Jean Frederic Chapuis skied calmly through the chaos to take freestyle ski cross gold at the Sochi Games yesterday and lead France to their first Winter Olympics podium sweep.
Arnaud Bovolenta took silver and Jonathan Midol won bronze after the fourth finalist, Canada’s Brady Leman, crashed out on the penultimate jump.
It was the second 1-2-3 in freestyle skiing at the Extreme Park after the US swept the slopestyle event and gave France a total of 14 medals in Sochi, their best tally at a Winter Games.
Photo: Reuters
World champion Chapuis, who has dual nationality and raced for Switzerland in Alpine skiing before switching sports and countries in 2010, had shown good form all day.
Fourth fastest in the morning seedings run, the 24-year-old led Midol through from their round-of-16 heat and the pair repeated the one-two in their two subsequent races to secure berths in the final.
Bovolenta came through the bottom half of the draw with Leman and made a good start in the final, edging ahead of Chapuis before being hauled in by the world champion.
When Chapuis got in front, he never looked like being caught and once Leman, who missed out on skiing at the Vancouver Games after breaking his leg on the eve of the contest, had fallen, the French sweep was on.
Although Midol’s ski made contact with that of Leman before the fall, the Canadian had earlier similarly taken out Swiss favourite Alex Fiva in the first round of heats.
Having tangled with Leman, Midol, whose world championship silver medalist brother Bastien was ruled out of the Games by a serious back injury, looked unlikely to catch Bovolenta and the trio settled for staying upright over the final jump.
Semi-finalist Armin Niederer apart, it was a miserable day for the strong Swiss team.
Defending champion Michael Schmid, who has had three ruptured anterior cruciate ligaments since winning gold in Vancouver, sustained another knee injury last Sunday and did not start.
Fiva, the 2012-2013 overall World Cup champion, was struggling with his back and failed to complete the seeding run before being taken out while leading by Leman.
As usual in the rough and tumble of the most unpredictable freestyle event, there were plenty of crashes and Fiva was by no means the only leading skier to go out early.
Medal contender Victor Oehling Norberg’s exit was the most spectacular, the Swede crash-landing while leading after the final jump in his quarter-final and still missing out the semis by only a matter of centimeters in a photo finish.
WOMEN’S CURLING
AP, SOCHI, Russia
Britain won the bronze medal in women’s Olympic curling by beating Switzerland 6-5 yesterday, ensuring the country will at least match its record haul of four medals at a single Winter Games.
British skip Eve Muirhead secured victory with a draw to the button on the last stone.
Muirhead’s world champion rink recovered from a 6-4 loss to Canada in Wednesday’s semi-finals to win Britain’s first curling medal since 2002, when the women’s team captured the gold.
Britain already had won a gold and a bronze in Sochi and is assured of either a gold or silver in men’s curling, with David Murdoch’s team in the final. Britain last won four Winter Games medals in 1924.
Canada were to play Sweden in the gold-medal game later yesterday.
NORDIC COMBINED
AP, KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia
Germany took the lead in the Nordic combined team event yesterday when all four competitors, including normal-hill gold medalist Eric Frenzel, ski jumped 125m or better — the only team to do so.
Germany’s opening cross-country skier is to start seven seconds ahead of the first competitor from second-place Austria, the two-time defending champions, in the 4x5km relay race later yesterday.
Third-place Norway were to start 25 seconds behind, with fourth-place France giving Germany a 35-second head start.
Finland was a late scratch because Eetu Vaehaesoeyrinki was ill. The team did not have a fifth athlete in Sochi and had to withdraw.
Akito Watabe, who won the silver medal behind Frenzel in the normal hill, said he was disappointed with his jump yesterday. Japan finished sixth and were to start 1 minute, 5 seconds behind Germany.
“It was not good for me,” he said. “The wind condition gave me a bit of tail wind so it made it difficult to get a good distance.”
Head winds are preferred by ski jumpers because they aerodynamically extend their time in the air.
The US, who won a silver medal in this event at Vancouver in 2010, finished eighth of nine teams and were to start 1:52 behind.
WOMEN’S BOBSLEIGH
AFP, ROSA KHUTOR, Russia
Lauryn Williams became just the third woman to medal in both Summer and Winter Games on Wednesday when she helped steer the US to second place in Olympic women’s bobsleigh.
Canada’s Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse defended their title, overturning a 0.23 seconds deficit after Tuesday’s first two runs to win with a combined time of 3 minutes, 50.61 seconds, finishing 0.1 seconds ahead of the second-placed US team.
Williams, a silver medalist in the 2004 Athens Olympics 100m and part of the 2012 gold-medal relay squad in London, was the brakewoman on USA-1, piloted by Elana Meyers.
“It’s really cool to be here tonight and to be on a podium and to get that silver medal,” Williams said.
The other women to have achieved medals in summer and winter are Christa Luding of East Germany in speed skating and cycling, and Canada’s Clara Hughes in cycling and speed skating.
The USA-2 team of Jamie Greubel and Aja Evans won bronze with a time of 3: 51.61.
ICE HOCKEY
AP, SOCHI, Russia
If this is it for NHL players at the Olympics, it’s a good way to go out.
The US are to face Canada in a 2010 gold-medal game rematch, and rivals Sweden and Finland are to meet in the Sochi Games hockey semi-finals today.
The NHL and the NHL Players’ Association have refused to commit to going to South Korea in 2018, leaving open the possibility that the best hockey players in the world might not play in the Olympics after Sunday’s finale.
In the meantime, though, the stage is set potentially for a pair of fantastic games at the Bolshoy Ice Dome today.
The US have easily been the best team on ice so far, scoring the most goals (20) in three routs and a closely contested 3-2 shootout victory over the host Russians.
Top-seeded Sweden won the first of four quarter-final games on Wednesday, dominating Slovenia 5-0.
Canada, who barely beat Latvia 2-1 to advance to these semi-finals, won gold in 2010 and 2002. The Swedes were the top team at the Turin Games eight years ago.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but