Olympics Edition — Day 4: A real heated rivalry
From The GIST (hi@thegistsports.com)
Leveling The Playing Field
Hello!
Only a few days in and these Olympics are truly taking “heart-racing action” to the next level — just ask the competitors’ loved ones. It’s enough to make you jump for joy…with caution.
Country | 🥇 | 🥈 | 🥉 | Total |
| 🇳🇴 Norway | 3 | 1 | 2 | 6 |
| 🇨🇭 Switzerland | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 |
| 🇨🇦 Canada (17th) | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
🥉🎿 Canadian freestyle skier Megan Oldham would not be stopped in her slopestyle medal pursuit — the 24-year-old rallied from a scary crash on her second run, laying down a bronze medal–winning run in the third and final round. Redemption’s never felt so good.
- As for the rest of the podium, Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud finished with gold while China’s Eileen Gu snagged silver for the second straight Olympics.
💨⛸️ Dutch speed skater Jutta Leerdam broke the Olympic record in the 1,000m yesterday, winning gold (an upgrade on her Beijing 2022 silver). Canadian Béatrice Lamarche finished off the podium in fifth.
🥌 Canada’s mixed doubles team of Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant capped off their mixed doubles Olympic debut with a dub, beating Switzerland 8–4 in yesterday’s group-stage finale to secure fifth place in the tourney — a bittersweet end after a perfect 3-0 start.
🥇⛷️ Switzerland’s duo of Frano von Alman and Tanguy Nef won the inaugural gold in the men’s alpine skiing combined team event yesterday. The debut discipline saw one skier compete in a downhill race followed by their teammate racing in the slalom shortly after, and their combined time determined the winner. It takes two, after all.
🥇🏂 Japan’s Kokomo Murase was the big winner in yesterday’s women’s big air snowboarding competition, taking home gold with her final run. Gnarly.
👀🏒 The Canadian and Swedish men’s hockey teams both closed practice to the media yesterday in an effort to maintain secrecy around their game plans before the tourney begins, marking the first closed men’s Olympic hockey practices since the 1998 Games. Consider us intrigued.
❤️🩹⛷️ Injured American skier Lindsey Vonn yesterday released her first statement since crashing in Sunday’s downhill race, confirming she sustained a complex tibia fracture that will require multiple surgeries.
- In the post, Vonn also noted that her previously torn ACL was not the cause of her terrifying crash. Instead, a spatial misjudgment caused her to hook onto the race gate at top speed, throwing her off balance. Wishing her a smooth recovery.
⛸️ Canadian ice dancing pair Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are narrowly hanging onto third after yesterday’s rhythm dance, trailing France and the U.S., respectively, ahead of Wednesday’s medal-deciding free skate.
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Women’s hockey
🏒 The iciest, spiciest rivalry
The GIST: Keep your friends close, but your Olympic frenemies closer — we’re breaking down both sides of today’s 2:10 p.m. ET women’s hockey group stage game between tourney favorites and archrivals Team Canada and Team USA.
- Before the puck drops on perhaps the spiciest rivalry in sports, a quick reminder that all five teams in the top-tier Group A, including Canada and the U.S., advance to the quarter-finals, with the top three squads in Group B rounding out the eight-team playoff field.
🇨🇦 Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin’s injury looms large: Fans held their breath after an illegal hit sent the reigning PWHL MVP to the locker room in the first period of yesterday’s 5–1 win over Czechia. And they kept holding it when she briefly returned to the ice in the second period, unable to bear weight on her right leg.
- It’s certainly not ideal to have “Captain Clutch” sidelined, and Canada might choose not to risk the five-time Olympian’s health in their final two preliminary games, including today’s tilt vs. the U.S.
- Still, there’s plenty of firepower on this veteran-laden roster, including forward Sarah Nurse, who in 2022 set the Olympic record for most points scored in a single tourney. Notably, Nurse was injured for this year’s Rivalry Series, a four-game set that the Americans swept.
🇺🇸 Are the red, white, and blue the favorites?: In short, yes — even before Poulin’s untimely injury. Not only did the U.S. use the lethal combination of elite veterans and young talent to outscore Canada 24–7 in the Rivalry Series, but they also boast the top four scoring forwards in the PWHL, highlighted by the Minnesota Frost duo of Kendall Coyne Schofield and Taylor Heise.
- Add in the NCAA’s top lamp-lighter in Abbey Murphy and Team USA’s all-time Olympic women’s hockey leading scorer, captain Hilary Knight, and U.S. goals have come early and often, setting up another star-studded showdown. Let’s do that hockey.
Event | ⏰ | 👀 |
| ⛷️ Women’s freestyle skiing moguls qualification | Today at 8:15 a.m. | 🇨🇦 Maïa Schwinghammer, Laurianne Desmarais-Gilbert, Jessica Linton |
| ⛸️ Men’s figure skating individual short program | Today at 12:30 p.m. | 🇨🇦 Stephen Gogolev; 🇯🇵 Shun Sato; 🇺🇸 Ilia Malinin |
| 🏒 Women’s hockey prelims | Today at 2:10 p.m. | 🇺🇸 USA vs. 🇨🇦 Canada |
⛸️ Going for 40 golds
Figure skating is a focal point of the Winter Games — and this year, Canadian costume designer Mathieu Caron is going for a gold medal of his own. He and his team have dressed some true Olympic icons over the years, and they’ve created close to 40 outfits for the Milano Cortina Games.
- The top looks so far? Caron dressed Japanese breakout star Yuma Kagiyama for the men’s singles short program in the team event (where Kagiyama famously bested the Quad God), plus Team USA pair Daniel O’Shea and Ellie Kam, who helped the Americans to gold. Stunning.
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