Canada continues to grow their medal haul, capturing a trio on Day 6.
Golden Day on the Long Track
TJ Bloemen added to his silver medal from the 5000m race with a gold in the 10,000m race. He maintained smooth composure for the entire race and set an Olympic record in the process. Bloemen was born in the Netherlands to a Canadian father. We know the Dutch take their Speed Skating seriously; it is more difficult to make the Dutch Olympic team than it is to actually win a gold medal – we saw the disappointment that Ditch skates feel when they do not win gold.
Bloeme received his citizenship in 2014 after not making the Dutch Olympic team for Sochi, so he decided to compete for Canada. Canada welcomed him with open arms and Bloemen has proven to be a great asset to the Canadian team, teaching them new approaches to training.
The Netherlands’ Bergsma skated to a Silver medal and Italy’s Tumolero took Bronze. One Dutch team member that was unexpectedly left off the podium was Sven Kramer, the Dutch King.
SILVER TEAM LUGE
Canada, no doubt amped by Alex Gough’s Bronze the other day, proved again how well they work as a team. The Luge Team Relay consists of four sliders: women’s singles, men’s singles and men’s doubles. Canada’s team was made up of the same four sliders (Alex Gough, Sam Edney, Tristan Walker and Justin Snith) who were part of the fourth place finishing team in Sochi 2014 after Russian doping and tampering scandals (we are still waiting to be promoted to Bronze for the Sochi games). Enough about the past, Canada slid into Silver medal position in PyeongChang, edging out the Austrians by 0.1s!
If you’re wondering how lugers speeding at over 100km/h pass a baton to each other, it’s a little simpler than that: the woman luger heads down first. When she gets to the end, she has to sit up and slap an overhead paddle, triggering the next luger. Singles men go second and the doubles go last. The cumulative time is the team time. If you’re wondering what happens if you don’t slap the paddle, we’re not sure (Google probably knows). Slovakia’s single man slider came close to missing the paddle!
BRONZE! – Figure Skating Pairs
In what is likely their last Olympics, Canada’s Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford pulled out all the stops in the Pairs Free Skate, hoping to add to their medal tally of the games. Duhamel had one bobble with a hand touching the ice on a landing, but other than that, the pair who finished 7th in Sochi had a nearly perfect skate. Overcome with emotion at centre ice, the duo didn’t want to get ahead of themselves until they saw the scores. The two were soon able to celebrate their bronze medal officially, they had done it – what a way to end their Olympic careers! Back on Monday, when the Canadians won gold in the team event, Radford became the first openly gay athlete to win a Winter Olympics gold medal. Last night, he became the first openly gay athlete to win multiple Olympic medals. Check out this Global article.
It is also important to note this year that Canada House is doubling as Pride House. It was a concept start by the Canadians in Vancouver, shut down by the Russians in Sochi (no surprises there), and this year in Korea, the organizing committee was unable to raise the necessary funding for the LGBT centre at the Olympic Village. Canada stepped in. Check out the whole story here.
Germany took the gold medal spot and China Silver.
Alpine Skiing
It has been windy and icy, making it difficult for competition to get going. It’s a miracle when someone
Men’s Downhill
Norway would walk away with two medals finishing in Gold and Silver for Svindal Aksel Lund and Kjetil Jansrud, and Switzerland’s Beat Fauz winning the bronze. The time difference that separated these finishes were 0.18 of a second! Close race!
Ladies’ Giant Slalom
Ladies’ Giant Slalom concluded with the United States’ Mikaela Shiffrin winning the gold, Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel with the silver, and Italy’s Federica Brignone with the bronze. This one was also close with 0.46 of a second differentiating the top three medalists!
Biathlon
Scandinavian countries continued to dominate the cross country-based sports.
Women’s 15km Individual
Sweden’s Hanna Oeberg won the gold medal, Slovakia’s Anstasiya Kuzmina with the silver, and Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier with the bronze.
Men’s 20m Individual
The gold, silver, and bronze went to Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Boe, Slovenia’s Fak Jakov, and Austria’s Dominik Landertinger respectively.
Cross-Country Skiing – Women’s 10km Free
Norway came out with two medals in this event, a gold and a bronze by Ragnhild Haga and Marit Bjoergen. However, two bronze medals were won and Finland’s Krista Ramakoski also won the bronze. The silver when to Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla.
Curling
It was a busy day in curling with 12 round-robin games between the men’s and women’s side! The Canadian women’s team played twice. The first game was against South Korea, it was a tight game but it seemed like the Canadian team were a little nervous as some of their shots could have been better. However, Skip, Rachel Homan, did connect on some important shots to keep the games close. Unfortunately, Canada lost 6-8 to South Korea. Their second game was against Sweden and unfortunately, they lost again 6-7 in extra ends. The team seemed a bit inconsistent but hopefully they will pick it up for the next games! Keep your head up and don’t give up!
The rest of the Women’s results were split are as follows:
- Denmark 5 vs Japan 8
- China 6 vs OAR 7
- Great Britain 4 vs United States 7
The second round of games were:
- China 7 vs Great Britain 8
- United States 5 vs Switzerland 6
- South Korea 5 vs Japan 7
On the men’s side of things, there were 4 games played. Canada beat Norway 7-4 with Skip Kevin Koe leading the way. United States lost to Italy 9-10, Denmark lost to Switzerland 7-9 and Great Britain beat Japan 6-5.
Ladies’ Aerials Qualifications
Canada’s Catrine Lavallee finished 16th, not enough to move on to the Final.
Men’s Hockey
Group C action consisted of Finland vs Germany and Norway vs Sweden. Finland was victorious against Germany 5-2 and Sweden blanked Norway 4-0.
Group A action saw the Czech Republic play against South Korea with the Czechs winning 2-1.
Switzerland was no match for Canada. The boys played strong and came out winning 5-1!
WOMEN’S HOCKEY
To close out Group A action, the much anticipated battle of the titans, USA vs. Canada kept us up into the early hours of the morning. It was a good hard battle for both teams, but not without some questionable actions that make you reconsider your faith in humanity (we won’t get into that).
The Red and White are back. After several years, Canada has a good pool of young blood, and a lot of pep. They just click. Head Coach Laura Schuler is using her veterans as utilities and to keep the rookies level, she also hasn’t been afraid to start the Rookie line every game.
Veteran Agosta opened the scoring and Rookie Sarah Nurse scored the winner popping the cookies off the top shelf short side.
The USA managed to bring it within one and later were awarded a penalty shot after there was a scrum in the Canadians’ crease; in the mess, Canada ended up with a hand on the puck in the crease. The penalty shot was no problem for Lacasse; in fact, it was child’s play as Lamoreaux tried to pull my personal between the legs move – I could have told her that never works!
The game ended with a 2-1 Canadian win, but not without the USA crashing the net and elbowing Canadian goalie Lacasse in the head (and that’s all I’ll say about that). With that win, Canada extends its Olympic winning streak to 23 games.
The other wise of Group A action saw Finland beating OAR 5-1.
Men’s Skeleton
There are three Canadians in the event: 17th – Kevin Boyer, 21st – Dave Greszczyszyn, and tied for 25th – Barrett Martineau. South Korea’s Sungbin Yun set a track record of 50.28 and a start record and finished with 1:40.35 after two runs. He sits at first with OAR’s Nikita Tregubov and Latvia’s Martins Dukurs sitting at second and third.
Men’s Snowboard Cross
The men’s snowboard cross was a quick one day event, concluding with the gold, silver, and bronze going to France’s Pierre Vaultier, Australia’s Jarryd Hughes, and Spain’s Regino Hernandez.