets up for a jump, you’re obviously not watching. Chan did not disappoint as he landed two quads early in his routine. Though, he wouldn’t be completely fault-free as he fell on a triple and stumbled once after. Outside of those two errors, it was a clean run that added to Canada’s first place standing.
Gabby Daleman of Newmarket took on the Ladies’ free skate. I didn’t realize that teams are able to skate different team members in the free skate from the short program. Gabby’s program was flowy and enjoyable and with her 3rd place finish, Canada clinched the Gold Medal without Scott and Tessa having to complete their ice dance – they still did it, though, and it was beautiful. You might need a slow-motion replay to catch this, but check out the new scissor spinning move where Tessa locks her legs around Scott’s neck; she leaps in a backflip to get her legs up around his neck! Check it out next time.
Canada can enjoy their gold for a few days until the individual programs begin. OAR took the silver while the USA was not far behind with bronze.
MEN’S MOGULS:
Exciting morning as witnessed from the CBC public lounge.
All Canadians made it through to the Top 20. Skiers would have to qualify top 12, then top 6 for the Super Final. While trying to qualify for the Top 12, Canadian Philippe Marquis, skiing with recently torn ACL, unfortunately could not push past the pain after landing awkwardly on his first jump; after pounding a few moguls in the middle section, he had to pull up and end his run.
Meanwhile, teammates Mikael Kingsbury and Marc-Antoine Gagnon kept their focus making their way to the Top 12. They managed to avoid the DNF fate that found three others in the pre-Super Final Final – seriously, was something awry with that first landing pad?
Onto the Top 6 Super Final: Gagnon hit the moguls first setting a high standard; he held onto silver medal position until teammate Kingsbury showed the world why he is the King (not just because of his name). He raced down the course as we all sat biting our nails (figuratively). Fast and flawless, this was his race.
Alex Bilodeau told us in Sochi 2014 to watch out for Kingsbury – he was right. Kingsbury came away with the gold medal, Matt Graham of Australia Silver and unlikely Japanese Daichi Hara took Bronze. Hara has very few Top 10 finishes at World Cup events over the last year – needless to say, he is likely ecstatic about his Bronze!
LADIES’ SNOWBOARDING SLOPESTYLE:
The controversial ladies slopestyle finals took place on Day 3. The competition qualification round was canceled due to weather and the ladies were left with only one round, 2 runs each, best score counts. I wondered why the Canadian women didn’t have the ‘sweater’ team uniforms, then was informed that many of the women chose to snowboard without their jackets in an effort to remove the sails from their bodies. The windsocks were flapping furiously, contributing to bodies flying down the hill and some extremely scary falls. A few women managed to layout solid runs, including Canadian Laurie Blouin who left the hill on a first aid sled during training runs a few days ago. She is leaving these games with a black eye and a silver medal. Jamie Anderson of the USA defended her Sochi gold medal and Finland’s Enni Rukajarvi maintained consistency taking home a Bronze medal to match her 2018 X-Games Slopestyle Bronze.
LONG TRACK SPEED SKATING:
When the Netherlands marched into the stadium for the opening ceremony, their team did not look large. I thought to myself, “hmm, small team, they are probably all speed skaters” (I was half joking). You may have come the same conclusion given the medal haul the Dutch continue to have in speed skating. Netherlands took Gold and Bronze in the Women’s 1500m, Japan took Silver.
Other mentions:
In Women’s Ski Jump, Norway claimed their 10th Gold of the games, and their first in women’s ski jumping. Japan’s Takanashi held the Gold position, until Germany’s Althaus smashed Takanashi’s jump, only to have her jump smashed by Norway’s Lundby.
(Interesting note: The officials manually move the takeoff gate up and down the hill based on the wind and this also adjusts the final scores accordingly).
Women’s Hockey – it was another sold out crowd for Korea’s second game; this time against Sweden. I caught most of the third period only – Korea almost had their first goal! We are patiently waiting for this to happen – the crowd will go nuts!
Luge – Reaching speeds over 100 km/h down an icy chute, women have completed 2 of 4 runs and are in 3rd, 6th and 16th position. Time is cumulative, so you have to keep it together for the entire competition! Can’t rely on just one good slide! The final is early tomorrow morning ET.