This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports’ daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what’s happening at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games by subscribing here.
Canada added four more medals today, matching its highest single-day total of the Games. Speed skater Isabelle Weidemann’s silver in the women’s 5,000 metres made her the first Canadian to reach multiple podiums in Beijing. Twenty-year-old Éliot Grondin took silver in the men’s snowboard cross after a photo finish, Canada picked up a bronze in freestyle skiing’s new mixed team aerials event, and alpine skier Jack Crawford added a bronze in the men’s combined to become the first Canadian to win an Olympic medal in that discipline.
With 12 medals through six days of full competition, Canada is tied with Norway for second in total medals. Austria leads with 13. See the standings and a full medal breakdown here.
Canada has some chances to grow its pile on Day 7. We’ll start our daily viewing guide there, and look ahead to the start of the women’s hockey playoffs. Plus, great starts for the Canadian men’s hockey and four-person curling teams, a snowboard legend’s last dance, and the latest on the strange figure skating situation that could result in Canada being awarded another medal.
Canadian medal chances on Thursday night and Friday morning
Two events stand out, though it feels like there’s a wide range of plausible outcomes for the three Canadian contenders involved in them. In chronological order:
Speed skating: Men’s 10,000m at 3 a.m. ET
The two Canadians in this event both come with impressive resumés — and major question marks.
Ted-Jan Bloemen is the defending Olympic champion and the Olympic record-holder. He took silver in the 10,000m at the 2020 world championships and is currently ranked No. 2 in the World Cup men’s long distances standings, which include 5,000m and 10,000m races. But he placed sixth at the worlds last year and looked every bit his 35 years on Sunday when he finished a disheartening 10th in the Olympic 5,000.
Graeme Fish, 24, has youth and a 10,000m world title he won in 2020 by beating Bloemen and breaking his world record. But he hasn’t done much since. Fish skipped the shortened 2020-21 season over COVID-19 concerns, and he competed only twice on the World Cup circuit this season before a positive COVID-19 test caused him to miss the last two stops. He did not make the podium in either race.
On the bright side, only one World Cup 10,000m race has been held this season, and Bloemen and Fish placed a solid third and fourth, respectively. The winner, Sweden’s Nils van der Poel, is a massive favourite to add his second gold medal of the Games after claiming the 5,000m last weekend. He took the 10,000m world record away from Fish when he won the world title last year. Bloemen and Fish are the No. 4 and 5 favourites, respectively, in the betting odds. Read more about how they hope to push each other onto the medal stand here.
Short track speed skating: Women’s 1,000m
If she can survive the qualifying rounds (never a sure thing for even the best skaters in this sport), Courtney Sarault could contend for a medal. She took bronze in this distance at the world championships last year, currently sits fifth in the world rankings, and is the No. 6 favourite in the betting odds.
Shockingly, Canadian star Kim Boutin is out of this event after crashing within sight of the finish line in her heat, which she was leading. Boutin took silver in this event at the 2018 Games and won her fourth Olympic medal last weekend when she took bronze in the 500m.
The women’s 1,000m quarter-finals are at 6 a.m. ET, the semis at 6:55 a.m. ET and the final at 7:43 a.m. ET.
There’s also an interesting storyline in the men’s 5,000m relay semis at 7:04 a.m. ET. Canada’s Charles Hamelin is expected to be in the Canadian lineup, and this event could be his last chance to tie long track skater Cindy Klassen for the all-time Canadian Winter Olympic medal record. The 37-year-old Hamelin, who owns five Olympic medals, is not entered in the 500m, which is the only other men’s event left. The men’s 5,000m relay final goes next week.
WATCH | Returning Champions: Ted-Jan Bloemen:
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Canadian speed skater Ted-Jan Bloemen reflects on winning Olympic gold in the 10,000m at PyeongChang, the birth of his daughter and his perspective heading into Beijing 2022. 4:17
Some other interesting stuff you should know about
Canada’s women’s hockey team plays its first elimination game tomorrow morning. All signs still point to another showdown with the archrival United States in the gold-medal game. Canada checked the first box by going a perfect 4-0 in the group stage while outscoring its opponents 33-5 — including a 4-2 win over the defending-champion U.S. The next task is a quarter-final on Friday at 8:10 a.m. ET vs. Sweden, which Canada is heavily favoured to beat. The U.S. is facing the Czech Republic tonight at 11:10 p.m. ET.
Canada’s men’s hockey team is off to a great start. The Canadians cruised to a 5-1 win in their opener today vs. Germany, the unexpected silver medallist in 2018. Canada, which is trying to upgrade from bronze, got goals from five different players. The team also, surprisingly, got word that Claude Julien will return as head coach for Friday night’s game vs. the United States. The former NHL bench boss was replaced about 10 days ago after suffering fractured ribs when he slipped on ice during what Hockey Canada described as “a team-building activity” at training camp in Switzerland.
Canada’s four-person curling teams are off to a perfect start. Skip Brad Gushue’s men’s rink is 2-0 after following yesterday’s victory over Denmark with a 6-5 win over Norway today. Canada faces Switzerland on Friday at 7:05 a.m. ET. Jennifer Jones’ women’s team beat South Korea 12-7 in its opener today and will now play Japan at 1:05 a.m. ET.
It’s Shaun White’s last dance. The American snowboarding GOAT goes for his fourth (and almost certainly final) Olympic men’s halfpipe gold medal tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET. White corked into mainstream stardom at the 2006 Games in Italy, where he won his first Olympic gold as a 19-year-old with flowing red hair that earned him the nickname “the Flying Tomato.” Since then, he’s trimmed the locks and added Olympic titles in 2010 and ’18 to his vaultful of X Games hardware. Now, at 35, the Tomato is a little overripe. He’s the oldest halfpiper on the U.S. team, and back-to-back Olympic women’s champ Chloe Kim has overtaken him as the brightest star in the sport. White heads into what is almost surely his last Olympic final as an underdog. He’s no longer the favourite, or even favoured to win a medal, but it’ll be fun to see if he has one more trick up his sleeve.
And also…
Fifteen-year-old Russian figure skating star Kamila Valieva reportedly tested positive for a banned heart medication.
This, reportedly, is the reason behind the postponement of the medal ceremony for figure skating’s team event that we discussed in yesterday’s newsletter. Officials from the sport’s world governing body are still refusing to say much as they sort through what they’re calling a “legal” issue. Valieva’s age is reportedly a complicating factor. Under the World Anti-Doping Code, an athlete under the age of 16 can not be identified if they are found to have violated anti-doping rules.
Valieva was instrumental to the victory in the team event by the Russian Olympic Committee — the banner under which Russian athletes are competing at these Games as part of the punishment for the massive, state-sponsored doping scheme their country was found to be running a few years ago. She placed first in the women’s short and free segments of the competition while becoming the first woman to land a quad in the Olympics. She’s also favoured to win gold in the women’s event, which starts Tuesday, though the reported positive test could put her status for that in jeopardy.
If the Russian team were to be disqualified, fourth-place Canada would move up to a bronze medal, while runner-up United States would assume the gold and third-place Japan the silver. Read more about the situation here and an explainer on the drug reportedly at the centre of it here.
How to watch live events
They’re being broadcast on TV on CBC, TSN and Sportsnet. Or choose exactly what you want to watch by live streaming on CBC Gem, the CBC Sports app and CBC Sports’ Beijing 2022 website. Check out the full streaming schedule (with links to live events) here and read more about how to watch the Games here.
If you’re located outside Canada, you unfortunately won’t be able to access CBC Sports’ coverage of the Games on the app or the website. That’s due to the way the Olympics’ media rights deals work. But if you’re in the northern United States or other international regions, such as Bermuda, that regularly offer the CBC TV network, you can watch the Games there.
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