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Veteran sportswriter Richard Deitsch takes an international view of the Olympics.
Wait, are you saying there were other events happening on Wednesday at the Milano-Cortina Games beyond Canada’s heartbounding, stress-inducing, thrilling overtime win over Czechia?
We are, indeed. But we understand if you are still coming down from an incredible Canadian escape.
Canada still continues in hockey but the Olympics are over for American skier Mikaela Shiffrin, who leaves the Games with a legacy fulfilled. That’s what winning the women’s slalom gold medal on Wednesday did. No more talk about failed expectations at the Olympics. No more stories of an eight-year gold medal drought. Only greatness now.
In a career-defining performance, Shiffrin won the slalom by 1.50 seconds over Camille Rast of Switzerland, the largest margin in any Olympic alpine skiing event since 1998. She is the first U.S. skier to win three Olympic gold medals as well as the youngest (18 years old in 2014) and oldest (30 in 2026) American woman to win an alpine gold medal.
Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States is victorious in the women’s slalom at Milano Cortina 2026. Shiffrin earns the fourth Olympic medal of her career (three gold and one silver).
The Olympics had been cruel, at least of late, for Shiffrin. She entered the slalom competition having failed to win a medal in six events in Beijing four years ago, followed by an 11th place in the giant slalom and a fourth-place finish in the team combined event in Cortina. But that all changed with the slalom, the rare moment where expectations and reality met head on.
Shiffrin said she pre-wrote an Instagram post prior to the race.
She published it after she won.
Who will star on Thursday?
It will be one of the great days of the Milano-Cortina Olympics with global stars competing across the arenas. The spotlight will be brightest at the Milano Ice Skating Arena for the women’s singles free skate. Japan’s Ami Nakai, just 17, earned a season’s best 78.71 in the short program to lead into the free skate. Three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto, who announced prior to the event that this will be her last Olympics, scored 77.23, good for second place. The American Alysa Liu sits in third at 76.59 after a season’s best score. Mone Chiba of Japan enters the free skate in fourth place. Adeliia Petrosian, the 18-year-old Russian skating as an Individual Neutral Athlete because of Russia’s ban is fifth and a live longshot as the bettors might say. The competition starts at 1:00 p.m. ET. Here is the start order.
The American speed skating comet Jordan Stolz goes for his third gold medal as the heavy favourite in the men’s 1,500-metre race. Stolz has won all five 1,500m World Cup races this season. The event starts at 10:30 a.m. ET.
The sport of ski mountaineering, or “skimo” for short, makes its Olympic debut. Athletes climb uphill, often on skis with special skins, and then race back down on skis. (You can see how the sport works here.) The program on Thursday includes women’s and men’s sprint races. The women’s sprint heats begin at 3:50 a.m. ET, the semifinals go at 6:55 a.m. and the final is 7:55 a.m. ET. Emily Harrop of France is the sport’s current star and defending World Cup champion. The men’s sprint heat starts at 4:30 a.m. ET; the semifinals are 7:25 a.m. and the finals are scheduled for 8:15 a.m. Watch for France’s Thibault Anselmet in the men’s event.
There’s also a significant women’s hockey game of note.
Olympic imagery
Numbers to know
93.1 – Share of the television audience watching coverage of Johannes Hoesflot Klæbo’s ninth gold medal on NRK1, the main channel of Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. That means 93.1 percent of the people who were watching TV in Norway at the time of the race were watching Klæbo.
12 – Years between gold medals in the slalom for Mikaela Shriffin, the largest gap ever between individual gold medals in the same event at the Winter Olympics. (Hat tip: Olympic historian Bill Mellon)
10 – Overall gold medals for Klæbo, who won the men’s team sprint racing with Einar Hedegart on Wednesday for his fifth gold at these Games. Klæbo’s final race will be in the 50-kilometre mass start on Saturday.
9 – Gold medals for the Swedish women’s cross-country ski team during the Milano-Cortina Games after Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvist won the cross-country skiing women’s team sprint free final on Wednesday.
0 – Medals in snowboarding for the United States, the first time that’s happened since snowboard’s debut at the 1998 Nagano Games. (Hat tip: Nick Zaccardi of NBC Sports).
What we’re reading around the web
► Norway is a Winter Olympic giant. Why isn’t it better at ice hockey? By Peter Baugh of The Athletic
► A part-time job and DJ gigs helped Lara Hamilton reach the Winter Olympics. Now she wants to put Australia on the map. By Jo Khan of The Guardian
► How Olympic skier Hunter Hess gets his superhuman balance. By Gretchen Reynolds of The Washington Post
► Quirky curling has turned into a betting magnet at the Milan Cortina Olympics. By Ken Maguire of The Associated Press.
► The nastiest rivalry in hockey? Canada vs. USA women’s hockey has drama, line brawls, hatred. By Hailey Salvian of The Athletic
► Athlete stories can go untold due to shrinking media presence at Winter Olympics. By Gregory Strong of The Canadian Press
► What’s it like being your nation’s only Olympian? Multiple jobs, passport issues and vodka. By Jacob Whitehead and Rebecca Tauber of The Athletic.
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