The fourth full day of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing came to a close on Monday with literally one of the craziest occurrences in Canadian Olympic history. The Canadian team of Alexandria Loutitt of Calgary, Alberta, Abigail Strate of Calgary, Alberta, Matthew Soukup of Calgary, Alberta, and Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes of Toronto, Ontario, won a bronze medal for Canada in mixed team ski jumping, which was making its Olympic debut. In the process, Canada won its first ever ski jumping medal in the history of the Olympic Winter Games. Remember folks that ski jumping has been around since 1924!
But it is how Canada won their bronze which is mind boggling. The Norwegians, Japanese, Austrians and Germans were disqualified for suit violations as their outfits were too loose. So, the door was wide open for Canada, and the foursome came through with flying colours. (By the way, Slovenia won gold and the Russian Olympic Committee won silver).
Olympic history was also made by alpine skier Johan Clarey of France and Dutch speed skater Ireen Wust. Clarey became the oldest alpine skier in Olympic history to win a medal at age 41 when he won the silver in the men’s downhill. Brian Stemmle of CBC Sports compared Clarey’s performance to Tom Brady. Wust of the Netherlands, meanwhile, posted an Olympic record time of 1:53.28 in winning the women’s 1500m speed skating event. In the process, she became the first Olympian ever to win an individual Olympic gold medal at five Olympic Games according to Gracenote.
Beat Feuz of Switzerland won the gold medal in the men’s downhill as we successfully predicted. Another gold medalist we were right with on Monday was Arianna Fontana of Italy in the women’s 500 metre short track speed skating.
The United States meanwhile won their third medal of the Olympic Games as they won silver in the team figure skating competition. Russia won gold and Japan won bronze. More hardware was expected in the women’s giant slalom competition, but American superstar Mikaela Shiffrin did not finish her first run. The gold medal went to Sara Hector of Sweden. Other gold medalists on Monday were Denise Hermann of Germany (women’s 15 kilometre individual biathlon), Max Parrot of Canada (men’s slopestyle snowboarding), and Ziwei Ren of China (men’s 1000 metre short track speed skating).
Finally in mixed doubles curling, Norway will play Italy for gold on Tuesday (7 a.m. ET). In the semifinals, Norway beat Great Britain 6-5 and Italy trounced Sweden 8-1.
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