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Chloe Kim made historical past Thursday because the first lady to win two Olympic gold medals within the halfpipe. Her first run was all she wanted to outdistance the sector by a substantial margin. She joins Lindsey Jacobellis in profitable gold for the USA on the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
(In search of a recap of Wednesday’s occasions? We have you lined.)
In the meantime, Nathan Chen‘s quest to exorcise the demons from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang is sort of full.
Following a record-breaking brief program earlier this week, Chen is in place to win his first Olympic gold medal and third general for the Individuals.
TV SCHEDULE:How and what to observe Thursday
MEDAL COUNT:How every nation is performing on the Winter Video games
TEXT ALERTS:Join behind-the-scenes entry from Beijing
OLYMPIC NEWSLETTER:Information and views straight to your inbox
Chloe Kim soars to second consecutive halfpipe gold
ZHANGJIAKOU, China – Chloe Kim has made Olympic historical past. The 21-year-old American received the halfpipe for a second consecutive Video games, making her the primary lady to win two Olympic gold medals within the occasion.
As she did 4 years in the past in Pyeongchang, Kim entered because the overwhelming favourite and ran away with the competitors.
Kim locked up the competition on her first run, placing down a security rating on her first lap down the halfpipe. She did a 900 and two 1080s – at that time, most riders hadn’t completed one 1080 – to simply take the lead.
Kim has lengthy stood atop her sport, however on Thursday at Genting Snow Park, she did what so many different nice riders have tried. Individuals Kelly Clark and Hannah Teter and Australian Torah Vibrant all have at the least one different medal to go together with their Olympic gold, however none was in a position to get again atop the rostrum.
— Rachel Axon
Iranian skier checks optimistic for banned steroid
Iran’s solely male athlete on the Beijing Olympics has examined optimistic for an anabolic steroid within the first confirmed doping case on the Video games.
The Worldwide Testing Company says Alpine skier Hossein Saveh Shemshaki failed a drug take a look at on Monday in Beijing, earlier than competing.
He’s provisionally suspended and can’t compete at what was to be his third Olympics.
The 36-year-old raced in slalom and large slalom on the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and 4 years later at Sochi. He carried Iran’s flag on the opening ceremony in Sochi.
He can enchantment in opposition to his provisional ban on the Courtroom of Arbitration for Sport in Beijing.
— The Related Press
Favourite for gold in girls’s determine skating has optimistic drug take a look at
BEIJING – The medal ceremony for the Olympic determine skating workforce competitors has been delayed by a optimistic drug take a look at among the many gold-medal-winning Russian workforce, and officers have been informed that the athlete who examined optimistic is a minor, in keeping with an individual with data of the scenario who spoke to USA TODAY Sports activities on the situation of anonymity.
The one minor on the six-person Russian workforce that received gold was Kamila Valieva, 15, the gold-medal favourite within the girls’s competitors later within the Video games.
Russian newspaper RBC reported that Valieva examined optimistic for trimetazidine, a coronary heart medicine that has been banned by the World Anti-Doping Company since 2014 as a result of it can enhance endurance and blood circulation.
A spokesperson for the Russian Olympic Committee has not responded to an electronic mail searching for remark.
— Christine Brennan
Lengthy street again to Olympics for cross-country skier Rosie Brennan
Rosie Brennan merely wasn’t feeling like herself on the Winter Olympic Video games in Pyeongchang in 2018.
“I used to be simply actually exhausted on a regular basis,” mentioned Brennan, who at age 29 had made her first U.S. Olympic workforce in cross nation snowboarding, however completed 58th within the 15-kilometer skiathlon. “It was nearly like an out-of-body expertise.”
Months later, Brennan discovered she’d been affected by mononucleosis. So as to add insult to sickness, she was dropped by the U.S. nationwide workforce for the second time resulting from her subpar outcomes that season.
Brennan thought of calling it a profession, however the perseverance that drives cross nation skiers saved her on observe.
Again for her second Winter Olympics, Brennan, 33, completed fourth within the girls’s dash and 14th within the skiathlon. She hopes to compete in each girls’s cross nation occasion in Beijing.
(UPDATE: The U.S. workforce has been introduced for Thursday’s 10K traditional and Brennan is on the beginning checklist — together with two-time Olympic medalist Jessie Diggins, Hailey Swirbul, and Novie McCabe.)
– Karen Rosen
Why are Olympians in Beijing placing tape on their faces?
Athletes in Beijing are utilizing KT Tape to guard their faces from the freezing chilly temperatures, however the CEO of KT Tape Greg Venner warns that the tape is not clinically examined for faces.
The KT Tape that athletes are placing on their faces is often used as an elastic sports activities tape to supply help for muscle groups, ligaments and tendons to permit for full vary of movement. The tape is sponsored and utilized by a number of athletes within the Beijing Winter Olympics in addition to the summer season Olympics season.
There is not any precedent for utilizing the tape on faces or proof that it protects individuals from the chilly, and Venner says that athletes must be cautious about utilizing the tape on the fragile pores and skin on their face.
“We’ve seen KT Tape used as safety in opposition to the wind in winter sports activities over time, so though it isn’t a clinically accredited utilization, we admire the ingenuity. KT Tape doesn’t endorse using kinesiology tape on the face because it isn’t clinically examined,” Venner informed USA TODAY. “Nonetheless, we actually applaud the creativity – we’re proud to help Crew USA!”
— Michelle Shen
Jamaican bobsledder fights via grief to make Olympic return
BEIJING – Crew Jamaica’s entrance to Friday’s opening ceremony was a joyous sight, with Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian main a band of dancing, waving, gyrating bobsledders in unmistakably neon yellow pants.
However for Fenlator-Victorian, each second in Beijing is a wrestle between pleasure and grief, between the feelings pulling her residence and the understanding that that is the place she must be, between the sense of accomplishment in simply getting right here and the sacrifices she made to carry her third journey to the Olympics into existence.
“I’m so pleased to be right here and press on and share that a part of my journey,” she informed USA TODAY Sports activities. “However I’d mendacity if I mentioned it wasn’t extraordinarily tough.”
Raised in New Jersey and now residing in Texas, Fenlator-Victorian knew full effectively when she left Crew USA after the 2014 Olympics to compete beneath the Jamaican flag that she was selecting the tougher street. In some methods, that was the purpose.
– Dan Wolken
What’s ROC on the Winter Olympics?
Russia’s involvement in a doping scandal is as soon as once more within the highlight for the 2022 Beijing Olympics with its athletes unable to compete beneath their nation’s identify for the third Olympics in a row.
RELATED: Crew medals for determine skating delayed by Russian drug take a look at
Whereas Russia cannot take part within the video games, a loophole permits its athletes to so long as they adhere to sure guidelines, like not sporting the Russian flag or singing the Russian nationwide anthem.
Athletes are in a position to compete beneath the umbrella of a company known as the ROC, which stands for Russian Olympic Committee. It successfully renders the Olympic ban in opposition to Russia for its doping program to a symbolic gesture by permitting its clear athletes to nonetheless take part.
— Michelle Shen
Determine skating will cease calling girls skaters ‘women’
In 1924, determine skating grew to become the first sport within the Winter Olympics to permit girls to compete. However although the boys competed beneath classes for “males,” girls might onlycompete beneath “women.”
Determine skating can be the final winter sport to vary that naming conference: The 2022 Winter Olympics is the primary to let girls compete as girls, not women. It’s a refined change — one which audiences might miss — however a significant one. For a century, determine skating has clung to inflexible gender guidelines, about every thing from costumes to who can compete as a pair, which have enforced particular expectations about how athletes ought to look or behave. Some skaters have even reported hiding their gender identification in an effort to conform.
This yr, extra out LGBTQ skaters, together with the primary out nonbinary Winter Olympian, will compete within the Video games than ever earlier than. This yr there shall be 9 overtly LGBTQ determine skaters in Beijing. There have been three in 2018 and none in 2014.
— Chabeli Carrazana, The nineteenth
Olympic ice a proving floor for future NHL stars
When the Olympic Athletes of Russia received the gold medal within the non-NHL 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, some outstanding future NHL gamers had been on the roster.
Ahead Kirill Kaprizov, who scored the additional time winner within the gold medal sport, would turn into NHL rookie of the yr final season and an All-Star this season with the Minnesota Wild. Backup goalie Ilya Sorokin is establishing himself because the No. 1 goalie with the New York Islanders. Igor Shesterkin, the additional goalie in these Video games, is a midseason favourite for the Vezina Trophy with the New York Rangers.
U.S. ahead Troy Terry, in the meantime, made the NHL All-Star Recreation with the Anaheim Geese throughout a breakout season.
The NHL will not have gamers on the Beijing Olympics. However with the boys’s hockey competitors getting underway, we have recognized six 2022 Olympians (three from Crew USA) who might turn into key gamers within the NHL.
– Mike Brehm
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