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The U.S. grabbed extra {hardware} Saturday on the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Lindsey Jacobellis, 36, received her second gold medal of those Video games, ending first alongside Nick Baumgartner within the debut of mixed-gender staff snowboardcross. The Individuals have been the oldest staff within the area with a mixed age of 76.
For Baumgartner, 40, who was heartbroken after failing to advance to the lads’s particular person ultimate, it was a second probability to earn his first Olympic medal in what was doubtless his ultimate Olympics.
(In search of a recap of Friday’s occasions? We have got you lined.)

In males’s hockey, the USA (1-0) and Canada (1-0) are dealing with off in a sport that may play an enormous function in figuring out who wins their pool and will get a bye to the quarterfinals.
Later Saturday, American Jordan Stolz, 17, will make his much-anticipated Olympic debut in lengthy monitor speedskating’s 500 meters. Stolz is thought of a severe medal contender. He received each the five hundred and 1,000 meters on the U.S. Olympic trials in West Allis, Wisconsin, breaking monitor data in each occasions.
Competitors resumes in determine skating following Nathan’s Chen’s dazzling gold-medal efficiency as ice dancing takes heart stage with the Rhythm Dance. Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, who took fourth within the 2018 Pyeongchang Video games, and Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who completed ninth, lead the U.S. contingent.
TV SCHEDULE: What and find out how to watch Olympics Friday evening and Saturday morning
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MEDAL COUNT: How every nation is performing on the Winter Video games

Report: USA Hockey has been reported to Congress for SafeSport subject
USA Hockey has been reported to Congress for potential interference in an investigation by the U.S. Middle for SafeSport, in keeping with a report. SafeSport investigates reviews of sexual misconduct and different abuses inside the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee jurisdiction.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), rating member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to USA Hockey in regards to the alleged violation. In line with the Athletic, the letter was addressed to USA Hockey govt director Pat Kelleher – who’s at the moment in Beijing – and president Mike Trimboli. Grassley’s letter referenced a legislation that required SafeSport to report back to Congress inside 72 hours “any try to intrude in or affect the end result of an investigation” by a nationwide governing physique, per the Athletic, and that SafeSport’s report got here earlier this week.
Reached for remark, a U.S. Middle for SafeSport spokesperson mentioned through e-mail “we don’t touch upon issues to guard the integrity of the method.”
The U.S. Middle for SafeSport investigated former USA Hockey president Jim Smith as a consequence of allegations he mishandled accusations of sexual abuse in opposition to a minor in Illinois. USA Hockey is a co-defendant in a Could 2021 lawsuit within the case. In 2010, USA Hockey employed Brad Aldrich – the previous Chicago Blackhawks video coach who allegedly raped then-prospect Kyle Seaside – 5 months after his departure from the Blackhawks. The Athletic reported that USA Hockey didn’t test with the Blackhawks for references or to inquire in regards to the nature of his departure.
On Friday, U.S. Ski & Snowboarding confirmed it has opened an investigation into allegations of inappropriate habits inside the U.S. snowboardcross staff.
— Chris Bumbaca
Group USA wins gold once more in snowboardcross
ZHANGJIAKOU, China — American Lindsey Jacobellis is golden once more.
Three days after profitable the ladies’s particular person occasion on the Beijing Olympics, she paired with accomplice Nick Baumgartner to win snowboardcross’ blended staff occasion debut Saturday.
The oldest pair within the competitors used their expertise on the course to win the occasion. On the primary leg within the ultimate, Baumgartner gave Jacobellis a .04 second benefit going into the final leg.
After Jacobellis moved from third to second in her ultimate warmth, a crash behind her left it right down to a race with Italy’s Michela Moioli, who received girls’s particular person gold within the 2018 Olympics. Jacobellis took the lead on the late curve and held on to cross the road first.
The medal is the primary for Baumgartner, 40, in his fourth Video games. Jacobellis, 36, now has three Olympic medals. She received silver in Torino in 2006.
— Rachel Axon
Ukranian skeleton racer makes plea for peace at Olympics
BEIJING – The Worldwide Olympic Committee mentioned that when Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych flashed a small signal to cameras that learn “No Struggle In Ukraine” after he completed competing on Friday evening it didn’t violate Rule 50 of the Olympic Constitution.
Rule 50 says “no sort of demonstration or political, non secular or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic websites, venues or different areas.”
The Video games’ governing physique described Heraskevych’s gesture as “normal name for peace” and mentioned no additional motion could be taken.
Russian and Ukrainian athletes in Beijing have typically been eyeing every warily, from a distance, as considerations develop that Moscow may very well be making ready to invade Ukraine over what it claims are safety considerations related to NATO enlargement.
— Kim Hjelmgaard
Uhlaender misplaced a medal to Russian doping, however skeleton racer perseveres
BEIJING – There’s an inherent contradiction in the best way American skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender loves being on the Olympics and the shortage of religion she has within the organizations tasked with protecting the competitors clear and honest.
It’s a part of what she calls the “duality” of being human, realizing she was cheated out of a bronze medal on the Sochi Video games in 2014 whereas additionally respecting the competitor who beat her by .04 seconds however was later implicated in Russia’s state-sponsored doping scandal. It explains why she retains coming again – that is her fifth time now – regardless of questioning if the system that’s supposed to guard athletes like her will ever work.
“It simply exhibits there’s quite a bit that goes on behind the scenes that exists on the identical time of the Olympics being so superb and inspirational,” she mentioned.
It will be a exceptional, full-circle second for Uhlaender if she may pull off one thing particular Saturday and win the medal that was taken from her for good when the Court docket of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned Elena Nikitina’s lifetime ban in February of 2018 and let her maintain the bronze from Sochi. Nikitina was certainly one of 28 Russian athletes for whom the CAS dominated there was inadequate proof to determine anti-doping violations.
That flawed could by no means be righted in Uhlaender’s thoughts, however a medal in Beijing just isn’t out of her attain. Midway by means of the ladies’s skeleton race, she sits in eighth place, half a second behind the chief Jaclyn Narracott of Australia, however solely three-tenths out of third place on a tightly bunched leaderboard heading into the ultimate two runs.
— Dan Wolken

US snowboard launches investigation into allegations of inappropriate habits
ZHANGJIAKOU, China – U.S. Ski & Snowboard confirmed Friday that it opened an investigation into allegations of inappropriate habits inside the U.S. snowboardcross staff, together with some which were levied in opposition to its present head coach.
Callan Chythlook-Sifsof, a member of the 2010 Olympic staff, mentioned in a sequence of Instagram posts that the coach, Peter Foley, has “taken bare images of feminine athletes for over a decade” and made an express remark to her about one other lady’s look in 2014.
“I can not watch one other Olympic Video games with out saying this publicly,” she wrote in one Instagram submit.
Foley didn’t return a voicemail from USA TODAY Sports activities.
U.S. Ski & Snowboard spokesman Tom Horrocks mentioned the group is “conscious of the current allegations” in opposition to Foley.
“We take these very severe and these are being investigated,” Horrocks wrote in an e-mail, including that the group wouldn’t remark additional.
Horrocks didn’t say who’s investigating Chythlook-Sifsof’s statements.
— Rachel Axon and Tom Schad
The story of two snowboards that modified Shaun White’s life
ZHANGJIAKOU, China — The top induced Shaun White to replicate again on the start, and the story he advised whereas choking again tears after his ultimate halfpipe competitors says as a lot about him because it does about snowboarding.
White recalled getting his first snowboard, operating house from college for days to ask his mom whether or not it had arrived.
“And it wasn’t there. After which the subsequent day, identical factor. For like 4 days, I did that,” White mentioned. “After which someday, she simply burst into the classroom with a board in her hand, and I used to be like beside myself. She interrupted everybody simply to present me my board, and from then on, it was simply, I used to be on a mission.” (Learn the total story)
— Rachel Axon

Rippon: Adults put Valieva ‘on this terrible state of affairs’
Former Olympic bronze medalist Adam Rippon is defending Russian determine skater Kamila Valieva and taking purpose on the governing our bodies that put the 15-year-old Olympian in a foul state of affairs.
Valieva, the favourite to win particular person gold on the Winter Olympics, examined constructive for a banned substance but Russian officers appealed her provisional suspension and she or he has been allowed to follow. A ultimate resolution on whether or not Valieva can skate within the girls’s particular person competitors, which begins Tuesday, has not but been reached.
The Worldwide Olympic Committee is pushing to have Valieva suspended, at which level the Worldwide Skating Union would doubtless disqualify the gold-medal-winning Russian Olympic Committee from the staff skating competitors and reward the US with the gold medal.
“This whole state of affairs is heartbreaking,” Rippon tweeted on Friday. “This younger lady is simply 15. She’s a minor. The adults round her have utterly failed her. They’ve put her on this terrible state of affairs and must be punished.”
— Scott Gleeson
Saturday presents some good pictures at Olympic gold
The U.S. enters Saturday sitting seventh within the medal standings with 10.
Group USA has earned 4 golds, 5 silvers and one bronze by means of Friday with occasions on faucet that might transfer them up the leaderboard.
Medal potentialities on Saturday exist in blended staff snowboardcross, the place gold medalist Lindsey Jacobellis returns to motion, cross nation snowboarding, with star U.S. star Jessie Diggins main the ladies’s relay staff, and lengthy monitor speedskating, the place 17-year-old Jordan Stolz will race within the 500 meters.
Norway and Austria prime the general medal standings with 14 apiece, however Germany, with 11 whole medals, leads the race for gold with seven.
When will the Winter Olympics finish?
Don’t fear, we nonetheless have greater than per week’s price of motion to go on the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Subsequent week’s schedule on the Winter Video games will embody girls’s determine skating, extra Mikaela Shiffrin on the slopes and the continuation of the ladies’s and males’s hockey tournaments, simply to call a number of.
The closing ceremony will happen on Sunday, Feb. 20 beginning at 7 a.m. ET.
Russian determine skating doping attraction heads to Court docket of Arbitration for Sport
BEIJING – Breaking its silence on the Russian determine skating doping fiasco, the IOC is interesting a Russian Anti-Doping Company ruling that allowed star Kamila Valieva to proceed training for Tuesday’s girls’s brief program. The attraction now units the stage for a dramatic authorized listening to on the Court docket of Arbitration for Sport.
If the attraction is profitable, the Worldwide Skating Union, the worldwide governing physique for determine skating, would doubtless disqualify the gold-medal-winning Russian Olympic Committee from the staff skating competitors and reward the US with the gold medal.

It’s exhausting to think about one thing worse for the popularity of those already-controversial Video games than having an Olympic drug cheat profitable not one however two gold medals lower than two months after she examined constructive for a banned substance identified to extend endurance and stamina.
That Valieva is a minor, solely 15, is troubling, engendering loads of deserved sympathy. It’s the adults round her, those that inspired her use of a banned substance, who actually deserve our scorn. However you possibly can really feel sorry for Valieva, the ladies’s gold-medal favourite and a once-in-a-lifetime expertise, and nonetheless imagine that she shouldn’t be allowed to step onto Olympic ice once more. (Learn Christine Brennan’s full column)
— Christine Brennan
Kessel leads U.S. girls’s hockey after overcoming concussion
BEIJING – In her early 20s, U.S. girls’s hockey ahead Amanda Kessel had established herself as top-of-the-line within the sport. She was named school hockey’s prime participant in 2013, and in 2014, she helped Group USA win a silver medal on the Sochi Olympics.
Kessel suffered a concussion throughout a scrimmage earlier than these Olympics, and the concussion-like signs lingered after the Video games, inflicting her to take a 12 months off from college.
“There have been some actually darkish occasions,” she advised USA TODAY Sports activities. “I actually thought my profession is perhaps over.” (Learn the total story)

A referral to concussion professional Micky Collins on the College of Pittsburgh Medical Middle led to a change to her therapy program and a return to elite standing.
Kessel is now taking part in in her third Olympics.
Through the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, she was a part of the gold-medal squad. For Collins, there’s nothing extra rewarding than seeing somebody who was “tremendous sick,” like Kessel, hoist a gold medal.
“To see her get again to that stage,” Collins mentioned, “that is what it is all about.”
Kessel entered the quarterfinals in opposition to the Czech Republic main the staff in factors with six (4 assists, two objectives) and is now tied for second because the Individuals superior to the semifinals.
— Chris Bumbaca
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