By Aditi Sangal, Ben Morse, Ben Church, Rhea Mogul, Adam Renton and Patrick Sung, CNN
Finland beat Slovakia 2-0 in the men's ice hockey semi-final on Friday, in a tight, occasionally nervy battle.
Sakari Manninen scored in the first period, with Harri Pesonen sealing the victory in the closing minute of the game.
Finland will now compete for gold against either Sweden or the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) on the final day of the Games, Sunday.
The other semi-final will be decided later today, with the loser taking on Slovakia for bronze tomorrow.
From CNN's Gawon Bae
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said he had a “very fruitful” meeting with Team USA's figure skaters on Wednesday, as they await a resolution from Russian teen Kamila Valieva's doping scandal.
The US team — which includes Olympic champion Nathan Chen — missed the opportunity to collect their silver medals in the figure skating team event in Beijing due to the ongoing saga.
Bach said he and the chair of the IOC Athlete's Commission, Emma Terho, had reached out to the US and third-placed Japanese skaters that were impacted by Valieva's positive test.
Bach added he offered an Olympic torch to the athletes as a “token of appreciation."
“This meeting lasted more than 1.5 hours, which was from my point of view a very fruitful meeting and covered a wide range of topics. We learned a lot about their feelings, about their sport and incidents in their sport, and attitudes in their sport,” Bach said at a news conference Friday.
Bach said the athletes proposed ideas about how the issue could be addressed. He did not share further details of the meeting, citing a privacy agreement he made with the athletes.
High winds caused a short delay to the men's ski cross today at the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou when a tower blew over the finish line.
The competition was briefly halted while a crew fixed things up.
Switzerland's Alex Fiva currently leads the field in the seeding round, with Japan's Ryo Sugai in second, and defending Olympic champion, Brady Leman of Canada, in third.
China's Eileen Gu said the Olympics had "changed her life forever" following her history-making win on Friday in the women's freeski halfpipe.
Gu took gold with a score of 95.25 to become the first athlete to win three medals in three different freestyle skiing disciplines at a single Games. It comes after she won gold in the big air last week and silver in freeski slopestyle on Tuesday.
"It has been two straight weeks of the most intense highs and lows I've ever experienced in my life," Gu said Friday after her victory.
"It has changed my life forever. The second I landed the last 16 in big air I knew my life was never going to be the same. Even then I would have never imagined that I'd walk away with another silver and another gold."
Gu, 18, has been one of the biggest stars of the Beijing Games and her face is plastered across Chinese cities on advertisement boards and magazine covers.
She said she hoped to use her newfound fame to make her sport more popular.
"I'm so honored to be here and I'm even more honored by this platform that I've been given to be able to spread this message and inspire young girls through my own passion for the sport, and to be able hopefully spread the sport to people that might not have heard of it before," she said.
From CNN's Angus Watson and Selina Wang
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said he was “very, very disturbed” while watching Russian teen Kamila Valieva’s final performance in women's figure skating at the Beijing Games on Thursday.
Valieva placed fourth in the final after falling numerous times during her free skate routine. She had been the clear favorite to win after coming out on top of Tuesday's short program.
"I was very, very disturbed yesterday when I watched the competition on TV ... how high the pressure on her must have been… this pressure is beyond my imagination, in particular for a girl of 15 years old," Bach told reporters at a news conference on Friday. "To see her struggling on the ice, seeing how she tries to compose herself again. How she tries to finish her program."
Bach acknowledged that Valieva was under great pressure to perform after she was cleared to skate despite testing positive for a banned substance.
"You could ... in every movement in the body language…you could feel that this is an immense, immense mental stress and maybe she would've preferred just to leave the ice. And try to leave this story behind her," Bach said.
Coaches in the spotlight: Bach said he did not have “"much confidence in the closest entourage of Kamila," adding he noticed “how she was received by her closest entourage with what appeared to be a tremendous coldness, it was chilling to see this.”
"Rather than giving her comfort. Rather than to try to help her ... you could feel this chilling," he said.
From CNN's Selina Wang, Sandi Sidhu, Teele Rebane and Helen Regan
Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva placed fourth in the women's figure skating final at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Thursday, capping off more than a week of controversy after the teen was cleared to skate despite testing positive for a banned substance.
Valieva was tipped for gold in the event but fell numerous times during her free skate routine. Standing by the 15-year-old was her coach, on whom the spotlight now falls.
Coach in the spotlight: At the center of the controversy — and the Russian skating world — is Valieva's coach, Eteri Tutberidze.
Frequently called the most powerful woman in figure skating, Tutberidze is the driving force behind Russia's dominance in the sport. Her studio in Moscow attracts the best female figure skaters from around Russia, who are trained from an early age to break records and perform dazzlingly complex jumps, multiple coaches and skaters told CNN.
Valieva made history last week by becoming the first woman to land a quad at the Olympics, and recent female Russian skaters have been known for pushing boundaries on the tricks they can do, from triple axels to triple flips and other difficult combinations.
"We are absolutely sure that Kamila is innocent and clean," Tutberidze told Russian TV last week.
Tutberidze is also infamous for her brutal training regimens: In a December interview with Russian TV, she said her skaters train 12 hours a day, saying they can "always do more, demand more from yourself."
The coach has trained a string of Olympic medalists, but scrutiny has also been cast on how her best protégées have had short-lived careers.
CNN has reached out to the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) for comment from Tutberidze and ROC team doctor Filipp Shvetsky on the points raised in this story but has not received a response.
Read the full story:
China's Eileen Gu won gold in the women's freeski halfpipe final on Friday — and it wasn't even close.
On a windy day at the Genting Snow Park, Gu posted a best score of 95.25, a full 4.5 points ahead of her nearest challenger, Canada's Cassie Sharpe in silver.
The win means Gu is the first athlete to win three medals in three different freestyle skiing disciplines at a single Games. An emotional Gu embraced her competitors as they posed for photos after the event.
Face of the Games: The Beijing 2022 Olympics have been a breakthrough moment for Gu as she became one of the biggest stars of the Games.
She took gold in the big air event last week and added silver in the freeski slopstyle event on Tuesday. Friday's gold medal will only help strengthen the Gu legend.
The American-born skier, born to a Chinese mother and American father, chose to represent China in 2019, and has seen her star soar since the start of what is a home Winter Olympics for her.
Her face is plastered across Chinese cities on advertisement boards and magazine covers and featured in promotional videos ahead of the Olympics showing Gu performing tricks midair and running on the Great Wall.
China's Eileen Gu has just clinched her second gold medal of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics with one run still to go in the women's freeski halfpipe final.
The 18-year-old sensation becomes the first freeskier to win three medals in a single Games.
Last week, Gu topped the podium in the big air event and then added a silver to her collection in Tuesday's slopestyle final.
Canada's Cassie Sharpe claimed silver with a best score of 90.75, with her teammate Rachael Karker taking bronze.
Eileen Gu posted a huge second run best score of 95.25 to extend her lead at the top of the leaderboard in the women's freeski halfpipe final.
Canada's Cassie Sharpe is in the silver medal position with a second round run of 90, and her compatriot Rachael Karker is in third.
