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Patrick Roest: “It all sounds very intense, while it is not that special.”
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Patrick Roest in second stage at 10 kilometers, Jorrit Bergsma in stage 4
11.27 am: Patrick Roest is already in action at the Olympic Games in Beijing in the second stage of the 10 kilometers. The winner of Olympic silver in the 5000 meters at these Games will compete against the Italian Michele Malfatti. Jorrit Bergsma, the Olympic champion of the Sochi 2014 Games in the 10 kilometers, will compete in stage four against Aleksander Rumyantsev from Russia after the mopping break.
World record holder and top favorite Nils van der Poel comes onto the ice after Bergsma. He will take on the Italian Davide Ghiotto in the fifth stage. In the last of the six stages, defending champion Ted-Jan Bloemen from Canada skates against the Belgian Bart Swings.
The 10 kilometers in the National Speed Skating Oval starts on Friday at 09:00 Dutch time.
Mikaela Shiffrin doesn’t know if she’s going to start yet.
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Goggia skips super-G on Games, Shiffrin does start
11.11 am: Italian skier Sofia Goggia skips Friday’s super-G at the Olympics. One of the most successful skiers in the World Cup this season, 29-year-old Goggia is recovering from a knee injury and does not feel fit to compete in the Super-G. The Italian hopes to be able to defend her Olympic title on the downhill next week.
At the end of last month, Goggia went down in the super-G at the Cortina d’Ampezzo World Cup. She was left with a sprain of the cruciate ligaments and a small fracture in a fibula from that fall. Goggia decided not to undergo surgery, hoping to be fit in time to take a shot at new Olympic success in China. The Italian has won four of the five World Cup races on the downhill this season.
Mikaela Shiffrin will start after some reflection time. The 26-year-old American dropped out in both the giant slalom and slalom this week, which led to doubts about her form. The two-time Olympic champion and leader in the overall World Cup standings decided not to withdraw from the super-G after final practice.
Second title for cross-country skier Therese Johaug
10.03 am: Norwegian cross-country skier Therese Johaug has won her second Olympic title in an individual event at the Winter Games in Beijing. In the 10 kilometers she narrowly beat Finnish Kerttu Niskanen after an exciting race of just over 28 minutes. The difference between gold and silver was exactly 0.4 seconds. Krista Parmakoski, also Finnish, finished third, more than half a minute behind the winner.
Johaug, 33, took the first gold medal at stake at these Games on Saturday. The fourteen-time world champion did this in the 15-kilometer skiathlon, a combination of 7.5 kilometers in classical style and 7.5 kilometers in free style.
Johaug won the Olympic title in the 4×5 kilometer relay with her country in Vancouver in 2010. Four years later she took silver in the 30 kilometers freestyle and bronze in the 10 kilometers classical style in Sochi.
She was banned from doping from October 2016 to April 2018, preventing her from participating in the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang. She tested positive for a banned substance that she said she had gotten into her body through a sunscreen that she had put on her lips.
Number of corona cases at Games is rising again
07:44: The number of positive corona tests at the Beijing Olympics has continued to decline in recent days, but has now risen slightly again. Last day, nine participants in the Winter Games tested positive. In six cases this happened upon arrival at Beijing airport; within the so-called ‘closed super bubble’ in China, three people tested positive. Seven out of nine corona cases are athletes or officials.
China conducted a total of 71,516 tests for the coronavirus on Wednesday. All participants in the Games, from athletes to journalists, are tested daily. On Wednesday 61 participants arrived at the airport, more than half of them athletes and their trainers who are still going to take action.
On Tuesday, five new corona cases were identified. That was the lowest number since the start of the tally on January 23, when the first athletes and coaches went to China. Monday there were six positive results. In total, more than 1.1 million corona tests have been carried out at the Winter Games since January 23.
Nathan Chen succeeds Yuzuru Hanyu as figure skating champion
6:37 AM: American figure skater Nathan Chen has dethroned Yuzuru Hanyu as Olympic champion. Earlier this week, 22-year-old Chen already set a world record in the short freestyle with 113.97 points and he finished it on Thursday in the free freestyle (218.63). The Japanese Hanyu, the Olympic champion of Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018, finished in fourth place behind two compatriots.
The 27-year-old defending champion had not gotten further than the eighth score in the short freestyle. Hanyu had suffered a lot from injuries in recent years and it was even uncertain for a long time whether he could participate in the Games. Like the Swede Gillis Grafström, he hoped to become three consecutive Olympic champions in 1920, 1924 and 1928, but Hanyu was unable to compete for the gold in Beijing. The Japanese fell twice in the final freestyle, including when attempting to be the first figure skater to perform a quadruple axel.
While Hanyu made the necessary mistakes, Chen put down an almost perfect freestyle. To the music of Rocket Man by Elton John, the world champion of 2018, 2019 and 2021 came to a point total of 218.63, slightly below his own world record. The American took gold with a total of 332.60 points, more than 20 points more than the Japanese Yuma Kagiyama (310.05). The bronze went to his compatriot Shoma Uno (293.00). Hanyu fell outside the podium with 283.21.
“This means everything to me,” said Chen, whose parents are from China. He himself was born in Salt Lake City. “I have a special bond with Beijing through my family. Great to become an Olympic champion here. It was a very nice freestyle to skate, it went by like a whirlwind. After the last jump I felt that I could win.”
Earlier this week, Chen already took silver with the US in the Nations Cup behind Russia, although the medals have still not been awarded due to a “legal issue”. Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva is said to have tested positive for doping.
Chloe Kim is overjoyed with her golden race.
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Chloe Kim again the best on the halfpipe
4:48 a.m.: Just like four years ago, American snowboarder Chloe Kim has won the Olympic title in the halfpipe. The 21-year-old American conquered the gold for the Spanish Queralt Castellet in the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou. Japan’s Sena Tomita took the bronze.
Defending champion Kim scored 94.00 points in her first run. The American fell in the second and third run, but did not see her top score in danger. The competitors didn’t get there. Castellet scored 90.25 in the second run. Tomita scored 88.25 in the same run.
Kim won gold in the halfpipe at the Pyeongchang Games at the age of 17 with a score of 98.25.
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