Olympics Edition — Day 12: Up and at ’em
From The GIST (hi@thegistsports.com)
Leveling The Playing Field
Morning!
Grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and get your stream on — a whole bunch of medals are on the line from Milano Cortina this morning, including in men’s snowboarding slopestyle, where Canadian Mark McMorris finished in eighth. Podium cellies with a side of breakfast? No mid-week slump here.
🥇 | 🥈 | 🥉 | Total | |
| 🇳🇴 Norway | 15 | 8 | 9 | 32 |
| 🇮🇹 Italy | 9 | 4 | 12 | 25 |
| 🇺🇲 USA | 6 | 11 | 6 | 23 |
| 🇨🇦 Canada (11th) | 3 | 4 | 5 | 12 |
🥇💨⛸️ So nice, the Canadian speed skating trio of Ivanie Blondin, Isabelle Weidemann, and Valérie Maltais did it twice, defending their Beijing Olympic gold in the team pursuit yesterday — a feat that hasn’t been accomplished in two decades.
⛸️ Japanese figure skaters Ami Nakai and Kaori Sakamoto were nearly flawless in their respective short programs yesterday and hold a narrow edge over third-place American Alysa Liu ahead of tomorrow’s medal-deciding free skate.
- As for the lone Canadian in the competition, McMaster darling Madeline Schizas struggled throughout her skate, finishing 0.25 points short of qualifying for the final.
🏒 The top-seeded Canadian men’s hockey team will play Czechia in today’s quarter-final, a rematch of the red and white’s 5–0 group-stage win. Manifesting a little déjà vu when the puck drops at 10:40 a.m. ET.
🇳🇴🎿 History had its eyes on Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo this morning, and the 29-year-old did not disappoint: Klæbo tied the record for most golds won in a single Winter Olympics (five) with Norway’s men’s team sprint win earlier today.
- Speaking of Norway’s Olympic dominance, Jens Luraas Oftebro won his second gold of the Games in Nordic combined yesterday, bringing the country’s medal total to a whopping 32. Sparking joy, indeed.
🥌 Yesterday was a good day for Canada’s curling teams: This stellar shot from skip Rachel Homan paced the women to an 8–6 win over Sweden, keeping their playoff hopes alive, while the men punched their semifinals ticket with a 9–5 win over Great Britain.
- Both teams will play Italy today with just two remaining round robin games each. The men throw first at 8:05 a.m. ET, followed by the women at 1:05 p.m. ET. Rocking and rolling.
🇩🇪 Turns out the Germans are very good at bobsleigh: Germany swept the podium in two-man bobsled for the second straight Games yesterday with perennial bridesmaid Johannes Lochner and his brakeman, Georg Fleischhauer, usurping the crown from the reigning Olympic champ, their countryman and silver medalist Francesco Friedrich.
- 🇨🇦 The Canadian duo of Taylor Austin and former BC Lions running back Shaquille Murray-Lawrence finished 18th.
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Alpine skiing
🏅⛷️ One more chance
The GIST: American skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin, the winningest Alpine skier of all time, hasn’t won an Olympic medal since 2018 — and her final chance to reach the podium at these Games is in today’s 7:30 a.m. ET slalom. Drop right in on today’s story as her Olympic journey continues.
⛷️ Slalom is Shiffrin’s best event: Slalom is the shortest of the five Olympic Alpine skiing events, featuring competitors navigating through gates and racing to the finish line. And it’s where Shiffrin really shines: Of her record-setting 108 career World Cup victories, 71 are in slalom and seven came this year alone.
👀 But Shiffrin hasn’t met high expectations on the Olympic stage: Competing in her fourth Games, Shiffrin (who’s won two Olympic golds and one silver) has not medaled since 2018. She missed the podium in all six of her races in Beijing 2022 in the wake of her father’s unexpected death, a tragedy that, if you ask her mom/coach, almost ended her career.
- As for these Games, Shiffrin had an unexpectedly slow slalom in the team combined last week and finished 11th in an extremely competitive giant slalom.
🏅 Zooming out: Milano Cortina has seen many stars fall short of the moment and succumb to the pressure (see: figure skaters Ilia Malinin and Amber Glenn, or Norwegian skier Atle Lie McGrath). A household name, the spotlight is squarely on Shiffrin in the slalom. All we can do is watch and wait.
Event | ⏰ (ET) | 👀 |
| 🏅🏂 Women’s snowboard slopestyle final | Today at 8:30 a.m. | 🇨🇦 Laurie Blouin, Juliette Pelchat; 🇯🇵 Kokomo Murase |
| 🏒 Men’s hockey quarter-finals | Today at 10:40 a.m. | 🇨🇦 Canada vs. 🇨🇿 Czechia |
| 💨⛸️ Men’s 500m short track speed skating quarter-finals | Today at 2:15 p.m. | 🇨🇦 Steven Dubois, William Dandjinou, Maxime Laoun |
✨ Look good, play good
Athletes and fans alike continue to absolutely serve at the Games, with Olympic style taking center stage in one of the world’s fashion capitals. Here are a few of the looks making a splash in our group chat:
- 🇨🇦 The fabulous, bedazzled Mounties treating Tim Hortons as an accessory.
- 🇳🇴 Team Norway curling’s legendary Fancy Pants.
- ⛸️ The guy who’s coaching 16 different figure skaters from 13 different countries…with different jackets for each of them.
- ♥️ The 27 ’fits of the Uniform Support Programme.
- 👻 A different kind of look: Team USA men’s hockey’s Quinn Hughes knows he’s haunted.
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