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While some events were turned upside down due to extreme cold and wind, skaters Sui Wenjing and Han Cong gave China their fifteenth medal on Saturday, a record for the host country of the Games.
The Beijing Olympics are almost over, but the weather has decided to act up and turn the final events upside down on Saturday February 19.
The 50 km, the queen event of cross-country skiing and equivalent of the marathon in athletics for its prestige, had to be shortened by 20 km to preserve the health of the participants, subjected to extreme cold on a track swept by gusts of wind. .
And the expected explanation between the two stars of the discipline, the Russian Alexander Bolshunov and the Norwegian Johannes Klaebo, quickly came to an end. Klaebo retired shortly after the halfway point and Bolshunov won his third gold medal, after the skiathlon and the relay.
“The more difficult the conditions, the better it is for me, it makes things much easier for me”, swept the triple Olympic champion who, including the 2018 Olympics, has nine medals in as many races.
For her part, to save her Games, the American Mikaela Shiffrin, an expected star in alpine skiing but without a medal so far, expects a lot from the team event. Provided it takes place: it was scheduled for Saturday and was postponed to Sunday due to strong gusts of wind in Yanqing. But the weather forecast is only slightly better. Could it be purely and simply canceled, which is extremely rare in Olympic history?
China wins fifteenth medal
To end this penultimate day, Chinese skaters Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, silver medalists four years ago, won gold, this time ahead of their Russian rivals Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov.
They offer the host country its fifteenth and last medal of the fortnight, the ninth in gold, a new record for China at an edition of the Winter Olympics.
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Germany dominates the bobsleigh
On the Yanqing track, Germany confirmed its incredible superiority by placing two crews in the first two places in the women’s two-man bobsleigh event, to bring its total of titles in luge, skeleton and bob to eight out of a possible nine!
In speed skating, Bart Swings offered Belgium the second Olympic title in its history in the Winter Games, by winning the mass-start.
In half-pipe skiing, New Zealander Nico Porteous, reigning world champion, is now also Olympic champion.
Finally, the 17-year-old Juraj Slafkovsky helped Slovakia win the first medal in its Olympic ice hockey history with bronze, after beating Sweden 4-0 (including two goals from Slafkovsky).
Storm Valieva continues
Kamila Valieva, 15, did not win the individual title that seemed promised to her, after cracking in the free program, but the Russian skater continues to dominate the news, two months after a positive doping control revealed in the middle of the Games.
As a direct consequence of this affair, nine American skaters seized the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to receive before the end of the Olympic Games on Sunday, their silver medal in the team event, won by Russia with Valieva. But a jury “decided to reject their request” after deliberating by videoconference, we learned a few hours later.
The IOC had chosen on Monday to postpone the team podium beyond the closing ceremony, an unprecedented situation, after the decision of the CAS to let Valieva continue its Games by confirming the lifting of its provisional suspension.
This decision had aroused numerous criticisms, in particular from athlete organizations, who believe that it harms the Americans and the Japanese, respectively second and third in the event, as much as the Russians.
With AFP
