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Veteran sportswriter Richard Deitsch takes an international view of the Olympics.
Discovery is one of the great joys of the Olympics and on Tuesday morning I found myself transfixed by the gruelling dominance of Sweden’s women’s cross-country team.
At the front of the pack of the women’s sprint classic were a trio of Swedes — Linn Svahn, Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvist. I know very little about what makes a cross-country skier great but it doesn’t take much to identify greatness. These women — and the Norwegians tracking them — were a perfect form of speed and stamina on climbs and flats at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium.
The final was extraordinary, featuring three Swedes, two Norwegians and an American. Sundling was the defending Olympic champion. The crowd was a sea of Swedish yellow and Norwegian blue. I felt as if I were on the snow with all of them.
The skiers climbed up the final hill and then to the finishing straight to decide gold, silver and bronze. The overhead shots of the skiers highlighted just how insanely fast on the snow these women were travelling. Exclaimed Duane Dell’Oca, the lead commentator working for the Olympic Broadcasting Service: “Svahn holding on, she swings wide, slingshots forward, skating with swagger, straight toward sporting immortality. She’s going to beat the world champion! She’s going to beat the Olympic champion! Linn Svahn is going to achieve the unthinkable and Sweden will secure the 1-2-3!”
The final times: Svahn (four minutes 03.05 seconds), Sundling (4:04.64), and Dahlqvist (4:07.88). It was the first time Sweden had three female athletes on the podium in the same event and the first podium sweep in any sport at the Games. The Swedish women’s cross-country group have already won five medals in Milano Cortina with more events to come.
The same feeling of discovery came watching the final and fourth run of the women’s luge. Germany’s Julia Taubitz entered these Games with the burden of having failed in Beijing as the favourite to win the singles race. That Olympic dream ended with an early crash and a seventh-place finish. But on Tuesday the reigning world champion was exceptional over four runs. Her time of 3:30.625 was a sizable win over Latvia’s Elina Bota (3:31.543). The Germans remain metronomic-like in winning luge events at the Olympic Games.
Will I watch cross-country skiing during non-Olympic times? The honest answer is probably not. But on a comfortable winter morning in Toronto, it felt like the most important sporting event in the world.
Not an Olympic headline you see every day
Tearful Norwegian confesses to cheating on girlfriend after bronze-medal win
Who will star tomorrow?
The moment finally arrives for U.S. speed skater Jordan Stolz, who is projected to be one of the biggest stars of these Games. The 1,000-metre world record-holder begins his Olympic journey Wednesday in that event. Stoltz is a legitimate candidate to win gold in all four of his individual events. (The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli offered perspective on what Stolz is thinking as he begins his second Olympics.) He’ll skate in the second-to-last group on Wednesday alongside Jenning de Boo of the Netherlands, a sprint specialist. The competition begins at 12:30 p.m. ET.
There will be plenty written on this site about Wednesday’s Olympic ice dance final (program begins at 1:30 p.m. ET) given the three Canadian teams and Canada’s connection to Laurence Fournier Beaudry, a former Canadian skater. Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron lead three-time world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates by just 0.46 points heading into the free dance. There are 20 pairs for the final with Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier in the No. 18 spot, Chock and Bates skating at No. 19 and Beaudry and Cizeron in the No. 20 and final spot.
Olympic imagery
Here are four charts from The Washington Post that show how Olympic figure skating is getting harder:
Numbers to know
108.16 – Men’s short program score for U.S. skater Ilia Malinin, making him a heavy favourite to win a gold medal on Friday with the free skate
50 – Years between medals for a United States men’s cross-country skier. On Tuesday, Ben Ogden won a silver in the men’s cross-country sprint, joining Bill Koch who won silver in 1976.
32 – Career Olympics points for Team USA captain Hilary Knight, tied with Jenny Potter for the most all-time among American women’s hockey players.
7 – Gold career gold medals for Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who won the men’s classic cross-country ski sprint on Tuesday. It is his second gold medal at these Olympics.
6 – Different Olympics (Vancouver, Turin, Sochi, Pyeongchang, Beijing, and Milano-Cortina) where Italy short track speed skater Arianna Fontana has won a medal.
What we’re reading around the web
► Sarah Schleper and son Lasse skiing for Mexico and set to make Olympic history. By Pat Graham of The Associated Press
► Political talk at Olympics particularly hazardous for the not-yet-mainstream athletes. By Steve Buckley of The Athletic.
► Brittany Bowe Is Embracing Joy in Her Olympic Farewell. By Michael Rosenberg of SI.com
► Megan Thee Stallion to join Winter Olympics coverage, ready to ‘merge two audiences’ By Jason Jones of The Athletic
► Ukraine’s only figure skater channels his family’s journey through war into his Olympic program. By Vasilisa Stepanenko and Stefanie Dazio of the Associated Press
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