Whats up from Milan and Cortina, the place American determine skater Alysa Liu summed up in the present day’s occasions fairly succinctly. After her almost flawless efficiency within the girls’s free skate, cameras caught Liu saying, “That’s what I’m f—ing speaking about!”
Liu gained the gold medal in girls’s singles determine skating, the primary for an American lady since 2002, earlier than Liu was born. And the U.S. girls’s hockey group beat rival Canada, 2-1, in extra time to win its first gold medal since 2018.
Our correspondents have all of it lined under and at NBC Information. Catch all of it streaming on Peacock.
Reside from Milan Cortina
Throughout her free skate in the present day, Alysa Liu appeared to be smiling the entire time, as she moved gracefully throughout the ice. When she completed, she smiled once more, caught out her tongue and raised her palms. Liu had left determine skating after the 2022 Beijing Video games, solely to return, on her personal phrases, and fall again in love with the game.
Then Liu needed to wait for 2 extra skaters to go earlier than she realized: She had gained gold. Quickly, she was being guided by a again hallway towards the medal ceremony. In that quiet second, NBC cameras caught her reflecting on her efficiency.
“I simply, like, can’t course of this,” Liu mentioned. “There’s no means. I actually appreciated my skate quite a bit.”
On Tuesday, Liu had ended the brief program in third place. Then she scored a 150.20 throughout in the present day’s free skate, giving her a complete rating of 226.79, vaulting her into first place.
Fellow American Amber Glenn had began the day in thirteenth, after a mistake value her factors through the brief program. However she made a spectacular restoration in the present day, scoring a season-best 147.52 within the free skate, which helped her end in fifth.
After she completed her routine, she appeared to mouth the phrases “So shut.”
About an hour earlier, the U.S. girls’s hockey group had its personal probability at glory.
For about 57 minutes in the present day, Staff USA couldn’t break by. After scoring greater than 30 objectives within the event, the U.S. had been held scoreless and trailed Canada 1-0. All of the U.S. wanted, Hilary Knight mentioned afterward, was to “put one good shot on internet.”
With simply over two minutes left to play, Laila Edwards fired towards the objective, the place Knight had camped out in entrance of the goalie. Knight deflected the puck into the web, tying the sport.
Then, in extra time, Staff USA’s Megan Keller made an unimaginable particular person play, maneuvering round a defender after which chipping the puck previous the goalie.
“We knew it was a matter of time, simply leaning on them, slowly, slowly,” Knight mentioned in an interview with NBC. “However you may as well run out of time in opposition to a terrific group. Lucky that we now have an incredible squad to have the ability to get the job completed.”
This marked Staff USA’s third gold medal and first since 2018. The Individuals completed these Olympics 7-0 and outscored their opponents 33-2. With that objective, Knight additionally turned the all-time main scorer for U.S. girls’s hockey on the Olympics.
“I’m simply completely happy to have a gold medal,” she mentioned. “Oh, my gosh, this feels superb.”
Speedskating Nook
After Jordan Stolz crossed the end line of the 1,500-meter speedskating remaining, he bent over, put his palms on his legs and breathed closely. Stolz had completed second behind China’s Zhongyan Ning, by solely 0.77 seconds, and took silver.
“Ning’s time was a shock. He had the race of his life,” Stolz instructed reporters after the race. “I didn’t know a lot about placings till I crossed the end line. However I hoped if it wasn’t going to be gold, I hoped I might get a silver.”
Stolz bought off to a gradual begin and admitted he “didn’t have certainly one of [his] greatest” races. He nonetheless has an opportunity to safe his third gold of those Video games: He’ll compete within the speedskating mass begin occasion Saturday.
Photograph of the Day
When to Watch
Within the quarterfinals of the boys’s hockey event, three of the 4 video games went to extra time. The semifinals needs to be appointment viewing. Are the USA and Canada on a collision course for the gold medal sport? Or can Finland or Slovakia pull off an upset? Tune in to search out out.
All instances are in Japanese, and an asterisk signifies a medal occasion:
Friday, Feb. 20
- 4:30 a.m.: Freestyle snowboarding, males’s aerials qualification 1
- 4:30 a.m.: Freestyle snowboarding, males’s freeski halfpipe qualification 1
- 5:15 a.m.: Freestyle snowboarding, males’s aerials qualification 2
- 5:27 a.m.: Freestyle snowboarding, males’s freeski halfpipe qualification 2
- 6 a.m.: Freestyle snowboarding, girls’s ski cross 1/8 finals
- 6:35 a.m.: Freestyle snowboarding, girls’s ski cross quarterfinals
- 6:54 a.m.: Freestyle snowboarding, girls’s ski cross semifinals
- 7:10 a.m.: Freestyle snowboarding, girls’s ski cross finals*
- 7:30 a.m.: Freestyle snowboarding, males’s aerials finals*
- 8:05 a.m.: Curling, girls’s semifinals
- 8:15 a.m.: Biathlon, males’s 15 km mass begin*
- 10:30 a.m.: Speedskating, girls’s 1,500-meter*
- 10:40 a.m.: Males’s hockey, semifinals, Canada vs. Finland
- 12 p.m.: Bobsled, two-woman warmth 1
- 1:05 p.m.: Curling, males’s bronze medal sport*
- 1:30 p.m.: Freestyle snowboarding, males’s freeski halfpipe remaining*
- 1:50 p.m.: Bobsled, two-woman warmth 2
- 2:15 p.m.: Brief observe speedskating, girls’s 1,500-meter quarterfinals
- 3:02 p.m.: Brief observe speedskating, girls’s 1,500-meter semifinals
- 3:10 p.m.: Males’s hockey, semifinals, USA vs. Slovakia
- 3:30 p.m.: Brief observe speedskating, males’s 5,000-meter relay finals*
- 4:07 p.m.: Brief observe speedskating, girls’s 1,500-meter finals*
That’s it for now! We’ll be again tomorrow.
