Sure,\u00a0Chloe Kim\u00a0was a touch nervous. But who were we kidding?<\/p>\n
\u201cI might be better at snowboarding than I am at walking,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
That was apparent Feb. 11 when Kim, four weeks removed from a schedule-scrambling shoulder injury, soared through a no-fuss, no-drama qualifying round, finishing first to easily earn a spot in the final where she\u2019ll attempt to become the first snowboarder to win three straight Olympic gold medals.<\/p>\n
Two dozen riders got two turns down the\u00a0Olympic halfpipe\u00a0on a partly cloudy day in Livigno, with their best score counting and only 12 advancing to Thursday night\u2019s final.<\/p>\n
Kim dropped in the middle of the pack and immediately separated herself from everyone.<\/p>\n
The run included a massive big air leap, some 13 feet over the edge of the halfpipe, punctuated with a showy grab of the board, and also a 1080-degree spin while riding backward \u2014 a trick she can make even harder by adding an extra flip.<\/p>\n
When she was done, she smiled huge for the camera and stuck out her tongue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for 22 years,\u201d said Kim, who is 25. \u201cMuscle memory is a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim said she was hoping to link frontside and backside 900s on her second run, but she skidded a bit after the first one, so pulled up to save herself for the final, where she\u2019ll go bigger. A few minutes later, she was in the crowd, sharing hugs with her boyfriend, Browns defensive end Myles Garrett.<\/p>\n
Scotty James placed first in men\u2019s qualifying later, joining defending champion Ayumu Hirano and his Japenese teammates Yuto Totsuka and Ruka Hirano, along with American Alessandro Barbieri, in the 12-man final.<\/p>\n
Franjo von Allmen wins his third gold<\/p>\n
Franjo von Allmen of Switzerland looks like a breakout star of the Milan Cortina Olympics after winning his third gold medal. Jordan Stolz has one gold and is targeting three more. And Chloe Kim and a bunch of NHL stars are just getting started.<\/p>\n
Von Allmen won the super-G in Bormio on Wednesday to become the third man with three victories in Alpine skiing at one Winter Games. It hadn\u2019t been done since 1968.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not a priority for von Allmen, though. He said he\u2019s just staying in the moment. As for history, \u201cmaybe in a few years it will be important for me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Von Allmen\u00a0won the downhill\u00a0on Saturday and paired with Tanguy Nef to win the\u00a0team combined\u00a0Monday.<\/p>\n
Skating and waiting for Stolz<\/p>\n
Jordan Stolz won the first of what could be four gold medals at these Winter Olympics in men\u2019s 1,000-meter speedskating.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old from Wisconsin set an Olympic record with his time but had to wait longer than usual for his victory to be confirmed because another skater was given a do-over after being bumped during his race.<\/p>\n
When Joep Wennermars of the Netherlands failed to beat Stolz, it was time for the American to take a delayed victory lap.<\/p>\n
Ice dancing favorites beaten by French duo
American ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates sought gold but\u00a0ended up with silver\u00a0as they were upset by France\u2019s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron.<\/p>\n
Cizeron became the first skater to win back-to-back ice dance gold with different partners. The Canadian team of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier took bronze ahead of Italian and British contenders.<\/p>\n
NHL stars back on Olympic ice<\/p>\n
The puck dropped on men\u2019s hockey on Wednesday, marking the return of NHL players to the Games for the first time since 2014.<\/p>\n
It started with the Juraj Slafkovsky show, part two.<\/p>\n
The Slovakian forward who lit up the 2022 Olympics as a 17-year-old tournament MVP returned as an NHL star with the Montreal Canadiens and picked up where he left off.<\/p>\n
Slafkovsky finished with two goals, including the tournament opener, and one assist as Slovakia\u00a0upset 2022 gold medalist Finland 4-1\u00a0in the first game of the preliminary round.<\/p>\n
The one team\u00a0without NHL players, host nation Italy, pushed Sweden hard in a 5-2 loss. It was a one-goal game with five minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
The NHL opted not to participate in the Pyeongchang Olympics of 2018, and pandemic-related scheduling issues prompted the league to skip the Beijing Games in 2022.<\/p>\n
Team Canada \u2018heartbroken\u2019 after shooting<\/p>\n
The Canadian team at the Winter Olympics issued a statement saying it is \u201cheartbroken\u201d after waking to the news of a deadly school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur thoughts are with the families who have lost loved ones, those who are injured, and the entire Tumbler Ridge community,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0standoff\u00a0between Ukrainian athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych and the International Olympic Committee rumbled on as he again trained in a helmet decorated with portraits of Ukrainians killed in Russian attacks, many of them athletes. The IOC says it won\u2019t allow the helmet in competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sure,\u00a0Chloe Kim\u00a0was a touch nervous. But who were we kidding? \u201cI might be better at snowboarding than I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3189,5,4,2602,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-455031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-2026-winter-olympics","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-olympics","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116054834794942771","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}