Chasing Gold🥇: A Super day for a US women's speedskater, men's hockey team
Team USA ended Sunday on a high note with a history-making medal in speedskating and a victory in hockey at the Beijing Olympics.
Erin Jackson, a 29-year-old former inline skater, became the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold in an individual sport at the Winter Olympics. She won the women's 500 meters at the National Speed Skating Oval with a time of 37.04, earning her first Olympic medal.
In hockey, the U.S. beat Germany 3-2 on Sunday to win Group A and automatically advance to the quarterfinals.
The Americans are the only team of 12 to win all three games in regulation, meaning they have nine points. The United States’ +11 goal differential also leads the tournament.
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WHAT'S NEXT: Kaillie Humphries is in control of the inaugural women's monobob race and returns to the track at the Yanqing National Sliding Center on Monday morning, knowing she is two clean runs away from what would be the third gold medal of her career.
CASTING A DARK CLOUD: The news of Kamila Valieva's failed drug test has become one of the defining subplots of the Games – casting a pall over the figure skating competition in Beijing, and drawing attention away from what's happening on the ice. As 2018 Olympian Adam Rippon told NPR, "Nobody will ever think of this event and not think of the doping scandal that was attached to it. That sucks."
And if Valieva, 15, is ruled out, don't expect to see her at the next Winter Olympics in 2026 in Milan. She likely would be replaced by a trio of current 11, 12 and 13-year-olds. Women’s figure skating in Russia is a world where young girls are pushed to the brink and then placed on the discard pile often well before they reach their 20th birthday, writes Paste BN Sports' Christine Brennan.
REPEAT PERFORMANCE? The U.S. men's curling team is in an early hole in Beijing. It's familiar territory for John Shuster and Co. At the Pyeongchang Olympics, Shuster and his team of regular-guy rejects caught fire over the second week of the Games and won a stunning gold medal. Can they rally like they did in 2018?
Here are some more stories that may catch your eye:
ULTIMATE ACT OF SPORTSMANSHIP: Finland's Iivo Niskanen won a gold medal in the men's cross-country skiing 15km classic, but instead of going off to celebrate or recover, he patiently waited for every one of the 94 competitors behind him to complete the race.
'IT'S OUR TURN NOW': The U.S. women's curling team finds inspiration from men's success.
TAKING A TOLL: Elana Meyers Taylor was brutally honest about how difficult it was to be stuck in COVID isolation at the Beijing Olympics.
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