Day 4 of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

France has its first gold medal of the Beijing Games courtesy of Quentin Fillon Maillet who won the men’s 20 km biathlon event at the Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Centre on Tuesday.

The Frenchman, who is the current World Cup overall leader, came home in a winning time of 48 minutes and 47.4 seconds – this despite suffering two shooting penalties.

"Maybe it looked easy, but it was so hard today. With two misses in the shooting, I never expected the victory – maybe the podium," Maillet said.

"It's hard to relish the victory right now because the race is not finished, but I'm starting to feel the emotions of the victory. It was amazing," he added. "A lot of work, a lot of energy for this. Thank you to my family, my friends, my partner, my teammates, for all their work and all the people who helped me on my way to becoming Olympic champion."

Maillet finished almost 15 seconds clear of Anton Smolski, who wins Belarus’ first medal of the Games.

Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø, who won this event at PyeongChang 2018, claimed the bronze medal.

The Winter Olympics showcases some unusual sports and disciplines that you may never have heard of.

One of those is the Nordic combined, which is comprised of cross-country skiing and ski jumping and remains one of the few competitions at the Games that's yet to introduce a women's draw.

Competitors win points for the style and distance of their ski jump. The better-scoring jumpers subsequently get a head start in the staggered cross-country skiing element — the conversion of points to time is known as the Gundersen method.

The Nordic combined was the centerpiece of the Holmenkollen ski festival, which began in Oslo, Norway in 1892. Since then, the sport has garnered an international fanbase and has been an enduring event at the Games since the first Winter Olympics in 1924 in Chamonix, France.

The competitions in Beijing take place from February 9 until February 17.

You can read more about the Nordic combined — and every other Winter Games discipline — below.

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After winning her first Olympic gold medal and China's third of the Games, freestyle skier Eileen Gu said her final trick — a 1620 — was a "testament to her character."

The Winter Olympics is home to some interesting and unusual sports ... but even in ice hockey — a sport that is extremely popular around the world — there are some terms used by commentators or pundits that you might not be accustomed to hearing.

We picked out some of the key ones and explain what they mean, so you'll be ready to impress your friends and follow the action in Beijing.

An apple: an assist.

Bottle rocket: when a goal breaks the goalie's water bottle that sits on top of the net.

Flamingo: when a player lifts one leg, standing like a flamingo, to get out of the way of a shot.

Sieve: a goaltender who allows a lot of goals, usually referred to as being full of holes.

You can read more of ice hockey's unique phrases below.

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Olympic gold medalist Eileen Gu has offered her support to teammate Zhu Yi, the Chinese figure skater who received abuse on social media after her performance in the team skating event.

Zhu fell during her short program routine in the team competition on Sunday, after which the hashtag “Zhu Yi has fallen” gained 200 million views in just a few hours on social media platform Weibo.

Then on Monday, the 19-year-old Zhu fell twice during the free skate and broke down in tears as she left the ice. She later said she would be focusing on her mental health ahead of competing in the singles.

After her gold medal in the big air competition on Tuesday, freestyle skier Gu — who, like Zhu, is US-born and competing for China at Beijing 2022 — urged supporters to show compassion to her teammate.

“I think she’s amazing. Anyone who can make it to the Olympic Winter Games is already amazing,” Gu told reporters.

“Mistakes and pressure are both part of the sport. I think many athletes also fell today, as you saw.

“Therefore, we should have some sportsmanship … Of course, everybody wants her to get good results, but she especially wanted to get good results for herself.

“That’s why I hope people can try and understand her situation better. I think she’s done her best.”

The contrasting reactions to the performances of Zhu and Gu in Beijing — one attacked on social media, the other showered with praise — typifies the heavy scrutiny Chinese athletes are under during the course of the Games.

After 18-year-old Gu’s gold medal on Tuesday, the Weibo site crashed due to the millions of users celebrating the victory. Seven of the top 10 trending topics were about Gu's win, and related hashtags — such as "Gu Ailing won the gold medal" — received more than 300 million views within an hour of the result.

Nordic combined skier Kristjan Ilves should be competing tomorrow. Instead, he will be watching on with sadness.

Ilves was the third member of the Estonian Winter Olympic team to test positive on arrival in Beijing.

"That’s gone," he told CNN of his hopes of competing in Wednesday's individual normal hill/10 km. "That’s what I’ve already accepted."

Ilves says he has not yet tested negative since he arrived in Beijing almost a week ago, but he still holds some hope of competing in the individual large hill/10 km on February 15.

“Actually, in my head, I have to say that I may be quite over with the Olympics, if I can say so," he says.

"So if I can compete, that’s a bonus. It looks a little unlikely, but I will say ... there’s absolutely nothing I can do. I just can hope and wait.” 

Initially, rules allowed athletes that had tested positive to leave isolation after 10 days, meaning Ilves would have made his second competition.

However, they have since been changed and athletes now require back-to-back negative tests to leave quarantine.

Even if he does make it out, Ilves admits the confined quarantined conditions — and the lack of a varied diet with the food — means he is no longer at his peak physical condition.

“I won’t say that it’s 100% over, but even if I possibly get out, I’m not like in the shape that it’s optimal for me," he explained.

"And for the Olympics, I’m probably I will say 70% of my capacity or something … it would probably be quite low."

Ilves is visited multiple times a day by people dressed in hazmat suits and says they come into his room five or six times a day for testing, taking his temperature and delivering food.

“It looks looks weird and insane," he says.

"We are living, like, in the normal world and we have to do that kind of stuff here and it definitely takes down the value of the Olympics. Just, like, visually looks weird.”

After a silver in Vancouver in 2010 and a bronze in PyeongChang in 2018, it's finally gold for Austria’s Benjamin Karl after the 36-year-old triumphed in the men’s parallel giant slalom in Beijing.

Karl defeated Slovenia's Tim Mastnak in the final, adding Olympic gold to his five world championship titles in the same discipline.

"I can't describe with words, I'm just happy and satisfied," said Karl of his victory. "I'll enjoy it during the rest of the day."

The Russian Olympic Committee’s Victor Wild claimed bronze — his third Olympic medal after two golds at Sochi 2014.

At one of the "closed loop" hotels, we see a man who decided to brave the 17.6 degrees Fahrenheit (-8 degrees Celsius) evening temperatures to run small laps of the hotel car park.

Under the closed loop system, you can only move between your hotel, media center and competition venues.

This must all be done in official closed loop buses or special vehicles — and there is a noticeable lack of outdoor space.

The hotels have closed most facilities in order to adhere to strict Covid restrictions and to maintain social distancing.

Beijing has been experiencing a spell of clear blue sky weather this past week, but unfortunately, most of the thousands of people inside the loop can’t experience it.

Instead, days are spent peering out of hotel windows, working in the basement of the media center and shuttling to a competition venue — if you are one of the lucky ones.

Ester Ledecka retained her Olympic title in women’s snowboarding parallel giant slalom on Tuesday to become only the second Czech woman to win three Winter Olympic golds.

Ledecka shocked the sports world four years ago at the Pyeongchang Games when she won the same event and also took gold in the alpine skiing Super-G.

Daniela Ulbing of Austria wins silver, while Gloria Kotnik of Slovenia takes bronze.

"I was so concentrated until the end that I didn't even know if we had to go up one more time or not, so I was not celebrating it at all," Ledecka said after her final run.

"I'm super happy, but in my head, I'm just still a little bit in the race."

"I made a good job, I'm very proud of my team, so thank you very much to them, especially Justin (Reiter), my American coach," she added.

"They made an amazing job and I'm happy that I was able to finish like that."