Teenage snowboarder Red Gerard yesterday became the first Winter Olympics champion born this millennium as high winds caused disruption at the Pyeongchang Games.
Gerard, 17, also became the youngest US men’s Olympic champion since 1928 and the second-youngest individual winner in Games history with his victory in slopestyle, with Canada’s Max Parrot taking silver.
“I’m super psyched,” Gerard said. “I cannot believe it. I’m shaking right now, maybe from the cold or the excitement, I don’t know, but I’m ecstatic. I can’t believe it.”
Photo: AP
However, Canada’s Mark McMorris staked an early claim for the most inspirational story of the Games with his slopestyle bronze — just 11 months after a near-fatal crash.
Following a snowboarding accident last year, McMorris was fighting for his life after breaking 17 bones and suffering a collapsed lung and ruptured spleen.
“I don’t want to think too much about the past today, but I appreciate the fact I’m here on my snowboard,” he said. “Whatever the outcome was today, just me being pumped on being able to ride a snowboard.”
Slopestyle was one of the events that did not fall victim to high winds yesterday, when the showpiece men’s downhill skiing was aborted until Thursday.
Later, as the gusts continued to swirl, the women’s slopestyle qualification was scrapped with the competitors all going straight into today’s final.
A day of extremes started with a surprise earthquake alert, after a magnitude 4.7 quake rattled eastern South Korea, with its epicenter about 260km from the Games.
The severe chill that has made Pyeongchang one of the coldest Games in history was set to worsen, with temperatures forecast to plunge to minus 14°C today — with a real-feel of minus 25°C.
On the second day of full competition, Simen Hegstad Krueger led a Norwegian sweep in the men’s skiathlon after recovering from an early fall and breaking a pole.
“It is an indescribable feeling,” Krueger said. “It is an amazing day, but it started in the worst way with the fall after the first 100m and a broken pole. I was completely last in the group, so I had to start the race again and switch focus to catch up with the guys.”
Dutchman Sven Kramer roared to a third straight Olympic title in the men’s 5,000m speed skating, while Germany’s Arnd Peiffer upstaged Martin Fourcade, France’s most decorated winter Olympian with four medals, to grab a surprise win in the men’s 10km sprint biathlon.
Six gold medals in total were up for grabs yesterday, including in speed skating, luge, freestyle skiing and the biathlon.
In luge, Austria’s David Gleirscher claimed the Olympic gold in the men’s singles with a total time of 3 minutes, 10.702 seconds.
US luger Chris Mazdzer took the silver with a +0.026 differential, and Germany’s Johannes Ludwig took bronze with +0.23.
Taiwanese luger Lien Te-an came in 38th out of 40 competitors.
Perrine Laffont claimed France’s first gold medal of the Games when she beat defending champion Justine Dufour-Lapointe to win the women’s freestyle moguls.
Laffont, 19, scored 78.65 for a narrow win over Canada’s Dufour-Lapointe, while Yulia Galysheva was third — winning only the second ever Winter Games medal for Kazakhstan.
Meanwhile, Evgenia Medvedeva set a new world record in the women’s figure skating short program, with a brilliant skate that helped the Olympic Athletes from Russia into second place in the team competition behind Canada.
Medvedeva, the reigning world champion who is competing in her first Olympics, was awarded 81.06 points for her performance, sparking cheers from Russian fans in the crowd.
Additional reporting by Reuters and staff writer
Twelve days after winning her second Grand Slam title at the French Open, Coco Gauff fell at the first hurdle on grass in Berlin on Thursday as beaten Paris finalist Aryna Sabalenka advanced to the quarter-finals. Recipient of a first round bye, American Gauff lost 6-3, 6-3 to Chinese qualifier Wang Xinyu as world number one Sabalenka beat Rebeka Masarova 6-2, 7-6 (8/6) in her second round tie. Winner of 10 main tour titles, including the US Open in 2023 and the WTA Finals last year, Gauff has yet to lift a trophy in a grass-court tournament. “After I won the first
While British star Jack Draper spent the past week trying to find rhythm and comfort in his first grass tournament of the season at the Queen’s Club Championships in London, Jiri Lehecka on Saturday bulldozed everything in his path. After more than two furious hours of battle, their form was reflected in the final scoreline as Lehecka toppled a frustrated Draper, the second seed, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 to reach the biggest final of his career, against Carlos Alcaraz. Lehecka is also the first Czech to reach the men’s title match at Queen’s since Ivan Lendl lifted the trophy in 1990. Draper, who
Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka staged a “crazy comeback,” saving four match points before beating Elena Rybakina 7-6 (6), 3-6, 7-6 (6) in the quarter-finals of the Berlin Open on Friday. Sabalenka was 6-2 down in the final-set tie-breaker, but won six straight points to reach her eighth semi-final of the season. “Elena is a great player and we’ve had a lot of tough battles,” Sabalenka said. “I have no idea how I was able to win those last points. I think I just got lucky.” “I remember a long time ago when I was just starting, I won a lot of matches being down
The Canterbury Crusaders edged the Waikato Chiefs 16-12 in an intense Super Rugby Pacific final battle in Christchurch yesterday to claim their 15th title in 30 years of the Southern Hemisphere competition. Hooker Codie Taylor scored a try and Rivez Reihana contributed 11 points from the kicking tee as the most dominant team in Super Rugby history extended their perfect home playoff record to 32 successive matches since 1998. The Chiefs, who were looking for a first title since 2013, scored first-half tries through George Dyer and Shaun Stevenson, but were unable to register a point after the break and fell to
RSS