The 12th day of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games is going to be very busy with medals being awarded in alpine skiing, biathlon, bobsled, freestyle skiing, nordic combined, snowboarding and speed skating.
The United States best chance for a medal could come in the men’s team pursuit speed skating, where they enter the Olympic event as the world record holders. They posted a time of 3:34.47 at a World Cup in Salt Lake City on December 5. The American team is comprised of Ethan Cepuran of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, Casey Dawson of Park City, Utah, Emery Lehman of Chicago, Illinois, and mass start specialist Joey Mantia of Ocala, Florida. Remember for each event, teams select only three sakaters. The United States face the Russian Olympic Committee in the second of two semifinals (2 a.m. ET). The other semifinal has the Netherlands versus Norway.
We will also see the participation of two of the Games’ most controversial athletes in Kamila Valieva of the Russian Olympic Committee and Eileen Gu of China. Valieva will be competing in the women’s short program in figure skating on Tuesday (5 a.m. ET) despite testing positive for trimetazidine in December. We do not know yet what the results will be from the team competition where Valieva helped the Russians win gold. Meanwhile Gu has already won gold in women’s big air skiing, and will be in medal contention in the women’s slopestyle skiing competition (Monday, 8:30 p.m. ET). The issue is with Gu, she was born in the United States, but is representing China because her mother is Chinese. There are questions regarding how Gu was able to compete for China.
In men’s curling, the United States plays reigning Olympic bronze medalist, Switzerland (8 p.m. ET on Monday), and Italy (7 a.m. ET on Tuesday). The team, which is skipped by John Shuster of Chisholm, Minnesota, is 3-3. The American women skipped by Tabitha Peterson of Burnsville, Minnesota, are 4-2, and will play two-time world champion Switzerland (1 a.m. ET on Tuesday).
Our gold medal picks on Day 12 are Corrine Suter of Switzerland (women’s downhill, Monday,10 p.m. ET), Norway (-150, men’s 4×7.5 kilometer relay, Tuesday, 1:30 a.m. ET), Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis of Germany (-700, two-man bobsled, Tuesday, 7:15 a.m. ET), Gu (-225, women’s slopestyle skiing, Monday, 8:30 p.m. ET), Johannes Lamparter of Austria (+175, men’s large hill nordic combined, Tuesday, 3 a.m. ET), Anna Gasser of Austria (+500, women’s big air snowboarding, Monday, 8:30 p.m. ET), Max Parrot of Canada (+400, men’s big air snowboarding, Tuesday, 12 a.m. ET), the United States (men’s team pursuit speed skating, 3:47 a.m. ET), and Canada (women’s team pursuit speed skating, 3:22 a.m. ET).
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