Olympic Recap: February 15

The United States came away with one medal on Tuesday, but it was not the medal they were expecting. Heading into the men’s team pursuit speed skating competition, the United States were the reigning world record holders, and had an excellent World Cup season. However in the semifinals against the Russian Olympic Committee, the United States were upset by R.O.C. and had to settle for bronze after a win against the Netherlands.

The United States could have been a little overconfident as they decided not to put their top skater, Joey Mantia, in their semi-final competition against the Russian Olympic Committee. Clearly it was a massive strategical error by US Speed Skating for taking the Russians lightly and not putting their best lineup possible. Norway ended up winning the gold medal. With the bronze, the United States have 17 medals, which is tied with Canada for the fourth most. Norway has 26 medals, the Russian Olympic Committee has 20 medals, and Germany has 18 medals.

In women’s team pursuit speed skating, Canada won the gold medal in dramatic fashion, as we predicted. That is because Japanese skater Nana Takagi fell on the final lap in the gold medal matchup. It was an historic gold for Canadian speed skater Valerie Maltais, who became only the third figure skater ever to win an Olympic medal in short track speed skating and long track speed skating.

We also saw one nation sweep the podium for the first time in an event at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games. The event was the two-man bobsled and the country was Germany, as Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis won gold, Johannes Lochner and Florian Bauer won silver, and Christoph Hafer and Matthias Sommer won bronze. It is the first time ever Germany has swept the podium in bobsled at the Olympic Winter Games. We projected Friedrich and Lochner to win gold and silver.

On Tuesday we were also correct with Corrine Suter of Switzerland (women’s downhill), Norway (men’s team biathlon) and Anna Gasser of Austria (women’s big air snowboarding). Other gold medal winners were Mathilde Gremaud of Switzerland (women’s slopestyle skiing), Juergen Graabak (men’s large hill nordic combined), and Yiming Su of China (men’s big air snowboarding).