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Thanks to freestyle skiers Megan Oldham and Mikaël Kingsbury, Canada is up to two gold medals at the Milano-Cortina Olymipcs.
Turning to Day 11, a speed skating team can make it three golds in as many days for Canada. Plus, the men’s hockey playoffs get going, Canada’s curling teams face some tough matchups, and a mysterious Russian hits the ice in women’s figure skating.
Let’s get to all that in our daily viewing guide.
Canadian medal chances on Tuesday
In chronological order:
Snowboarding: Laurie Blouin and Juliette Pelchat in the women’s slopestyle final at 7 a.m. ET
The 29-year-old Blouin won gold in the slopestyle at the 2017 world championships and added an Olympic silver the following year. She also captured a world title in big air in 2021. But she did not crack the top 10 in either of those events at last year’s world championships and earned a single bronze on the World Cup tour last season. Blouin has only one medal this season too, but it’s a gold. She won a slopestyle event in Aspen, Colo., last month for her first World Cup victory in four years.
Blouin placed ninth in qualifying on Sunday while the 21-year-old Pelchat was 12th to grab the last spot in the final. New Zealand’s Zoi Sadowski-Synnott had the top score in qualifying and is the reigning Olympic and world champion. She took silver in the big air last week behind Japan’s Kokomo Murase, who will be her main rival on Tuesday.
In slopestyle, skiers make their way down a course tricked out with a variety of obstacles including rails and different kinds of jumps. They’re judged on the breadth, originality and quality of the stunts they perform. In the final, each athlete does three runs, and only the best one counts.
Speed skating: Ivanie Blondin, Valérie Maltais and Isabelle Weidemann in the women’s team pursuit at 8:52 a.m. ET
This trio won gold at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, where Weidemann and Blondin also reached the individual podium. The 35-year-old Maltais, a converted short track skater competing in her fifth Olympics, finally earned her first solo medal two weekends ago with a bronze in the 3,000m.
After their Olympic victory, the Canadian team added the world title in 2023. Then they trended downward for a while, taking silver at the 2024 worlds in Calgary and bronze last year in Norway. But a tactical tweak has Blondin, Weidemann and Maltais back in championship form. They won a gold and two silvers on the World Cup circuit this season to finish first in the standings, and on Saturday they clocked the fastest overall time in qualifying.
In the team pursuit, opposing teams start simultaneously on different sides of the 400m oval and do a total of six laps. The clock doesn’t stop until all three skaters have crossed the finish line.
Racing begins with the semifinals at 8:52 a.m. ET. The matchups are Canada vs. the United States and the world champion Netherlands vs. world silver medallist Japan. The winners guarantee themselves a medal and will square off for the gold at 10:47 a.m. ET. The losers skate for the bronze at 10:41 a.m. ET.
Freestyle skiing: Dylan Deschamps in the men’s big air final at 1:30 p.m. ET
The 23-year-old Deschamps is a longshot for the podium after placing ninth in qualifying. But he has won four medals over the last three World Cup seasons, including a career-best silver this past November in China.
The gold seems very much up for grabs between a handful of skiers. To list a few: American Mac Forehand (great name) had the best score in qualifying and won gold at the Winter X Games a few weeks ago; Norway’s Birk Ruud is the defending Olympic champion and took gold in the slopestyle event last week; and New Zealand’s Luca Harrington is the reigning world champ.
In big air, athletes soar off a massive ramp to perform different aerial tricks and then try to stick the landing. The final consists of three rounds, with each athlete’s score determined by adding together their two best runs. The last round begins at 2:17 p.m. ET.
Other stuff to watch on Tuesday
Men’s hockey: Playoffs start with 4 games
The winners of these “qualification” playoffs advance to the quarterfinals on Wednesday to face either Canada, the United States or Slovakia (who each won their group) or Finland (who placed second and earned a bye as the best runner-up).
Canada will face the winner of the Czechia vs. Denmark game at 10:40 a.m. ET. The other first-round playoff matchups are Germany vs. France at 6:10 a.m. ET (winner meets Slovakia), Switzerland vs. Italy at 6:10 a.m. ET (Finland) and Sweden vs. Latvia at 3:10 p.m. ET (United States).
Curling: Big matchups for both Canadian teams
The Canadian men and women each play only one game on Tuesday, but it’s a tough one.
Rachel Homan’s team, battling to keep their skip from missing the playoffs for a third straight Olympics, faces 6-0 Sweden at 8:05 a.m. ET. Canada (3-3) is tied with Denmark for fifth place, and only the top four advance to the medal stage. But the Canadians are only one game behind the United States, Switzerland and South Korea, who share second place at 3-2.
Brad Jacobs’ rink is in much better shape at 5-1, putting them alone in second place and just a half-game back of 5-0 Switzerland. Canada’s opponent at 1:05 p.m. ET is Great Britain, the Bruce Mouat-skipped team that won two of the last three world titles representing Scotland. The Brits, though, are a disappointing fifth right now at 4-3 and could be playing for their playoff lives here.
Figure skating: Women’s competition begins with a mysterious Russian
After taking Olympic bronze in 2022 behind two Russians, Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto won three straight world titles, becoming the first woman to three-peat in singles since American Peggy Fleming in the 1960s. But she slipped to the silver last year in Boston behind American Alysa Liu and dropped to the bronze at this season’s Grand Prix Final in Japan, trailing Liu and Japan’s Ami Nakai.
Still, Sakamoto is favoured to win her first Olympic gold over Liu and Amber Glenn, who beat Liu at the U.S. championships last month, with Nakai and Japan’s Mone Chiba lurking as potential dark horses in what looks like a pretty wide-open competition.
But the darkest horse of all is Adeliia Petrosian, an 18-year-old Russian who, due to her country being banned from global competition for the last four years, has competed in only one senior-level international event outside of her home country. She won an Olympic qualifier in Beijing last September and was approved to compete as one of a handful of “neutral” Russian athletes at the Milano-Cortina Games.
Petrosian remains something of a black box. But she showed an ability to land quads at events in Russia, and her coach is the controversial Eteri Tutberidze, known for turning Russian teenagers (some much younger than Petrosian) into Olympic and world champions before the global ban. Tutberidze coached the last two Olympic women’s gold medallists and also Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old star who tested positive for a banned heart drug ahead of the 2022 Games.
Canada’s lone entry is 23-year-old Madeline Schizas, who finished 18th at the 2022 Olympics and has never cracked the top 10 at the world championships.
The short program begins at 12:45 p.m. ET and has 29 skaters. Petrosian goes second, right after another “neutral” athlete: Viktoriia Safonova of Belarus. Schizas skates 19th, and the highest-ranked skaters go at the end. The top 24 advance to the deciding free skate on Thursday.
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