Category Archives: Olympics

BEIJING (AP) The Latest on the Beijing Winter Olympics:

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The United States has clinched the top seed in the Olympic mens hockey tournament.

The young Americans beat Germany 3-2 on Sunday to finish the preliminary round a perfect 3-0-0. The U.S is the only team to win all three of its group stage games in regulation.

The U.S. moves directly to the quarterfinals Wednesday along with second-seeded Finland, the third-seeded Russians and fourth-seeded Sweden. Canada is seeded fifth and will again play host China in the qualification round Tuesday.

The U.S. has the youngest team in the tournament with an average age of 25 and eight players under 21.

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Erin Jackson has become the first Black woman to win a speedskating medal at the Winter Olympics. And a gold one, at that.

Jackson won the 500 meters with a time of 37.04 seconds Sunday, giving the Americans their first speedskating medal of the Beijing Games.

This one carried much more than national pride. The 29-year-old Jackson joins fellow American Shani Davis as the only Black athletes to win speedskating medals at the Olympics. Davis won gold in the mens 1,000 meters and silver in the 1,500 meters at the 2006 Olympics in Turin.

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Defending Olympic champion Norway has advanced to the semifinals of team pursuit speedskating along with the United States, Russian Olympic Committee and the Netherlands.

The Norwegian trio of Hallgeir Engebraaten, Peder Kongshaug and Sverre Lunde Pedersen posted the fastest time in the quarterfinals Sunday at 3 minutes, 37.47 seconds.

Ethan Cepuran, Casey Dawson and Emery Lehman put up the second-fastest time of 3:37.50 for the Americans, who came into the event as the world-record holders.

The Russians were third at 3:38.67, and the Dutch also advanced in 3:38.90. The semifinals and medal races are set for Tuesday.

Canada and South Korea were relegated to the C final. Italy and Japan will meet in the D final.

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Liu Shaoang of Hungary has won Olympic gold in 500-meter short track speedskating.

He led all the way and crossed the line in 40.338 seconds at Capital Indoor Stadium on Sunday. Liu had earned bronze medals in the 1,000 and the mixed team relay.

Russian Konstantin Ivliev took silver. Steven Dubois of Canada earned bronze.

The A final was missing some of the biggest names. Defending champion Wu Dajing of China was relegated to the B final, which he won. Ren Ziwei of China and Liu Shaoangs brother Liu Shaolin Sandor of Hungary were eliminated in the quarterfinals.

Hwang Daeheon of South Korea went out in the semifinals after getting a penalty for a late pass that caused contact with Dubois. The Canadian was advanced to the A final and won his second medal in Beijing. He took silver in the 1,500.

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Led by Suzanne Schulting, the Netherlands won Olympic gold in the 3,000-meter relay in short track speedskating.

Schulting collected her second gold and third medal overall in Beijing. She earned silver in the 500 and gold in the 1,000.

The Dutch team of Schulting, Selma Poutsma, Xandra Velzeboer and Yana van Kerkhof lowered its own Olympic record with a time of 4 minutes, 3.40 seconds at Capital Indoor Stadium.

South Korea rallied to take silver. China earned bronze.

Schulting screamed and raised her arms in triumph after crossing the finish line.

There were no crashes in the four-team final. Canada finished fourth.

In the B final, Italy won with Arianna Fontana skating. The Russians were penalized and the U.S. team was penalized for a lane change that caused an obstruction.

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There will be a new Olympic champion in mens 500-meter short track speedskating.

Defending champion Wu Dajing of China failed to advance to the A final. Hell skate in the B final against three others.

Liu Shaoang of Hungary won his semifinal that included Wu, Steven Dubois of Canada and Hwang Daeheon of South Korea.

Hwang was penalized for a late pass that caused contact with Dubois, who was advanced to the A final by the referee. Hwang ended up in the rinkside padding and was eliminated.

Also making the A final are Konstantin Ivliev of ROC, Pietro Sighel of Italy and Abzal Azhgaliyev of Kazakhstan.

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Quentin Fillon Maillet of France hit all 20 of his targets despite howling wind, and he skied to his second gold and fourth medal of the Beijing Games, winning the 12.5-kilometer biathlon pursuit.

Johannes Tingnes Boe of Norway had started off first after winning gold in the sprint, but he missed two targets in his first standing shooting. Fillon Maillet passed him and stayed out front.

Tarjei Boe of Norway was second in the sprint and went off second Sunday. He missed only one target and finished 28.6 seconds behind the Frenchman for the silver medal.

Russian Eduard Latypov also only missed one target and won the bronze.

Fillon Maillet also won gold in the individual race and two silvers, one in the mixed relay and one in the sprint.

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Ren Ziwei of China is out of the mens 500 meters in Olympic short track speedskating.

Ren finished third in his quarterfinal on Sunday night, and that wasnt enough to advance to the semifinals. He earlier won the 1,000 in Beijing.

Most of the other big names moved on: defending champion Wu Dajing of China, 2018 silver medalist Hwang Daeheon of South Korea, 1,500 silver medalist Steven Dubois of Canada and Liu Shaoang of Hungary.

American Ryan Pivirotto was eliminated, along with John-Henry Krueger of Hungary and Lius older brother, Liu Shaolin Sandor.

There was just one crash in the quarterfinals, with Jordan Pierre-Gilles of Canada going down.

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Marte Olsbu Roeiseland earned her third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, and fourth medal overall, by winning the womens biathlon 10-kilometer pursuit race Sunday.

The Norwegian started the race with a lead because of her win in the sprint race and hit 19 of her 20 targets. Despite strong winds and blowing snow, Roeiseland held her focus and shot cleanly in the last standing stop to win in 34 minutes, 46.9 seconds.

Elvira Oeberg of Sweden, who was second in the sprint race and started 31 seconds behind Roeiseland, had three misses in her second and third shooting bouts, but cleaned the last standing to finish 1:36.5 behind for silver.

Tiril Eckhoff of Norway also missed three targets but came in 1:48.7 behind her teammate for the bronze medal.

Roeiseland previously won gold in the mixed relay as well as the sprint. She also won bronze in the individual race.

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Just like in the womens cross-country ski race, the Russian team opened a lead on the first leg of the mens relay on Sunday and then held on for the Olympic gold medal.

Sergey Ustiugov maintained more than a minute lead on the last lap over the two-man chasing group of Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo of Norway and Maurice Manificat of France.

Ustiugov grabbed a flag on his way to the finish line and won the 10-kilometer relay in 1 hour, 54 minutes, 50.7 seconds. Klaebo pulled away from Manificat for the silver, 1:07.2 back. France took third, 1:16.4 behind the Russians.

Snowy conditions made the ski tracks slow, especially on the first two classic ski legs. Leaf-blowers were used to clear the snow out of the ski tracks. By contrast, the winning time in the four-man relay at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics was more than 20 minutes quicker.

Alexey Chervotkin led off for the Russians, with Alexander Bolshunov skiing the second classic leg. Denis Spitsov and Ustiugov took the two freestyle legs.

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Ukraines Olympic team has issued a statement calling for peace against the backdrop of a Russian military build-up on the border between the countries.

So far no other athletes have followed the lead of slider Vladyslav Heraskevych. He held up a sign with the Ukrainian flag and the message No War in Ukraine after finishing a run in the skeleton competition.

The Ukrainian team issued a statement Saturday night Beijing time expanding on his gesture.

The Olympic Team of Ukraine that is competing at the XXIV Olympic Winter Games in Beijing expresses a unanimous call for peace together with the native country, the Ukrainian Olympic Committee wrote on social media.

Being thousands of kilometers away from the Motherland, mentally we are with our families and friends. The statement doesnt mention Russia or the military situation.

The International Olympic Committee bans most protest gestures at the Games. It isnt taking action against Heraskevych because No war is a message we can all relate to, executive director of the Olympic Games Christophe Dubi said Sunday.

But IOC spokesman Mark Adams says that doesnt mean the IOC wants other athletes to join in.

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Marco Odermatt of Switzerland has won gold in the mens giant slalom at the Beijing Olympics.

The 24-year-old Swiss skier plowed through snow and poor visibility Sunday to win.

It was the first time snow fell during an Alpine skiing race at this years Olympics and the bad weather conditions caused the second run to be postponed by 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Odermatt coped with the conditions and the delay and a first-run mistake to post an unofficial combined time of 2 minutes, 09.35 seconds.

Zan Kranjec of Slovenia took silver, 0.19 seconds behind, and world champion Mathieu Faivre of France earned bronze, 1.34 behind.

The skiers had been racing and training on artificial snow until the real thing started to fall on Saturday at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Center. A second womens downhill training run was canceled because of the conditions on Sunday.

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Slalom gold medalist Petra Vlhova is leaving the Beijing Olympics early due to an inflamed left ankle tendon. Shell miss the Alpine combined event in which she would have been a challenger to Mikaela Shiffrin, the favorite in the race.

Mauro Pini, Vlhovas coach, tells The Associated Press that they didnt want to risk making things worse by trying for a medal in the combined.

By winning the slalom four days ago, Vlhova became Slovakias first Olympic medalist in Alpine skiing.

Pini added that Vlhova also wants to make sure she has time to go home and share this medal with those closest to her.

Vlhova had already sat out the super-G and the opening downhill training session.

The Alpine combined is scheduled for Thursday. Vlhova finished second behind Shiffrin in the combined at last seasons world championships in Cortina dAmpezzo, Italy.

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The second run of the mens giant slalom has been postponed amid heavy snowfall and low visibility at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Center.

Marco Odermatt of Switzerland has a lead of 0.04 seconds over Stefan Brennsteiner of Austria and 0.08 over world champion Mathieu Faivre of France after the first run.

It is the first time snow has fallen during an Alpine skiing race at the Beijing Olympics.

Snow has been falling since Saturday at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Center, where athletes had been racing and training on artificial snow. A second womens downhill training run scheduled for Sunday was canceled.

The skiers say it is tough to see but good enough to race in.

Fourth-placed Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway says the light is more than skiable but adds it just makes it difficult.

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The womens Olympic skiing slopestyle qualifying event has been moved to Monday with the final the following day.

The competition was postponed Sunday due to wind, snow and low visibility.

The mens slopestyle qualification has switched from Monday to Tuesday. The final will now be Wednesday.

Eileen Gu, who lives in the United States and represents China, will be going for a second gold medal. She won big air last Tuesday.

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Kaillie Humphries has a big lead in the first part of the monobob competition at the Beijing Olympics.

Humphries is competing for the first time as an American citizen. Its also the first time monobob, a one-woman bobsled, has been an Olympic event.

The reigning world monobob champion finished two runs Sunday in 2 minutes, 9.10 seconds, giving her a massive lead of 1.04 seconds over second-place Christine de Bruin of Canada. De Bruins time was 2:10.14.

Laura Nolte of Germany was third in 2:10.32, and three-time Olympic medalist Elana Meyers Taylor of the U.S. is right in the medal hunt her time of 2:10.42 putting her fourth.

Barring a big mistake by somebody, it looks like four women remain in the mix for the three medals. Theyll be decided on Monday morning in Beijing, late Sunday night in the United States. The gap between Meyers Taylor and fifth-place Huai Mingming of China is nearly a half-second.

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Live updates from the Beijing Olympics - Associated Press

Feb 15, 2022

Alyssa RoenigkESPN

In his final run of snowboard big air finals Tuesday, China's Su Yiming took a victory lap. The Olympic silver medalist from slopestyle one week ago, Su had already locked up the win with his first two jumps, the only rider in the top five whose best two scores came on his first two attempts. In each, Su launched massive 1800s, held his grabs extra long and stomped the trick clean. He wasn't leaving this one up to the judges.

"For four years, I've dreamed of this every night," Su said after becoming the first Chinese snowboarder to win Olympic gold, picking up the medal many believe he earned in slopestyle. That win, however, went to big air bronze medalist, Max Parrot of Canada.

And Parrot's story was heartwarming. A top slopestyle and big air rider for more than a decade, Parrot took silver in slopestyle in Pyeongchang. Ten months later, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. Last Friday in Beijing, he won Olympic gold.

But a judging controversy has hung over his head ever since.

During his winning run, Parrot landed triple corks on each of his three jumps. At first glance, the jump section of his run was clean, technical and progressive. But on second glance -- or on NBC's televised replay -- it became clear Parrot missed grabbing his board on his final trick, a frontside triple cork 1620, and grabbed his knee instead.

In competitive snowboarding, a knee grab is about as egregious as sliding out on a landing. Grabs are used to stabilize a rider's body in the air. They help them spin or flip efficiently and show a rider's control over the trick. Most importantly, they represent a rider's style, his or her stamp on the same trick everyone else is doing.

But they are not required, nor is there a set deduction for not doing them. That's the thing about snowboard judging. It is not standardized like in gymnastics or figure skating, where elements are assigned specific point values that are added up to arrive at a final score. Snowboard judging is subjective, more akin to judging an art contest. And for many reasons, the riders prefer it that way.

Snowboarding prides itself on resisting the rigidity of sports like figure skating and gymnastics, and the judging, in theory, represents that ethos. Land the same tricks as everyone else, but go bigger, do a better grab -- or be the final rider to drop in a contest, and chances are the score will be higher. Innovate and land a trick you've never done before -- or better yet, one that no rider has ever landed in a contest -- and chances are you'll score big.

Because while the judging criteria -- execution, difficulty, amplitude (height above the halfpipe or jump), variety and progression -- are meant to be weighed equally in pursuit of a score based on overall impression, most judges value progression above all.

But if they don't, that's OK. That's what makes snowboard judging so difficult, and as the sport has progressed to the level it is at today, so inconsistent.

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At the Olympics, a panel of six international judges, plus a head judge, scores each run and the highest and lowest scores are tossed. But every judge on that panel might value the criteria differently, which means six judges can see -- and score -- the same run differently. Some reward spinning and flipping over style and innovation, and others see the sport precisely the opposite way. Judges are also humans who are susceptible to being caught up in a rider's story, past results or post-run celebration.

But in the case of Parrot's slopestyle win, the judges -- hired and trained by the International Ski Federation, the controversial overlords of Olympic snowboarding since its inception -- saw the same run and mis-scored it.

In two separate interviews after the event, head Olympic snowboard judge Iztok Sumatic, a longtime snowboarder, admitted that the panel made a mistake. In replays and in photos posted online after the contest, it became clear Parrot missed the grab on his final trick. But the judges didn't catch it. Sumatic blames NBC's camera angles, which is what the judges were using to score the event.

"We judged what we saw," Sumatic told snowboard website Whitelines.com. "And what we saw was a grab and a well-executed switch frontside 16 from the point of view of a camera that we were given. We need to make a decision in seconds, because it's live. We are being pushed to be on time."

Sumatic said that while Olympic judges are entitled to replays when they request them, in Parrot's case, they didn't ask for one because they didn't know they'd missed anything worth seeing a second time. "We just had this camera angle that they gave us, and it looked clean," Sumatic said. "Everything Max did was super clean and super good. We judged what we saw and everyone felt confident with it."

Once the scores were submitted, Sumatic says it was too late to change them. But had they caught the missed grab, "it would be a different score. Yes," he said. The podium would have shifted, too. Su -- who landed the only 1800 of the contest -- would have won gold. Parrot's teammate, Mark McMorris, would have taken silver and defending champ Red Gerard of the U.S. likely would have bumped up into the bronze-medal spot.

"Until we have people caring about having proper cameramen on the scene, proper feeds displayed for the judges, proper training and accountability for the judges, as well, it's going to be an uphill battle to get proper judging," McMorris told the AP on Tuesday.

In reference to the judges' inability to change Parrot's score after it was submitted, McMorris added, "I think that was somewhat a get-out-of-jail-free card. Because I think there was a lot of things they could have done to maybe make that situation a little bit better."

He's not wrong. Over and again, snowboard judges lay claim to having one job at a contest: Get the podium right. The fluid nature of snowboard judging allows them to score with that in mind. So, in theory, once they realized they'd over-scored Parrot's second run, they could have done the same for Su and McMorris after they landed their best runs in the third round.

But just like a blown holding call in the final minutes of a Super Bowl or any number of questionable Olympic podiums across sports, what's done is done. Parrot's win stands. It's what happens next that is up for debate.

"We are in an era where we should [build] a new system that can measure everything," Japanese rider Ayumu Hirano said in a news conference one day after his halfpipe win. "In the world of competition, there should be a way to measure height and grabs [numerically]. Athletes are taking risks, so we should be evaluated and judged more clearly."

During Saturday's halfpipe final, Hirano was nearly another casualty of inexplicable judging. In his second run, Hirano became the first snowboarder to land a full contest run that included a triple cork, the most hyped trick in the sport heading into the Games. Longtime NBC commentator Todd Richards, who competed for the U.S. in the Olympic debut of halfpipe snowboarding in 1998, speculated on-air that Hirano would receive a 97 or 98 for the run. When his actual score -- 91.75 -- was announced, fans booed and the hashtags #robbed and #triplegate trended on Twitter.

"As far as I'm concerned, the judges just grenaded all their credibility," Richards said on the broadcast. "I know when I see the best run that's ever been done in a halfpipe. Try to tell me where you're deducting from this run. It's unbelievable that this is even happening. It's a travesty."

No one was more stunned than Hirano, who later said his confusion at seeing a second-best score turned to anger, which fueled him to land the same five tricks again in his third run -- incredible in itself -- and earn a 96 to win.

That an Olympic athlete had to land the best run in the history of halfpipe snowboarding a second time to win gold was absurd. In Hirano's third run, with the same five tricks and same grabs, the same six judges scored him a full 4.25 points higher. The U.S. judge elevated his score by seven points.

"We want to have sound standards and I think we should look into exactly what the judges were looking at," Hirano said. "For the athletes, they're putting their lives on the line, they're giving it their all. So, for the riders, I think some steps need to be taken to address this issue regarding the judges."

As sports like snowboarding and freeskiing become bigger and more mainstream, and as the riders continue to push and progress, the judging needs to progress along with them. Snowboarders don't want to see their sport become standardized. But they want it to be fair. The question is, how do they get there?

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Olympics 2022 -- Why is it so hard to judge snowboarding? Explaining the mistakes, failures and admissions - ESPN

The Haydenettes skate at the Synchro Fall Classic in Irvine, Calif. in Nov. 2021. Cynthia Slawter Photography hide caption

The Haydenettes skate at the Synchro Fall Classic in Irvine, Calif. in Nov. 2021.

Under the crack of fireworks, this year's Winter Olympics will come to an end at Sunday's closing ceremony. As is customary, the Olympic flag will be passed to the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, which are set to host the Winter Games in 2026.

Maybe that'll be Carmela Mariz Olarte's shot. The competitive skater says it's her "No. 1 dream" to compete in the Olympics.

But there's an extra hurdle to overcome: her sport, synchronized skating, is not an Olympic competition.

"I think that's anyone's dream when they go into the sport," says Olarte, who skates for a Boston-area synchronized skating team called the Haydenettes. "That's also another question that people ask, like 'Oh, are you going to the Olympics?"

Much like synchronized (or artistic) swimming in the Summer Games, synchronized skating brings teams together to perform formations and step sequences. They skate in "perfect unison," said Saga Krantz, who coaches the Haydenettes.

The sport has for years held competitions in the U.S. and around the world, but a push has been underway by the International Skating Union, the governing body for competitive skating, to find a permanent place in the Olympics for synchronized skating.

To become an Olympic sport, the International Olympic Committee's executive board would need to propose it, and the rest of the IOC would then have to hold a vote. It's how breakdancing was added to the lineup for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.

Ahead of the Beijing Games, the International Skating Union announced the appointment of a working group to "investigate, strategize and gather the information required for Synchronized Skating to be accepted as an Olympic discipline" in Beijing. The sport didn't make the cut this year, but U.S. Figure Skating says it stands strongly in favor, according to a statement provided to NPR.

"U.S. Figure Skating strongly supports the addition of synchronized skating to the Olympic Program," the national governing body said in a statement.

It's hard to tell when any decision will be made one way or the other, so for now, competitive synchronized skaters say they are focused on continuing to improve whether at the Olympic level or not. But the Olympic dream remains.

"It kind of is in the back of our heads," Olarte says. "But when [an Olympic debut] gets brought up, we have this little hope."

The Haydenettes glide across the ice at the Bryant Park tree lighting in New York. On Ice Perspectives hide caption

Krantz says she thinks an Olympic debut could be "getting very close."

"The time that we train these days, the amount of hours, the type of training that we do is equal to the singles and pairs dance," Krantz says.

Still, the sport will have multiple hurdles to overcome before it can reach the Olympic stage. The IOC considers new sports based on 35 criteria, including how many athletes and officials would be included; how popular the sport is in the host country and what type of revenues it might generate.

The Haydenettes have participated in every world championship since the International Skating Union's first World Synchronized Skating Championships were held in in 2000. The squad has won medals five times at the world level and have been national champions more than two dozen times.

The sport is much different than it was two decades ago, says Krantz. Over the years, the number of skaters on the ice has decreased to 16 from 32, Krantz notes. The International Skating Union is also testing the sport with 12 skaters.

The training, she says, has also become more serious over the past five years.

But a push to reach Olympic status doesn't define them, she says.

"We're quite comfortable and happy where we are as athletes," Krantz says. "We're in a very good place right now where we just want to continue to train and simply to see if the opportunity comes to make it happen at the Olympics."

For now, the team is preparing for a national competition in Colorado Springs for a chance to compete in World Championships in April.

The Haydenettes skate at the Boston Synchronized Skating Classic in Norwood, Mass. Marissa Olarte Photography hide caption

Carly Muoz, a skater with the Haydenettes, first started skating when she was four years old. After watching a local synchronized skating team when she was six, she was "captured by the magic." She hasn't looked back since.

Now 23, Muoz says she's not just competing for a shot at the Olympics. She's competing for herself and her team, she says, to be the best skater she can be.

"That's a process that never stops," she says. "We can always do better than what we were yesterday or what we were last year."

But the Olympic dream lingers. It would be "incredible to compete," she says.

Read more:

Synchronized skating is looking for a spot at the Winter Olympics in 2026 - NPR

Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue just missed the podium at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. This year, theyll be dancing on it with medals around their necks.

The American duo earned bronze in the ice dance event at the 2022 Beijing Games. Frances Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, who earned silver in 2018, came away with gold, while ROCs Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov got silver.

Hubbell and Donohue secured their medal spot with a 130.89 score in Mondays free dance at Capital Indoor Stadium, bringing their total score to 218.02. In 2018, the two placed fourth overall in PyeongChang and were less than five points away from earning bronze.

While Hubbell and Donohue missed out on the ice dance medal in 2018, this will not be their first Olympic hardware. The two were a part of the silver-winning U.S. squad in the team competition earlier in the 2022 Games, earning the top spot in the rhythm dance in a field that included Sinitsina and Katsalapov.

This is the fifth straight Olympics where the U.S. has medaled in the event and second straight time earning bronze. Maia and Alex Shibutani edged Hubbell and Donohue at the last Olympics.

While Hubbell and Donohue made the jump from fourth to third, a U.S. pair still landed in the first spot outside the podium. Madison Chock and Evan Bates were in fourth place following the rhythm dance portion and jumped into first place with their 130.63 in the free skate. Each of the remaining three pairs jumped into first place with their respective dances, bumping Chock and Bates out of medal position.

Team USA had a third pair in the ice dance competition. Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker placed 11th after scoring a 115.16 in the free dance. The duo entered the second phase of the competition in 11th place, as well.

Watch all the action from the Beijing Olympics live on NBC

Papadakis and Cizerons victory comes four years after disaster struck seconds into their 2018 Olympic journey. Papadakis performed through a wardrobe malfunction in the rhythm dance in PyeongChang, but the duo managed to obtain silver in the end. The French pair won back-to-back world championships following those Games and are now champions on the biggest stage in figure skating.

Here are the full standings for the ice dance competition:

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Madison Hubbell, Zach Donohue Earn Bronze in Olympic Ice ...

BEIJING (AP) The Latest on the Beijing Winter Olympics:

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Hilary Knight had a goal and assist, Alex Cavallini stopped 25 shots and the defending Olympic champion United States defeated Finland 4-1 in a womens hockey semifinal at the Beijing Games on Monday to set up the sixth gold-medal showdown between the Americans and Canada.

The cross-border rivals will play on Thursday after Canada erupted for five first-period goals over an Olympic record span of 3:24 in a 10-3 win over Switzerland earlier in the day. The two world powers have played for the championship in every Olympic tournament except the 2006 Turin Games, when Canada defeated Sweden after the Swedes eliminated the Americans in the semifinal round.

This time, the United States is attempting to defend its title following a 3-2 shootout win at the 2018 the Pyeongchang Games, which ended Canadas Olympic run of four championships.

Cayla Barnes had a goal and assist, and Hayley Scamurra and Abby Roque, with an empty-netter, also scored for the U.S.

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Austria has won Olympic gold in the ski jumping team event at the Beijing Games.

Manuel Fettner jumped 128 meters (420 feet) Monday night on his final jump to seal the first-place finish.

The team of Fettner, Stefan Kraft, Daniel Huber and Jan Hoerl combined to score 942.7 points, beating Slovenia by 8.3 points with a combination of jaw-dropping distances and style that impressed the judges.

The Slovenians earned silver and Germany won bronze.

Slovenia went into the final round with a nine-point lead over Austria. Norway, Germany, Japan and Poland followed after the first round in the last ski jumping event of the 2022 Olympics, but they couldnt keep up with the top two nations.

Germanys result was particularly impressive because the team didnt have one of the best two-time gold medalist Andreas Wellinger, in their lineup because he tested positive for COVID-19.

Men have been ski jumping at the Winter Olympics since the first edition in 1924, and have had an opportunity to compete as teams since 1988.

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Xu Mengtao of China landed a jump with three somersaults to win Olympic gold in womens aerials on a frigid evening.

Xu becomes the first woman from China to win the Olympic ski aerials event. She instantly knew her run was a gold-medal worthy jump, too, pointing up at the sky soon after landing Monday night.

She later leaned back and screamed into the cold air as the temperature hovered around minus-10 (minus-23 Celsius). Xu scored a 108.61 to edge defending champion Hanna Huskova of Belarus. American Megan Nick was a surprise bronze medalist, holding off teammate Ashley Caldwell.

The 28-year-old Caldwell was the last to go after posting the highest score over the first two jumps of the final, which trimmed the field to six. She hit her back on the snow while landing her final jump.

Caldwell won a gold medal last week in the Olympic debut of mixed team aerials.

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The International Olympic Committee says there will be no medal ceremony in Beijing if 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva places in the top three in the womens individual event.

There will also be no medal ceremony for the team event, where Russia won gold a week ago with help from Valieva. The U.S. won silver and Japan won bronze.

Valieva was cleared Monday by Court of Arbitration for Sport judges to compete starting Tuesday, despite failing a drug test ahead of the Olympics.

But a separate investigation of that possible doping offense must be done in Russia and could take several months to resolve.

In the meantime, if Valieva wins an individual medal when the competition concludes Thursday, there wont be even a flower ceremony on the ice.

The IOC says its executive board decided in the interest of fairness to all athletes not to award medals this week.

It will organize dignified medal ceremonies once the case of Ms. Valieva has been concluded.

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Nordic combined star Jarl Magnus Riiber of Norway has tested negative for COVID-19, leaving open the chance of him competing at the Beijing Games. The three-time world champion was in isolation for more than 10 days.

Nordic combined has two medal events left on Tuesday and Thursday. Four of the top seven athletes in the sport, which combines ski jumping and a cross-country ski race, missed the first event last Wednesday. Germanys Vinzenz Geiger won.

Estonias Kristjan Ilves was released from isolation after 11 days on Saturday and has been training to compete.

Germany, meanwhile, has ruled out Terence Weber and says Manuel Faisst traveled to China to potentially replace him in its Nordic combined lineup. The team is still holding out hope that three-time Olympic gold medalist Eric Frenzel will be cleared to compete in Beijing.

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American freestyle skier Marin Hamill wont compete in the slopestyle final after hurting her right leg in a crash during qualifying. Shes headed back to the United State for further evaluation, the team announced.

Hamill, a 20-year-old from Utah, earned a spot in the final with her score of 69.43 on her first run through a course filled with rails and jumps.

She was finishing her final run when she crashed on the last jump. Hamill slid to the bottom of the hill and was treated by medical personnel. She was taken off the course in a sled and placed into an ambulance.

Hamill was second in a World Cup skiing slopestyle competition in France last month.

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A Norwegian biathlete who collapsed after crossing the finish line in the womens 10-kilometer pursuit race will be heading home instead of competing again at the Beijing Olympics.

Ingrid Landmakr Tandrevold, who said she has had heart issues in the past, was in position to win a medal at the end of Sundays race. But she stalled as she approached the line and then fell to the ground after crossing it. She ended up finishing 14th.

Dropping to the ground at the end of a biathlon race is common for skiers who push themselves on the ski tracks and shooting range, but several other competitors noticed that Tandrevold appeared to be in trouble and alerted medical staff.

On Monday, Tandrevold said she is feeling better but is done with competing for now. She says she needs to be careful because of her past heart issues.

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The World Anti-Doping Agency suggests officials in Russia are at least partly to blame for the six-week wait to produce a doping test result for figure skater Kamila Valieva.

Court of Arbitration for Sport judges have cleared Valieva to continue skating at the Beijing Olympics. One reason cited was serious issues with the time between when Valieva took the test and when the sample was flagged.

Valievas urine sample was taken Dec. 25 in St. Petersburg by Russias anti-doping agency and sent to a laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden. That laboratory flagged the result just a week ago, hours after Valieva helped the Russians win team gold in Beijing.

WADA says it expects bodies like Russian agency RUSADA to tell labs when faster testing is needed ahead of major championships like the Olympics, which it says didnt happen in this case.

Though Valieva can skate in Beijing, a separate longer-term investigation of the doping case by RUSADA could yet result in a ban and disqualification from the Olympics.

WADA can appeal against the eventual Russian ruling if it thinks a stricter punishment is needed.

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Mikaela Shiffrin has confirmed that she will race a downhill at the Winter Olympics for the first time Tuesday.

She says shes changing how she thinks about what is at stake as she prepares for her fourth event in Beijing.

She finished a second training session at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Center with the 15th-fastest time among the women who didnt miss a gate.

The two-time gold medalist in Alpine skiing did not finish her opening runs in either of her initial two events, the two-leg giant slalom and slalom, before coming in ninth in the super-G, another race she hadnt previously entered at an Olympics.

As someone who specialized in the technical disciplines of slalom and giant slalom, the speed events of downhill and super-G are still new and works-in-progress for Shiffrin.

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Reigning Olympic gold medalist Sebastien Toutant of Canada crashed hard during qualifying at mens snowboarding big air and wont defend his title.

Toutant needed to land a big trick on his third run to crack the top 12, but he slammed into the icy landing attempting a triple cork 1620 -- three off-axis flips with 4 1/2 rotations.

The 29-year-old fell on his back, and his head whipped back hard enough to knock his goggles off entirely. He remained down for several minutes before being helped up and walking away.

Max Parrot, the Canadian who took gold in slopestyle last week, leads after qualifying, followed by Japans Takeru Otsuka and American Red Gerard, who won gold at slopestyle in 2018.

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Defending champion Sofia Goggia says she can be in there competing for a medal in Tuesdays Olympic downhill despite not competing since badly injuring her left knee and leg in a crash three weeks ago.

The Italian placed fourth in the final training session.

Joana Haehlen of Switzerland led the session and was 0.61 seconds ahead of Goggia.

Mikaela Shiffrin placed 17th and said she will race the downhill after indicating following the opening training session that she wasnt sure. The two-time Olympic champion is still seeking her first medal in Beijing.

Former overall World Cup champion Federica Brignone did not qualify for a downhill starting spot on Italys team.

Tamara Tippler appeared to grab the final starting spot for Austria.

Tricia Mangan of the United States and Jasmine Flury of Switzerland crashed, but both appeared to avoid serious injury.

___

Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva is on the ice practicing less than an hour after learning shell be allowed to compete in the womens individual event at the Beijing Olympics.

Shes skating along with teammate Alexandra Trusova and four other competitors. Her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, is at the side of the rink.

Valieva appeared intently focused on her warm up. Shes the favorite for the gold medal in the individual event, which starts Tuesday.

When it was her turn to run through her practice program, she didnt appear to stumble or falter. Her skating elicited a smattering of applause from Russian press watching from an area designated for media.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the 15-year-old should not be provisionally suspended. She tested positive for a banned heart drug before the Olympics, on Dec. 25.

The ruling doesnt decide the fate of the gold medal she won as part of the team competition.

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The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee says its disappointed Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva will be allowed to compete for a second gold medal despite failing a pre-Olympics drug test.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the 15-year-old Valieva, the favorite for the womens individual gold, should not be provisionally suspended ahead of a full hearing into her positive test for a banned heart drug on Dec. 25.

USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland says the committee is disappointed by the message the ruling sends. She says athletes are being denied the right to know theyre competing on a level playing field. She says its part of a systemic and pervasive disregard for clean sport by Russia.

The ruling means Valieva can compete starting Tuesday in the womens individual competition, where shes a favorite for gold.

It doesnt decide the fate of the gold medal she won as part of the team competition. The U.S. won silver and would be in line for gold if the Russian medal is revoked.

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Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva will be allowed to compete for a second gold medal at the Winter Olympics despite failing a pre-Games drug test.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled Monday that the 15-year-old Valieva, the favorite for the womens individual gold, does not need to be provisionally suspended ahead of a full hearing into her positive test for the heart drug trimetazidine. The positive test was Dec. 25.

The Russian team can still aim for the first womens figure skating podium sweep in Olympic history. The event starts with the short program Tuesday and concludes Thursday with the free skate. Valieva is the favorite to win gold.

The ruling only addresses whether Valieva can keep skating before her case is resolved. It doesnt decide the fate of the one gold medal that she has already won.

___

Olympic champion Jamie Anderson says life in Beijings pandemic bubble has been difficult for her mental health, leaving her a little bit tapped out and excited to go home.

The American snowboarder failed to qualify for the finals in womens big air Monday. She said the Beijing Games have been a draining slog for her and her teammates.

Weve been here for so long and I feel like our whole crew is just over it, Anderson said. Just barely hanging on by a fricking strand of hair. Just like, tired of the food, homesick, tired of the pressure.

The 31-year-old Anderson came to China a two-time defending champion in slopestyle and won silver in big air at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. She finished ninth trying to defend her slopestyle titles last week, then said on Instagram that she straight up couldnt handle the pressure and that her mental health and clarity just hasnt been on par.

Anderson says shes not ready to retire, but shes not sure whats next for her as far as competitive snowboarding. She plans to take some time and free ride, then reset and see how she feels.

___

The International Olympic Committee says it wanted the entire investigation of Russian figure skater Kamila Valievas doping case to be completed during the Olympics.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport is expected to announce Monday afternoon Beijing time whether Valieva can compete in the womens figure skating event that starts Tuesday, where she would be a heavy favorite.

But they wont decide now whether Valieva is guilty of doping, nor whether the Russian skaters can keep the gold team medal they won with Valievas help. Those questions will be answered by a separate investigation led by the Russian anti-doping agency.

Valieva is the strong favorite for gold if CAS lets her compete in the individual competition despite a positive doping test from before the Olympics. It was only revealed last week after she competed in the team competition.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams says it wanted all legal issues settled once and for all before this competition starts.

Adams says the parties which include the IOC, World Anti-Doping Agency and the Russian team could not agree on a process.

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Olympics Live: US wins to set up gold-medal game with Canada ...

The United States men hold the world record in the team pursuit.Credit...Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

The United States finished third in speedskatings team pursuit on Tuesday, collecting the second American speedskating medal of these Olympics. The United States men are the world record holders in the team pursuit and were favored to win the event, making the third-place finish equal parts success and disappointment.

Russian Olympic Committee

The American team of Joey Mantia, Casey Dawson and Emery Lehman defeated the Netherlands in the B final effectively the bronze medal race by almost three seconds. Norway won the gold, for the second Olympics in a row, defeating Russia in the final.

But an unexpected decision potentially cost the United States a chance to race Norway in the final. Mantia, the most accomplished American skater, did not skate in the semifinals against a team from Russia, with Ethan Cepuran chosen instead by the team to race with Dawson and Lehman.

Dawson, Lehman and Cepuran skated well, leading through the middle of the race their time of 3 minutes 37.05 seconds was faster than the Olympic record (and faster than the Americans skated with Mantia in the B final). But the Russians skated an even better race, and won by almost half a second.

Cepuran and Mantia both said they were only a little bit disappointed by the semifinal loss. How unlucky do you gotta be that Russia goes four seconds faster in their semi than their final? Mantia said. Race of their lives. You cant really be sad about it. Its just kind of unlucky.

The plan was always for Mantia to not skate in the quarterfinals, the team said. Before the semifinals the skaters sat down and talked frankly about how they all felt, and that conversation resulted in Cepurans skating in the semifinals instead of Mantia. After the semifinals, Cepuran was more tired than Dawson, who arrived at the Olympics late and was fresher, and so he stepped aside for Mantia.

In the mens team pursuit, three team members skate in single file only inches apart for eight laps, with the time of the last skater to cross the finish line counted. Usually every lap or two the front skater, who does the grueling work of setting the pace while the others glide in his slipstream, peels to the back and lets a new teammate lead, and suffer.

As a group of individuals, the United States skaters are less accomplished than most of their opponents. None of them had won an Olympic medal before, for example, and besides Mantia, none have come particularly close. Their opponents in the bronze medal race, the Dutch, were led by the nine-time Olympic medalist Sven Kramer and the four-time medalist Patrick Roest.

But the United States has prioritized the team pursuit over the past four years with a bold and innovative strategy that has upended how the race is run. Instead of exchanging the role of who skates up front, the United States has one member lead the entire race, while his teammates use the energy saved to physically push one another forward. The strategy has had success: The Americans set the world record in Salt Lake City in December, and the Norwegians, who won the gold on Tuesday, freely admit to having copied it.

The bronze medal is the first for all the United States skaters, and came in the third, and possibly final, Olympics for Mantia, who is 36. Last week he seemed he seemed resigned to retiring without ever winning an Olympic medal after finishing sixth in the 1,500 meters.

Its heartbreaking, you know, Mantia said at the time. I really thought that this was my chance.

It was difficult to be too disappointed, then, after finally winning a medal. I feel like the weights been lifted in a sense, Mantia said. Im an Olympic medalist.

In the womens team pursuit, the favored Canadians defeated the Japanese and set a new Olympic record. The Japanese led the entire race, but on the final curve Nana Takagi suddenly lost her balance and fell, handing the gold medal to the Canadians. The Netherlands defeated Russia for the bronze.

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Olympics Live: Medal Count, News and Updates - The New York Times

The gold medal in women's ice hockey at the 2022 Winter Olympics seems destined to go through the U.S.-Canada rivalry. On Sunday, Canada did its part, defeating Switzerland in one semifinal game.

Monday morning, USA booked its ticket to the gold-medal game, defeating Finland 4-1. Four Americans scored -- Cayla Barnes, Hilary Knight, Hayley Scamurra and Abby Roque. But it was the play of goaltender Alex Cavallini that was the story. She held the Fins scoreless until the final 26 seconds of the game.

As it has done throughout the Olympic tournament, Canada swamped its opponent, defeating the Swiss 10-3. By the 10:40 mark of the first period, the Canadians had staked a five-goal lead. They never looked back.

Now the United States will meet Canada for the sixth time in seven Olympics. The puck drops at 11:10 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Here is our breakdown of Team USA's hockey semifinal:

Cavallini (25 saves) made some quality saves, including a spectacular stop on Finnish forward Michelle Karvinen on a 2-on-1 late in the first period to keep the game scoreless.

In the second period, forward Knight gave the U.S. some breathing room and made history in the process. The Americans finally hit the board on the power play just 3:29 into the second period as forward Hannah Brandt found defender Barnes wide-open on the right side of the Finland net for an open-net goal. Knight had the secondary assist on that goal to tie Natalie Darwitz for second most for an American women's player with 25 career Olympic points.

She broke that tie on a goal with 1:07 left in the second period, as Team USA's top line converted. Kendall Coyne Schofield outworked Finland's defense to win a loose puck in the corner, setting up a sequence that ended with Knight scoring from just in front of the Finland crease for the 2-0 lead. Scamurra added insurance in the third period, and Roque added a late empty-net goal. -- Greg Wyshynski

Other top action from the Olympics:

The U.S. women went 1-2 in the first ever Olympic women's monobob event, with Kaillie Humphries winning gold and Elana Meyers Taylor securing the silver medal. Canada's Christine de Bruin won the bronze medal.

Humphries dominated the event, leading by 1.54 seconds by the end. Meyers Taylor, who had been in fourth after her first two runs, made up time in the third and fourth runs to finish ahead of de Bruin at 4:20:81. An emotional Meyers Taylor, who took an entire season off to give birth to her son, Nico, screamed, "We did it!" as she got to the finish line.

Humphries, a three-time Olympic medalist and five-time world champion, received her American passport in December 2021. She left Canada for the U.S. because of a divisive separation from Bobsleigh Canada, after she accused her former coach of mental and emotional harassment. She was a part of Bobsleigh Canada for 16 years, representing Canada in three Olympic Games -- Vancouver, Sochi and Pyeongchang -- and won two golds and one bronze medal in the two-woman bobsled events.

With this gold medal, she became the first American to win a gold for two countries -- U.S. and Canada -- at the Winter Olympics.

Meyers Taylor also had a rough journey to Beijing. She tested positive for COVID-19 soon after arrival and was unable to walk as flag-bearer in the opening ceremony. She isolated for a week and produced two negative tests right before training for monobob and the two-woman bobsled events began. -- Aishwarya Kumar

Kamila Valieva will be allowed to skate in the women's singles competition after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled not to reinstate her suspension. The 15-year-old Russian had tested positive for a banned substance.

According to a media release, the panel considered that "preventing the athlete from competing at the Olympic Games would cause her irreparable harm in these circumstances." It also cited the lower sanctions for her as a "protected person" due to her age and noted that the late reporting of the test, which was taken in December, was "not her fault." A timeline of the doping allegations.

Team USA's Megan Nick took bronze in the women's slopestyle final as China's Xu Mengtao won gold.

U.S. teammate Ashley Caldwell scored highest heading into the final jumps, but she failed to land her final jump cleanly, and Xu's score of 108.61 proved to be enough to win on home snow.

Nick recorded a score of 93.76 with her final jump to secure bronze, while Belarus' Hanna Huskova took silver.

For three of the world's top ice dance teams, tonight was about unfinished business.

Four years after finishing fourth, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue finally got the Olympic medal they dreamed of in their very last competitive skate.

The U.S. team finished in third, behind Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France and Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov from the Russian Olympic Committee.

Papadakis and Cizeron won gold with an exquisite performance -- possibly one of the best ever -- and banished the memory of Pyeongchang, where they skated through a wardrobe malfunction and still won silver. They broke their own world record yet again, just like they did in the rhythm dance.

Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates finished fourth despite a personal-best score for their Daft Punk-soundtracked free skate about an alien and an astronaut. Four years ago, they both fell during the free dance. Now, despite finishing off the podium, they can leave Beijing with their heads held high -- and a team medal to boot! -- Elaine Teng

A rematch of the recent X Games Aspen big air showdown between U.S. snowboarder Jamie Anderson and Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand will not be in Beijing.

As expected, Sadowski-Synnott -- who won gold in slopestyle eight days ago and became the first Winter Olympics gold medalist from New Zealand -- qualified first into Monday's women's snowboard big air final. But Anderson failed to qualify, falling on her first two jumps.

In her third attempt, Anderson landed a gorgeous frontside 1080, scored an 89.75 and nearly qualified on that score alone. But ultimately, she finished 14th.

Two-time Olympian Hailey Langland grabbed the 12th and final qualifying spot to become the sole rider who will represent Team USA in the final.

Meanwhile, over on the slopestyle course, the focus -- and the on-site cheering -- was directed at recent freeski big air gold medalist Eileen Gu of China. One of the most popular athletes at these Games, Gu, who was born in San Francisco to a Chinese mother and American father, struggled in her opening run. She laid down a solid second run to qualify in third place. "I don't know why, but qualies are always way more nerve-wracking than finals," Gu said in the finish area, eating a bao bun.-- Alyssa Roenigk

Olympic legends Shaun White and Chloe Kim are both posting from the Super Bowl ... a mind-boggling transportation achievement it's best not to think too much about:

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Winter Olympics 2022 - Team USA women down Finland in hockey semifinals, Americans go 1-2 in monobob and more from Beijing - ESPN

Snow delays; Kaillie Humphries close to gold, ice dance medals Sunday

Snowfall forced a day delay for ski slopestyle. Kaillie Humphries is in position to win her first gold as an American. US ice dancers look to extend medal streak.

Sandy Hooper, USA TODAY

BEIJING A rare snowstorm in Beijing on Sunday brought a distinct winter vibe to the 2022 Winter Olympics.

But it also might have extinguished the Olympic flame at the Bird's Nest.

Photos taken by a USA TODAY photographer early Sunday afternoon show no visible flame in the Olympic cauldron at the medals plaza outside the stadium, where it was lit during the opening ceremony on Feb. 4. The flame traditionally remains lit for the entire duration of the Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee referred questions about the flame to the Beijing 2022 organizing committee, which said all is well.

"Our Bird's Nest team said the Olympic cauldron and the flame are fine," a Beijing 2022 spokesperson wrote in an email."Maybe it is (the) snowing which affected the visibility."

The Olympic flame is one of the most recognizable symbols of the Games, beyond perhaps the Olympic rings. It is lit before every edition of the Olympics at a special ceremony in Olympia, Greece, using "the ancient method of the sun's rays in the parabolic mirror," according to an IOC document.

"The Olympic flame can only be lit in this way," the document reads.

The flame is then transported to the host city through the ballyhooed torch relay, which can take several months and involve thousands of torch bearers.

Winter Olympics live updates: Kaillie Humphries halway to gold in monobob; men's hockey faces Germany

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The Beijing Games took a different approach with its relay, condensing the ceremonial process into just a few days and select locations in China. The cauldron itself is also nontraditional. While past Games have had massive cauldrons visible from a significant distance away, the Beijing Games opted for a small torch at the center of a web of snowflakes, due to a stated desire to be more eco-friendly.

"I have been thinking maybe we could make some reform on this to express the concept of low-carbon development in the new era," opening ceremony director Zhang Yimou said, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency.

This is not the first time the Olympic cauldron has gone out. In a now well-known incident, the flame at the 1976 Montreal Games was extinguished by a surprise storm and a plumber on site attempted to re-igniteit using a cigarette lighter and pieces of newspaper. When Olympic officials learned about the incident, they quickly put out the plumber's flame and re-lit the cauldron using a backup flame, per Olympic protocols.

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.

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Winter weather appears to have extinguished Olympic flame in Beijing. But organizers say it's just 'fine' - USA TODAY

As the 2022 Winter Olympics are underway in China, researchers are already looking ahead to how the planet can sustain holding future Olympic games as climate change impacts the winter season across the Northern Hemisphere.

Researchers from the U.S., Canada and Austria conducted a study to measure how significantly global greenhouse gas emissions would impact the Winter Olympics. Their results found that only one of 21 cities that have previously hosted the Winter Olympics would be able to not only provide reliably safe but also fair conditions for snow sports by the end of this century.

Winter is changing at the past Olympic Winter Games locations and an important perspective to understand climate change risk is that of the athletes who put themselves at risk during these mega-sport events, said researchers.

Researchers used the United Nations Paris Climate Agreement as its barometer for climate change progress, noting that if emission targets can be achieved the number of climate-reliable host cities jumps to eight, with only six considered unreliable.

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In 2015, the Paris agreement was created to incentivize countries to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possibleso the planet could be a climate neutral world by mid-century. It was adopted by 196 countries and required plans for climate action, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The treaty aims to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius.

However, researchers found that the average daytime temperature in February in Olympic host cities has steadily increased from .4 degrees Celsius at games held in the 1920s and 1950s, to 3.1 degrees Celsius at games held during the 1960s and 1990s and now 6.3 degrees Celsius in games held in the twenty-first century, which includes the current Beijing games.

The 21st century warming is expected to increaseby an additional 2 to 4.4 degrees Celsius, depending on which emission reduction plan countries adopt.

Climate change is altering the geography of the Winter Olympic Games and will, unfortunately, take away some host cities that are famous for winter sport. Most host locations in Europe are projected to be marginal or not reliable as early as the 2050s, even in a low emission future, said RobertSteiger, one of the studys co-authors from theUniversity of Innsbruck in Austria, in a statement.

As part of their study, researchers also surveyed 339 elite athletes and coaches from 20 countries to define fair and safe conditions for snow sports competitions, which found that the frequency of unfair and unsafe conditions has increased under all future climate change scenarios.

Researchers noted that athlete safety has been an important perspective missing from the limited research on climate change and the Olympics. Athletes risk serious injury, whether thats from skiing down steep slopes or hitting the superpipe on a snowboard, and studies of injury incidence rates recorded among Olympic/Paralympic alpine skiing/snowboarding/freestyle athletes were 55 percent higher versus other Olympic Winter Games.

Climate change could worsen already dangerous conditions as researchers said scenarios like adverse snow conditions, athlete heat stress and equipment failures were often caused by warmer temperatures. For example, warmer temperatures make snow heavy and unsafe at high speeds. It can also make courses too slushy, causing athletes speed to slow down and force unsafe landings.

The bottom line is that climate change is not an issue that the International Olympic Committee (IOC), sporting organizations or athletes and coaches can solve alone, with researchers concluding that needs, a society-wide response to this grand challenge.

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Only 'one reliable host city' will be left for Winter Olympics if global emissions are not curbed: study | TheHill - The Hill

5:20 PM ET

Greg WyshynskiESPN

Team USA goalie Strauss Mann understands how he's perceived by others.

He'll spend five hours in the kitchen, preparing meals so he can maintain his strict paleo diet. He wears blue-light-blocking glasses on the bus in order to get a better night's sleep. The 23-year-old goaltender is known to seek out coaches that can help with certain aspects of his game, exemplified by last summer's sessions with a specialist that focused on opening his hips to improve his post-to-post mobility.

"Everyone that played with me knows me for my diet or my little habits. If everyone did it, then it wouldn't be a competitive advantage, would it?" he said.

The NY Post once labeled him "endearingly quirky."

Mann shrugged at the reference. "I'm OK with being a little bit different," he told ESPN. "Maybe that makes people label me a certain way."

The University of Michigan perceived him as a starting goalie. He was a standout for three seasons, culminating in a stellar junior year where he was a captain and a finalist for the Mike Richter Award.

2 Related

NHL organizations perceived him differently. They saw his height, listed at 6-foot, and passed on him as being too small. Mann left Michigan before his senior season and took his talents to the Swedish pro league.

USA Hockey perceived Mann as an Olympian. The NHL opted out of the 2022 Beijing Olympics after the omicron coronavirus variant caused a material change in its regular-season schedule. Team USA needed goalies. Mann figured he had a shot at making the roster. USA Hockey was looking at college players and pro players overseas. He had been both in the last year.

"I was already thinking about [the Olympics], and then it became the only thing I could think about," he said. "It's the Olympics. Every kid watches it growing up. Every person. I had never represented my country at any stage. ... For me, at this point in my career, this is pretty special."

Especially when he was that kid watching the Olympics in Greenwich, Connecticut, wearing a Team USA Ryan McDonagh jersey while watching the Americans cede the gold medal to Canada in 2010.

"I cried when they lost in overtime," he said. "But it was really special watching [goaltender] Ryan Miller dominate in that tournament."

For one game, Mann played the part of Ryan Miller or Jim Craig for Team USA. His 35-save performance led the Americans to a Beijing Olympics preliminary-round victory over archrival Canada. That was an integral part of their 3-0-0 run to the top of Group A and earned this team, the youngest in the tournament, comparisons to the "Miracle on Ice" college kids who won USA Hockey's last gold medal in 1980.

"We have a lot of college guys, too. I don't know if it is the same," said Mann after the Canada game. "But we have a chance. We showed we have a chance."

Steve Valiquette, the former NHL goalie who has coached Mann since he was 13 years old, thinks he gives the Americans the best chance to win gold again.

"I'm telling you: This kid is a warrior of life. I love him. I love him more than anyone I've ever coached. I'm so proud of him because I know where he began," said Valiquette. "If you're a gambling man, put your money on him. He wins everywhere."

Mann was 13 years old when he met Valiquette, rather randomly at a Christmas party.

Mann's younger sister had a mutual friend with the Valiquette family. Mann had just made Triple-A hockey for the first time, with the Westchester Express.

"He was a chubby, short little kid that didn't come from a hockey family at all," said Valiquette, who began training him from the following summer on.

"He's helped me in a variety of ways," said Mann. "First and foremost, he helped me learn how to commit to the process and really throw all aspects of my life at it. To go from maybe 80 percent to 100 percent."

Valiquette is the CEO of Clear Sight Analytics and a leading voice in the goalie analytics movement. Mann has used some of that insight but hasn't waded too deep into the fancy stats.

"I think I'd get a little over my own head if I was like, 'Oh, I should have stopped this because only one in 30 go in from [this spot],' and this and that," he said. "But I think it's pretty cool to get some of his data and see how to play a 2-on-1. To see how the goalies that stop the most 2-on-1s actually stop those 2-on-1s. Then maybe I can learn a little bit from that, add things to my game."

Mann is constantly looking for an edge. Like the glasses he wears to help him sleep. There's science behind them, as filtering out blue light helps increase melatonin in the body and enables easier sleep.

With Valiquette, he wore swivel-vision goggles that were used on the ice to help with tracking pucks. "Imagine wearing a ski goggle that had little holes in the middle, so you can't see out of your peripheral. He would wear those on the bus," said Valiquette, who was always impressed with Mann's propensity for growth.

"He's able to change his body because his growth mindset is bigger than anybody's. He's got a stronger mindset to get better," he said. "From a personal performance and a player performance, he should be followed by anybody with a desire to play Division I or beyond."

In his freshman and sophomore years at Brunswick School in Greenwich, Mann was a junior varsity player. His junior season, he became the backup on the varsity team. For his senior year, it wasn't clear if Mann was going to be the starter.

"It took a lot of convincing to give him a chance," said Valiquette.

Mann's play in his senior season resulted in him winning New England goaltender of the year. His Mid Fairfield Rangers 18U AAA team won a national championship. That opened the door for him to try out as a walk-on for the Muskegon juniors team. John Vanbiesbrouck, then the general manager of that USHL team and now the GM of Team USA, loved him but didn't have any room on the roster for him. So he called the Fargo Force of the North American Hockey League and told them about this talented walk-on. Mann went to Fargo as a walk-on for the 2017-18 season, which began in October, and took over as a starter by Christmas Day.

Mann then received what Valiquette called a "soft partial scholarship" to the University of Michigan. By his third year there, he was the team captain. An opportunity to join an NHL organization seemed like a possibility. Valiquette did his part as a hype man. "I called everybody for this guy. Called every favor in," he said. "He's playing in Sweden right now because he couldn't get a deal."

Valiquette said that teams were hung up on Mann's size. There wasn't a goalie taken in last season's NHL draft who was shorter than 6-foot-1.

So it was off to Sweden, leaving NCAA hockey behind.

"For me, a lot of things went into it. A little bit of an unorthodox move. I just felt like I was ready. I didn't know right away when I decided to go pro that I would end up in Europe, but I'm just always looking to grow and develop my game. Thought I was ready to take the next step," said Mann.

He reached out to his former Michigan teammates as they were added to the U.S. and Canadian Olympic teams following the NHL opt-out. He's close with Owen Power and Kent Johnson, who are playing for Canada. Matty Beniers and Brendan Brisson are his U.S. teammates.

"It'll be nice to go back to the college days, I guess. I definitely feel like I've moved on from that, playing with all these pros now with families," he said.

Mann left Michigan at a fortuitous time. The Wolverines made the NCAA tournament last season but had to withdraw because of positive COVID-19 tests. The Ann Arbor News reported last month that the men's hockey program at Michigan is under investigation by the university for "attempting to hide COVID-19 cases" ahead of that tournament. There is speculation that the report, depending on what it finds, could jeopardize Michigan's status for this NCAA postseason and impact the job status of Michigan coach Mel Pearson, who has denied the allegations.

Instead of facing a cloudy postseason status, Mann has excelled in Sweden, playing on a first-place team in Skelleftea. He's 11-5-0 with a .921 save percentage and three shutouts.

Playing in Sweden has been a success, even if it's been a challenge to his infamously strict nutritional plan.

"I had it pretty perfect until I came here to Sweden," said Mann.

Strauss Mann's diet is the stuff of legend. It's been a subject of media scrutiny wherever he's played. One reporter at the Michigan student newspaper sought to follow that diet for 30 days, and reported, "My sight was a little blurry, I constantly felt like passing out and it was hard to think straight."

Mann began his paleo diet when he was 16.

"I wasn't overweight or anything, but I wanted to get into better shape. I found this meal plan at the gym. It was a habit that started to discipline a lot of areas in my life. I got in shape and started to really care more about sleep and training and video work and all of these other things," he said. "For me, it was a jumpstart to really focusing on hockey. Not long after that, results started to come."

No sugar. No olive oil for cooking. No dairy. No processed foods. No plastic Tupperware containers. A lot of planning and a lot of understanding that not every trip will be paleo-friendly.

"A year ago, I would have been freaking out to be going [to Beijing]," he said. "I've had to accept that not everything is going to be perfect and to do the best I can."

This is a recurring theme for Mann: accepting imperfection.

He tried to convey that sentiment in an Instagram post that showed him meditating near a lake, quoted Pliny the Elder and adding his own thoughts: "Often, it's easy to get fixated on our desires, always wanting immediate success, happiness, and sunlight, if you will. But more and more it's become clear that the only way to reach true fulfillment is to create sunlight from total darkness."

Mann said it's essential to be honest about life's struggles.

"I'm just not one to shy away from the fact that not every day is perfect. There's going to be adversity. That's normal. If you're not experiencing that, or you're saying you aren't, you're probably lying," he said.

That was evident for Mann in the Canada game. He surrendered a goal just 1 minute, 24 seconds into the game, on a shot where he couldn't get his stick paddle down to the ice fast enough. It didn't snowball for him. The U.S. tied the game 1 minute, 10 seconds later. Mann was great the rest of the way.

There's no telling how much action Mann will see now that the Americans have reached the Olympic quarterfinals, with their first game scheduled for 11:10 p.m. ET on Feb. 15. He has that signature win over Canada to his credit. But goalie Drew Commesso played well in wins over China and Germany, stopping 53 of 55 shots. The 19-year-old could get the nod over Mann in elimination-round play.

Whatever happens, Mann won't allow it to define him.

Perceptions are what they are. But Strauss Mann knows who he is.

"It's just trying not to get too high or too low," he said. "That's easy to say, but it comes from every day trying to make sure that your value comes from who you are as a person and not as a player. If you really believe that, then a loss won't affect your confidence, and a win won't give you hubris."

Excerpt from:

Winter Olympics 2022 - Meet the 'quirky' goalie with the paleo diet and weird glasses who might lead Team USA to gold - ESPN