Winter Olympics 2022 day eight: biathlon, cross-country skiing and more – live! – The Guardian

The men’s 10km sprint biathlon has just started. That’ll be fun. Philipp Nawrath of Germany leads the way but only four athletes have begun.

Speed skating-wise, they’re trying to sort the ice rink out, apparently. There is damage in the outside lane which they are having to resurface before the racing can begin. It’s the men’s 500m final, by the way.

Women’s ice hockey: Finland lead Japan 2-0 in their quarter-final, towards the end of the first period. Petra Nieminen and Viivi Vainikka with the goals.

Men’s ice hockey: In Group A, Germany and China locked at 0-0 in the first period.

Journalists receiving death threats from those angered by the suspicion surrounding Kamila Valieva after she failed a doping test. The Olympic spirit!

Sweden did of course beat Canada 7-4, not the other way around, so they top the standings in the men’s curling round robin with four wins out of four. Switzerland second: played four, won three, and Great Britain third as it stands with two wins out of three. Great Britain have two matches coming up tomorrow, against China and Denmark.

Men’s round robin curling results: China 12-9 Italy, Sweden 7-4 Canada, Switzerland 8-6 Denmark, Norway 7-6 USA … let me have a look at what that does to the table.

Women’s team pursuit speed skating quarter-final: Japan seal the win and with an Olympic record of 2min 53.61sec! Canada, Netherlands and ROC all progress to the quarter-finals – Canada were just 0.36sec off Japan’s pace. The BBC commentators reckon the Netherlands’ time was disappointing (3.65sec down in third), and that they are not working together well enough as a team given their prodigious talents. A famous theme when it comes to Dutch sport, also often applied to the football team.

They are safely through, anyway, with China, Norway, Poland and Belarus failing to progress to the semi-final.

For those of you waking up and checking the overnight news: Lindsay Jacobellis has won another gold medal for the USA! She was considered the nearly-woman of Olympic snowboarding, but any such demons have been officially banished in Beijing.

Bryan Armen Graham has the story:

Stepanova roars over the finish line and is mobbed by her teammates … what a performance from her on that fourth leg. She blew the competition away. Germany take a tremendous silver medal, +18.2sec, Sweden edge to the bronze medal, +20.7 sec.

Women’s 4 x 5km relay skiing: Stepanova has stormed away at the front of the race for ROC! She has overturned the lead of Germany and ROC are set for gold! She is flying to the finish!

Latest men’s round robin curling scores: Sweden 5-4 Canada, Norway 7-5 USA, Switzerland 7-4 Denmark.

Women’s team pursuit speed skating: Canada fractionally fail to overhaul the leaders Japan: they clock 2min 53.97sec v the previous mark of 2min 53.61

Norway and Belarus are now fifth and sixth respectively. Poland and ROC still to go.

Victoria Carl, the German, storms home at the end of the third leg, having overtaken the ROC athlete who was previously ahead! So Germany lead the way into the fourth leg … ROC +5sec, Norway +14.7sec, Finland +18.1sec.

Sophie Krehl is tasked with bringing this home for Germany after a phenomenal third let by her teammate Carl. Veronika Stepanova is giving chase for the ROC team.

Thanks Geoff and hello everyone. Right, what’s occurring? Cross-country skiing, as you know, plus women’s team pursuit speed skating: Japan lead their quarter-final there, beating Netherlands, China and Norway into second, third and fourth respectively as it stands …

Cross-county: Hennig attacks Nepryaeva up the main hill on the course, their second time around this 2.5km loop. She passes on the outside and goes to the front. Johaug is still attacking in third, leading a chasing group.

Cross-county: Therese Johaug, the Norwegian double-gold winner at these Games, is burning up the course. Chasing the front pair with intensity. She won over 10km and in the 7.5km skiathlon, so 5km is nothing for her.

Cross-county: Nepryaeva for the ROC and Hennig for Germany are with each other, but well in front of everyone else. Their advantage 11 seconds at the moment.

Cross-country: There’s no baton in this relay, obviously, as cross-country skiers use both their hands to hold poles. There’s an approach lane, and the next skier can start moving as long as they don’t pass a certain point, and the approaching skier has to touch them in the back to constitute a handover. ROC handover first, Germany and Japan next.

Cross-country: The women’s 5km relay has begun. We’re on the first leg, with the leaders approaching the handover.

Curling: Shuster again has the final stone and a chance to make a save, but his shot slides just a bit too long, and that leaves Norway two scoring stones. They lead the USA 6-3 now as we start the seventh end.

Curling: China leading 5-4 over Italy, Sweden 2-0 over Canada, Switzerland 4-3 over Denmark, Norway 4-3 over the USA.

Curling: One stone in the rings for Norway with three to play, sitting behind the button, and they’ve assembled a big defensive wall in front of that. Hoping to save that one in place, then drift their last stone in for a second score? Not sure. They send down another that sits in front of the button. Not sure if the US could use that top stone to knock the other one out. They attempt something else though, and it doesn’t work, striking one of the guards. But Norway botch their last stone, looking to set one more guard in place but not landing it right. It allows John Shuster to set up a series of ricochets that knocks out the middle Norway stone and lands his own stone a tiny margin closer to the button. Instead of two points for Norway, it’s one point for USA. They lead 3-2.

Curling: The Norwegians level it up, 2-2 and playing the fourth end now.

Lots of curling starting now for the men’s round robin. China v Italy, Canada v Sweden, Denmark v Switzerland, USA v Norway.

As for the men’s Group A match, same score, USA beating Canada 4-2.

The ROC take off their tender and throw an extra skater on in a desperate bid for an equaliser, and as so often happens the other team scores an empty net goal instead, Muller firing almost the full length of the rink and right into the middle of the target. Switzerland win 4-2.

One! Two! The Russians equalise through Luchnikova, but 30 seconds later Muller comes flying down the length of the rink, passes a couple of defenders, passes right to Stalder, skates left herself, and is there on the left side of goal when Stalder flicks a pass across for Muller to send home. It’s 3-2 to the Swiss. A couple of minutes to play.

Now the Swiss have a penalty against them for a cross-check, which is when a player uses the handle of the stick between both hands to check an opponent. Nicole Bullo is off, so the Russians have a chance with five on four on the ice.

The Swiss go ahead! Dominque Ruegg scores to make it 2-1, and then seconds later the Russians have Polina Luchnikova sent off for two minutes to rob them of a chance at a quick counter.

Ice hockey: We’re at the start of the third period in both matches now. It’s 1-1 in the women’s quarters between the Swiss and the Russians. USA still leading Canada 3-2 in the men’s group match.

The Mikaela Shiffrin story has been one of the most compelling at these Games, and Bryan Graham wrote on it from Beijing.

Also, apparently people are mad about results in the skeleton? Each to their own I guess.

Ice hockey: Approaching the end of the second period, the USA lead Canada 3-2.

And here’s a bit more on the silver in that event for Scotty James.

Here is the report about the positive doping test recorded by Kamila Valieva.

Given we mentioned national human rights failures, let’s start with the looming possibility of another one.

I’ll give you the events in GMT, given most of our readers are in the UK. Add eight hours for China, eleven hours for Australia. Subtract five hours for the USA’s east coast, eight hours for the west coast.

Currently the only event happening is the ice-hockey: a women’s quarter-final between the ROC and the Swiss, and a men’s pool match between Canada and the USA. The mixed team snowboard cross final has already been… boarded? USA took gold, Italy and Canada next in.

6am: Men’s round robin curling matches, including USA v Norway.

7:30am: Women’s 5km cross-country ski relay final.

8:40am: Women’s ice hockey quarter-final, Japan v Finland. Men’s pool match, Germany v China.

8:53am precisely: Men’s 500m speed skating final

9am: Men’s biathlon 10 kilometre sprint final.

11am: Couples ice dance – rhythm dance.

Midday: Women’s curling round robin, including GB v USA. Men’s large hill individual ski jumping.

1pm: Men’s ice hockey pool matches, ROC v Czechia and Switzerland v Denmark.

1:50pm: Women’s skeleton final.