Olympic Recap: February 14

The United States came away with four medals on Valentine’s Day at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. The medals came in women’s bobsled, ice dancing and women’s aerials.

In the women’s monobob it was a 1-2 United States finish. Kaillie Humphries won her first Olympic medal in her career for the Americans after three Olympic medals with Canada. Humphries won the women’s monobob in a dominant fashion, as her time of 4:19.27 was 1.54 seconds faster than her nearest competitor, and fellow American Elana Meyers Taylor. It is fair now to say that Humphries is the greatest women’s bobsledder of all-time.

In the ice dance, it was very clear that France’s Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron were going to win gold, and that Victoria Sinitskina and Nikita Katsalapov of the Russian Olympic Committee were going to win silver after the rhythm dance. This left an intriguing battle for bronze between two American teams–Madison Hubbell of Lansing, Michigan and Zachary Donohue of Hartford, Connecticut, along with Madison Chock of Redondo Beach, California, and Evan Bates of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Both American teams had outstanding original dance performances, with Hubbell and Donohue coming away with bronze with a score of 218.02 points.

In women’s aerials, two Americans reached Final 2, with Megan Nick of Shelburne, Vermont coming away with a bronze medal. Nick did not win a medal during the World Cup this season, but did win two medals during the 2019-20 season, and two more gold medals in 2020-21. China’s Mengtao Xu won the gold medal, while Hanna Huskova of Belarus won the silver medal. It was the second Olympic silver medal for Belarus at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. Their first was by Anton Smolski in the men’s individual biathlon on February 8.

In women’s hockey. the United States came away with a 4-1 win over Finland in the semifinal. As predicted, they will play Canada in the gold medal game (Thursday, 11 p.m. ET).

In curling, the American women improved to 4-2 after a 8-6 win over South Korea. Switzerland is the leader at 5-1. Other Olympic gold medalists on Monday were Mengtao Xu of China (women’s aerials), and Austria in team ski jumping.