After a slow start to he gold medal count of the 2022 Olympic Wlnter Games in Beijing, the United States came away with three Olympic Winter gold medals on Thursday. They came in men’s figure skating, women’s halfpipe snowboarding, and mixed aerials.
In men’s figure skating, Nathan Chen of Salt Lake City, Utah won the gold medal with a score of 332.6 points. It was a marvelous free skate for Chen, as he performed a fantastic performance to the music of English icon Elton John. Many of the figure skaters from the final flight seemed to perform to dreary music, however Chen performed to an uplifting set of Elton John melodies, and the positive energy from the music translated into a strong performance on the ice. Chen was brilliant in the short program too, as he posted a world record score of 113.97 points,
In women’s halfpipe snowboarding, Chloe Kim of Long Beach, California was the clear favourite and delivered with flying colors. She posted a winning score of 94 points to beat her nearest competitor, Querault Castellet of Spain by 3.75 points. Kim’s 94 points came in the first run, and no one could catch her over the last two runs.
In mixed aerials, the United States were expected to contend for a medal, but were not expected to beat the heavily favoured trio from China. However, the Chinese struggled in the final as Zongyang Jia had a poor landing, and Guangpu Qi did not attempt the greatest degree of difficulty with his final jump. That opened the door to the much more consistent team from the United States, which had a winning score of 338.34 points. The American team comprised of Ashley Caldwell of Ashburn, Virginia, Christoper Lillis of Rochester, NY, and Justin Schoenefeld of Lawrenceburg, Indiana.
In men’s alpine combined, the gold medalist was Johannes Strolz of Austria. There is a neat storyline here as Johannes’ father Hubert won gold in the men’s alpine combined at the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary. Meanwhile in the women’s 5000 metres, Irene Schouten of the Netherlands won gold with an Olympic record time of 6:43.51. Other gold medalists on Thursday were Therese Johaug of Norway (women’s 10 kilometre classical cross country skiing), Germany (mixed team relay luge), and Alessandro Haemmerle of Austria (men’s snowboardcross).
In curling, the American women’s team skipped by Tabitha Peterson of Burnsville, Minnesota, beat the Russian Olympic Committee 9-3 and Denmark 7-5 in her first two games. In men’s hockey, USA clobbered China 8-0.
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