Each and every day of the 2022 Winter Games, NBCOlympics.com will keep you updated overnight with the biggest stories from across the competition landscape. This article will be refreshed throughout the night, so be sure to check back. All competition streams live on NBCOlympics.com and Peacock — visit the schedule page for more details.
The U.S. has multiple medal contenders in the men's freeski halfpipe final, Mikaela Shiffrin's final medal opportunity comes in the Alpine skiing team event, and Elana Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries attempt to make the podium in the final runs of two-woman bobsled. Elsewhere on the penultimate day of the Winter Olympics, Great Britain and Sweden battle for men's curling gold, and Joey Mantia races in speed skating's mass start event. Stay tuned for updates throughout the night...
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Sweden’s Niklas Edin captures elusive gold medal
The men’s gold medal match between Sweden and Great Britain would need extra ends. Sweden was looking for redemption after losing to the U.S. by making a bad throw that opened the door for the Americans to win Gold.
Sweden’s skip Niklas Edin made a perfect shot in the 10th to keep Great Britain to only a point. Originally the throw looked like it might go outside, but it stayed on its track and knocked Great Britain’s stone away.
In the extra end, Sweden’s early stones landed precisely where they wanted them. Edin left his second-to-last stone short, which left the door open for Great Britain skip Bruce Mouat’s final shot. However, Mouat failed to dislodge a Swedish stone in the button. Sweden would win the gold medal without skip Edin having to play his final stone.
After four Olympics and a fourth, third, and second-place finish, Edin is at last an Olympic champion. The silver for Team GB is Great Britain’s first medal of the 2022 Games.
Results: Men's curling
🥇 Sweden
🥈 Great Britain
🥉 Canada
-- Stephanie De Lancey
Schouten ends Olympics with gold in women’s mass start
Irene Schouten skated the perfect final race of her 2022 Winter Games. In the women’s mass start, she waited until the timing was right to make her move to the front on the final stretch. She conserved her energy and crossed the finish line first at 8:14.73 and 60 points to claim her third gold medal of the Games.
Canada’s Ivanie Blondin finished second, just .06 behind Schouten. Italy’s Francesca Lollobrigida would round out the podium, finishing third. American Mia Manganello Kilburg had a great race, coming up just short to finish in fourth.
Results: Women's mass start
🥇 Irene Schouten (NED)
🥈 Ivanie Blondin (CAN)
🥉 Francesca Lollobrigida (ITA)
-- Stephanie De Lancey
Photo finish in men’s mass start
Belgian Bart Swings won gold in the men’s mass start. He finished with a time of 7:47.11, .07 faster than Chung Jae-Won’s silver finish. It is Belgium’s first gold medal at the Winter Olympics in 74 years. It betters his silver medal from PyeongChang.
The race came down to a full-blown sprint down the last stretch and the finish for bronze was literally a photo finish. 2018 gold medalist Lee Seung-Hoon edged out American Joey Mantia by .001 to claim the bronze. After the race, Mantia tried to lobby for a review for interference, but the judges did not hold an official review.
Results: Men's mass start
🥇 Bart Swings (BEL)
🥈 Chung Jae-Won (KOR)
🥉 Lee Seung-Hoon (KOR)
-- Stephanie De Lancey
Bolshunov continues Olympic dominance
The men’s 50km mass start was shortened to 30km for athlete safety. It was a grueling day on the course, with high winds and cold temperatures.
Entering the race, it was expected to be a showdown between Norway’s racers and ROC’s. However, it became apparent Norway’s skis were not right and as the Norwegians struggled to keep pace. They were the only group in the lead to change their skis. Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo even left the race about halfway through. Klaebo was thought to be a medal contender, after already winning four medals at the 2022 Winter Games.
ROC’s Alexander Bolshunov, who’s specialty is the distance events in cross-country proved it with another gold medal finish at these Games. The 25-year-old has now won a medal in every Olympic race he’s started (nine total). He also became the first male cross-country skier to win five medals in one Olympics. He got a bit of a “victory lap” coming down the stretch, beating teammate Ivan Yakimushkin by 5.5 seconds. ROC won 11 medals in cross-country at the 2022 Winter Games, the most by any country.
Norway’s Simen Hegstad Krueger would round out the podium. It was an impressive feat for Krueger who had to recover from testing positive for COVID-19 earlier in the Games.
American Scott Patterson finished in 8th, a personal best and three spots better than PyeongChang. It was the third-best finish by a U.S. male cross-country skier in an individual event, and the best since Bill Koch in 1976.
Results: Men's 50km mass start
🥇 Alexander Bolshunov (ROC)
🥈 Ivan Yakiushkin (ROC)
🥉 Simen Hegstad Krueger (NOR)
-- Stephanie De Lancey
Weather causes delays
The weather has affected two different sports scheduled for today: Alpine skiing and cross-country.
First, heavy winds forced Alpine skiing's mixed team event (originally scheduled for 9 p.m. ET) to be delayed several times and then ultimately postponed. The event could be run tomorrow, which would be the final day of the Winter Olympics, but high winds will again be in the forecast.
Then came the announcement that the men's 50km cross-country skiing event (originally scheduled for 1 a.m. ET) has been pushed back by an hour and will be shortened to a 30km race to reduce the time that athletes are exposed to extreme conditions.
— Shawn Smith
Germany eyes podium sweep midway through four-man bobsled
German sleds sit in the top two positions after the first two runs in the four-man bobsled. Francesco Friedrich piloted the top time of 1:57.00, and he is just 0.03 seconds ahead of fellow countryman Johannes Lochner.
Lochner led after the first run, but Friedrich topped him with a time of 58.71 in his second run.
Freidrich is the reigning gold medalist in this event and also defended his gold in PyeongChang in the two-man. Lochner and Christoph Hafer won silver and bronze in the two-man event for the only podium sweep of the Olympics so far.
Hafer sits in fourth in the four-man after the second run as the Germans eye another podium sweep. Germany has claimed five of the last seven gold medals in the four-man event.
American pilots Frank Del Duca and Hunter Church, who are not expected to contend for a medal, sit outside the top 10.
— Eric He
Nico Porteous wins ski halfpipe gold; U.S. takes silver, bronze
Heavy winds played a major role in the men's freeski halfpipe final, but in the end, the same three skiers that were on the podium four years ago in PyeongChang stood atop it once again in Beijing — just in a different order.
New Zealand's Nico Porteous, the 2018 bronze medalist, battled through the wind to put down the run of the day in Run 1. The 20-year-old landed switch tricks in opposite directions up top, followed by back-to-back double cork 1620s and an alley-oop double flatspin 900. Although he fell on his final two runs, Porteous' first-run score of 93.00 held up for the win.
Porteous is the first skier other than David Wise to win Olympic gold in this event. Wise, the two-time defending gold medalist entering the day, finished second, and his teammate Alex Ferreira, the 2018 silver medalist, took third to give the U.S. the other two spots on the podium behind Porteous. Ferreira actually landed a rightside double cork 1620 in his final two runs but didn't execute either run cleanly enough to improve upon his 86.75 from the first run.
As for the other Americans, Birk Irving placed fifth and Aaron Blunck finished seventh. Gus Kenworthy, who is competing for Great Britain this year, finished eighth in the final event of his storied career.
Results: Men's Freeski Halfpipe
🥇 Nico Porteous (NZL)
🥈 David Wise (USA)
🥉 Alex Ferreira (USA)
— Shawn Smith
SEE MORE: David Wise puts down wild Run 1 in halfpipe final for 90.75