Roundup of Olympic gold medals from Tuesday, Feb. 15
Roundup of Olympic gold medals from Tuesday, Feb. 15
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Your support makes all the difference.A roundup of gold medals from Tuesday, Feb. 15, at the Beijing Games:
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ALPINE SKIING
WOMEN'S DOWNHILL
Corinne Suter, a 27-year-old Swiss skier who injured both of her legs early in the season, edged Italian Sofia Goggia by 0.16 seconds to win gold in the women's downhill.
Goggia won silver and fellow Italian Nadia Delago won bronze 0.57 seconds behind Suter, who becomes the first woman since Lindsey Vonn to hold the Olympic and world championship titles in downhill at the same time.
Mikaela Shiffrin, who did not finish her opening runs in either of her initial two events, finished in 18th place, 2.49 behind Suter.
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BIATHLON
MEN'S 4x7.5KM RELAY
Norway won biathlon gold in the men’s four-man relay.
Clean shooting by Norway’s Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen and an uncharacteristic miss by France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet allowed Norway to leave the range first and win with a time of 1 hour, 19 minutes, 50.2 seconds.
France held on for the silver, 27.4 seconds back and Russia stayed in front of Germany for the bronze, 45.3 seconds behind. The Russian athletes had led from the start of the race, but a series of missed shots on the very last shooting stage cost them the gold medal.
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FREESKIING
WOMEN'S FREESKI SLOPESTYLE
Mathilde Gremaud of Switzerland won gold in the women's ski slopestyle competition on a bitterly cold and hazy day when temperatures hovered around minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20 Celsius.)
Eileen Gu, an American-born freestyler who is competing for her mother's home country of China, won silver. Sitting in eighth place after two runs, Gu used a strong final run to work her way onto the podium. She couldn’t catch Gremaud, who scored an 86.56 on her second run.
Kelly Sildaru of Estonia took home bronze.
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SNOWBOARD
MEN'S BIG AIR
Su Yiming gave host China its second gold medal at Big Air Shougang, with a stunning show in front of fans at the repurposed steel mill.
The 17-year-old child actor-turned-rider followed up his unexpected silver in slopestyle — he would’ve taken gold if not for a judging blunder.
Mons Roisland of Norway won silver and slopestyle gold medalist Max Parrot of Canada won bronze.
WOMEN'S BIG AIR
Anna Gasser of Austria won her second straight Olympic gold medal in women’s snowboarding big air.
The 30-year-old Gasser held off a field with an average age of 21, including 20-year-old Zoi Sadowski Synnott of New Zealand, who last week won her country’s first ever Winter Olympics gold medal in slopestyle. Sadowski Synnott took silver Tuesday.
Kokomo Murase of Japan earned bronze with a pair of 1080s at Big Air Shougang. It was the first Olympic medal for the 17-year-old.
SPEEDSKATING
MEN'S TEAM PURSUIT
For the second straight Olympics, Norway won gold in men’s team pursuit speedskating.
The Norwegian trio of Hallgeir Engebraaten, Peder Kongshaug and Sverre Lunde Pedersen won the gold-medal final with a time of 3 minutes, 38.08 seconds — nearly 2 1/2 seconds ahead of the Russian Olympic Committee.
The Russian team settled for the silver, while the United States claimed the bronze by beating the Dutch in the B final.
WOMEN'S TEAM PURSUIT
Canada won speedskating gold in women’s team pursuit after a skater for defending Olympic champion Japan fell on the final turn.
Japan appeared to be heading for a second straight gold medal in the event, holding a lead of about 0.3 seconds with a half lap to go. But the final athlete in the three-skater train, Nana Takagi, lost her balance and skidded into the padding coming through the final turn.
That allowed the Canadian trio of Ivanie Blondin, Valerie Maltais and Isabelle Weidemann to pull out the victory in dramatic fashion.
Canada won with an Olympic-record time of 2 minute, 53.44 seconds. The Japanese settled for silver, more than 11 seconds behind. The Netherlands beat the Russian Olympic Committee in the bronze-medal final with a time of 2:56.86. They were more than 2 seconds ahead of the Russians.
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More AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports