Day 15 of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor became the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympics history after she won the bronze medal in the two-woman bobsleigh on Saturday.

The medal is the fifth for Meyers Taylor, who passed Shani Davis’ four medals. The 37-year-old also is now the most decorated woman Olympic bobsledder of all time.

When asked about passing Davis’ record, Meyers Taylor said:

“That is overwhelming. It’s so crazy to hear that stat and to know that I’m part of a legacy that’s bigger than me. Hopefully, it just encourages more and more Black athletes to come out to winter sports — and not just Black athletes, winter sports for everybody,” she said.

“We want everybody to come out regardless of the color of your skin. We want winter sports to be for everybody, regardless of race, regardless of socio-economic class. I think the more diversity we have, the stronger our sport can be. So hopefully this is just the start of more and more people coming out and trying winter sports,” she added.

The four-time Olympian is a three-time silver medal winner (at Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022) and a two-time bronze medalist (at 2010 Vancouver and Beijing 2022). 

Meyers Taylor, who nearly missed the Olympic Games after testing positive for Covid-19 upon her arrival, hinted this would likely be her last Olympics.

“I’m going to take some time to really think about this. It’s going to be really hard to top this Olympics. Two medals and now closing it out with flag bearer, it’s going to be really, really hard to top that,” she said. 

She will conclude the Beijing Winter Olympics as the flag bearer for the US at the closing ceremony Sunday.

There were seven gold medals up for grabs on Saturday at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Here’s a breakdown of who took home gold for their delegations on day 15 of the Games.

Bobsleigh

Cross-Country Skiing

Curling

Figure Skating

Freestyle Skiing

Speed Skating

Read more stories from this year’s Winter Olympics here.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has dismissed the appeal filed by Team USA figure skaters that sought a ruling that would have awarded them the Olympic team event silver medal from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) before the conclusion of Sunday’s closing ceremony.

“The decision of the IOC Executive Board of 14 February 2022 not to hold the medal ceremony for the figure skating team event during the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 stands,” CAS said in a statement.

Team USA finished second in the figure skating team event on Feb. 7. The Russian Olympic Committee claimed the gold with Kamila Valieva becoming the first-ever woman to land a quadruple jump in an Olympic competition.

Japan claimed the bronze. However, the next day, Valieva was notified she had tested positive for a banned substance before the games started in December. 

As a result, the medal ceremony was postponed. The IOC later said it would “not be appropriate” for the medal ceremony to take place at the Beijing Games until Valieva’s case had concluded.

The 15-year-old finished in fourth place in the women’s individual figure skating event on Thursday, leaving the ice in tears after falling and faltering during jumps in her routine, despite having previously been the favorite to take gold.

Germany’s Laura Nolte captured the gold medal in the two-woman bobsleigh at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Saturday. 

Nolte, along with brake woman Deborah Levi, finished with a cumulative time of 4:03.96 to become the youngest female Olympic medalist in the sport. Nolte was a 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games gold medalist.

“I can’t believe it. I have no words,” Nolte said, before bursting into laughter. “I had one mistake at the bottom, but I knew when we came out of the (corner) 6 that we won.”

Levi added: “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s been two long days, crazy emotions, nervous, afraid, also very excited. I think we can sleep very well this day.”

Meanwhile, fellow countrywoman Mariama Jamanka, the gold medalist at the PyeongChang Games, and her partner Alexandra Burghardt placed second with a cumulative time of 4:04.73 to win the silver medal. 

Meanwhile, American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor, along with brake woman Sylvia Hoffman, finished in third with a cumulative time of 4:05.48 for the bronze medal. Meyers Taylor caps her Olympic career with a fifth Olympic medal.

Chinese pair skaters Sui Wenjing and Han Cong won gold in pairs figure skating at the 2022 Beijing Games on Saturday.

The duo finished with a world record total score of 239.88 - 84.41 for short program and 155.47 for free skating and captured their first-ever Olympic gold. The pair skated to the song “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

Sui and Han, who are the first Chinese figure skaters to win gold in the pairs event since the 2010 Vancouver Games, won silver in this event at the 2018 PyeongChang Games.

They become the third pair skating team to win Olympic Games gold on home ice following Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia at Sochi 2014 and Maxi Herber and Ernst Baier of Germany at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936.

Since the beginning of the 2015-16 season, Sui and Han have finished on the podium at every international competition they have competed in.

This is China’s ninth gold medal and 15th overall at the Games.

The silver medal went to Russian Olympic Committee’s (ROC) Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov who finished with a total score of 239.25.

Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov of the ROC picked up the bronze after finishing with a 237.71 total score.

Few things are as important to an elite athlete as their diet.

And as the Winter Olympics comes to an end, a new cookbook provides a glimpse into what makes top athletes tick.

The Winning Recipes cookbook is the idea of the Purple Project, an organization that looks to support domestic abuse survivors.

Retired Winter Olympian Noah Hoffman says he was honored to take part in the project and revealed some astonishing secrets about his diet as an endurance athlete.

“There was a time in my early 20s, when I was still growing, that I was eating at least 8,000 calories a day. It’s an incredible amount of food,” he said, before remembering some of the tricks he used to boost the calorie intake. “So you cook a whole box of pasta and you eat it all in one sitting for lunch. It’s just astounding.”

Read more about the initiative here.

Figure skaters from Team USA have filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) seeking to be awarded the Olympic team event silver medal from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) before the conclusion of Sunday’s closing ceremony at the Winter Olympics, CAS told CNN on Saturday.

CAS said a hearing on the matter was taking place and “it is anticipated that the decision will be issued late in the evening on Feb. 19, Beijing time.

Here’s some background: Team USA finished second in the figure skating team event on Feb. 7, and Japan claimed bronze.

The Russian Olympic Committee claimed the gold with 15-year-old Kamila Valieva becoming the first woman to land a quadruple jump in an Olympic competition.

However, the next day, Valieva was notified she had tested positive for a banned substance before the games started in December. As a result, the medal ceremony was postponed.

The IOC later said it would “not be appropriate” for the medal ceremony to take place at the Beijing Games until Valieva’s case had concluded. Attorneys for the US figure skaters sent a letter to IOC president Thomas Bach notifying the IOC of the appeal, US Figure Skating spokesperson Michael Terry said. When asked if the IOC had received the letter, the organization said it “will not comment on an ongoing procedure.”

In a statement to CNN, US Figure Skating executive director Ramsey Baker said, “We stand with and fully support our athletes as they courageously seek to be given the recognition that they have earned.”

“Having a medal ceremony at an Olympic Games is not something that can be replicated anywhere else, and they should be celebrated in front of the world before leaving Beijing,” Baker said.

Taiwan’s Premier Su Tseng-chang has ordered an investigation into a Taiwan speed skating Olympian over her alleged “misconduct” of wearing the Chinese team uniform early this month and her subsequent “inappropriate” remarks, according to Taiwan’s state-run Central News Agency (CNA).

Huang Yu-Ting, who represents Taiwan in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, attracted fury on social media for wearing the Chinese team uniform during a practice session, as seen on a video she posted – and later took down – on her Instagram account.  

“Huang’s donning of the Chinese team uniform and her subsequent remarks do not meet people’s expectations of national team athletes,” CNA reported, citing Taiwanese Executive Yuan spokesperson Lo Ping-Cheng. “Athletes on the national team…should not engage in any controversial acts that would tarnish national honor.”

Premier Su has asked the Ministry of Education and the Sports Administration to probe Huang’s misconducts, and draw up rules of conducts for national team athletes to follow in the future.

At the time, Huang said the uniform was given to her by a “good Chinese skater friend” with whom she trained in Germany. 

“Sports belong to sports. In sports we know no nations,” Huang wrote on her Facebook.

Netizens responded by calling her “ignorant” in response to her post.  

“Give your [Taiwan] uniform to the Chinese national team, whom you call ‘good friends off the circuit’ and make them take a video and upload it. Then you’ll know if they are as clueless as you are,” a social media user who went by the name Wu Tzu-Yun responded on Facebook.  

On Thursday after she finished competing, Huang took to Facebook and wrote in a sarcastic tone “all the haters please leave a comment below. Those who [are] support[ing] me, please don’t leave a comment, just like the post.” The post attracted approximately 2,900 angry emojis. 

Here’s some background: Taiwan is diplomatically boycotting the Beijing 2022 Games. Taiwan and mainland China have been separately governed since the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war more than 70 years ago. 

Taiwan is now a flourishing democracy but the mainland’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to view the island as an inseparable part of its territory – despite having never controlled it.

Today, relations between Taipei and Beijing are at their lowest point in decades. Earlier this month, China’s military sent a record number of warplanes into the air around Taiwan.

Sweden won gold in men’s curling after defeating Great Britain 5-4 in an extra end on Saturday – as Niklas Edin and Sweden finally became Olympic champions. 

It has been a steady creep to the top for Sweden, who won silver at the 2018 PyeongChang Games, bronze at the 2014 Sochi Games and finished fourth at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

“It feels so crazy, I almost had to ask someone before I came here, ‘We have won, right?’” Sweden’s Niklas Edin said.

“Very tight games and a lot of emotions out there. We felt that we played good enough and that we’re worthy champions but it still felt completely insane and when it actually happens it is hard to understand.”

Meanwhile, Team GB picked up a silver to claim the nation’s first medal of the 2022 Winter Games. On Friday, Canada beat the US 8-5 to earn the bronze.

Two-time Beijing gold-medalist, youngest ever freestyle skiing Olympic champion, national hero and now author.

After writing her name into the history books at Beijing 2022, China’s Eileen Gu is looking to pen a work of her own.

At just 18-years-old, Gu became the first freestyler skier in history to win three medals at a Games, winning gold in both the halfpipe and big air events.

Born and raised in California, Gu chose to compete for China in 2019, where her mother was born.

Now, following her historic Games, Gu is looking to share her unique journey in written form.

“I’m writing a book,” she told reporters during her final Beijing 2022 press conference.

“I’ve been writing diaries for years because I knew that the way I grew up was different, interesting and special, I’d like to share it with everyone in the future.”

She was hailed as the “pride of China” after winning her first gold, and has since won more medals than anyone else for the country at the Games.

As records continue to tumble in her wake, Gu asserted that these accolades serve a greater representational purpose beyond pure personal achievement.

“Extreme sports, we all know, are heavily dominated by men and stereotypically it has not had the kind of representation and sporting equity that it should,” Gu said.

“So I think that as a young biracial woman, it is super important to be able to reach those milestones and to be able to push boundaries – not only my own boundaries but those of the sport and those of the record books because that’s what paves the past for the next generation of girls.

“If you see yourself in the sport, it totally changes your perception of what you can do in it.

“So my biggest goal is one, to have fun for myself, but also to break the boundaries of the boxes that people get put in.”

Russian Alexander Bolshunov won his third gold medal at Beijing 2022 after claiming victory in the men’s cross-country skiing mass start.

The event is usually over 50-kilometers but it was shortened this year to 30-kilometers because of poor weather conditions and strong winds.

In total, Bolshunov has won five medals at this year’s Winter Games – three gold as well as a silver and a bronze.

The Team ROC athlete was already Olympic champion in the skiathlon and the men’s 4x10km relay. His silver medal came in the men’s 15km classic and the bronze in the team sprint classic.

“Five medals, three gold. It is something unbelievable because before the season I set the goal of two gold medals and now I have three,” Bolshunov said.

“I’m just unbelievably happy. The emotions overfill me. This is above all praise to win these medals here. It’s very cool, and in every race that I took part in.”

The silver medal on Saturday went to his teammate Ivan Yakimushin with Norway’s Simen Hegstad Krueger winning bronze.

It’s 34 years since the four-man Jamaican bobsled team made its Olympic debut. It’s one of the most evocative Winter Olympic stories – immortalized in the “Cool Runnings” film – as Jamaica’s bobsled team at Beijing 2022 acknowledged.

“We’re absolutely honored that we were the ones to have brought Jamaica (4-man) bobsleigh back at the Olympics after 24 years,” said Shanwayne Stephens on Saturday, referring to the last time Jamaica competed in the bobsled at a Winter Games at Nagano.

“And it’s fantastic to just represent Jamaica, Jamaica bobsledders and every single ‘Cool Runnings’ fan out there,” Shanwayne Stephens said on Saturday.

The team made a nod to the legendary Disney movie – in the form of an egg reference.

“I do have a lucky egg. It is a tribute to the film,” Matthew Wekpe said, referencing the fictional “Cool Runnings” brakeman Sanka, who did the same.

“I only started to do bobsleigh 14 months ago. Before my first race, me and Shan (Stephens) came up with the idea that it would be quite cool to bring back a lucky egg.

“We left the apartment at my first race in Austria and found this, so we declared that the egg.”

Movie references aside, the team want people to know they are dead serious about the sport.

Although they finished last after two heats on Saturday, the completed their runs and will race again on Sunday as they set their sights on building up Jamaica’s bobsled program.

“A big part of us being here is just to show people that you can achieve anything that you want to achieve if you just put your mind to it and go out there and do it,” Stephens added.

“If we can qualify for this Games having met for the first time in September last year, imagine what we can do the next four years with a proper program and proper funding.”

For the first time in Olympic history, the island nation qualified in three bobsled events – the two-man bobsled, the women’s monobob and the four-man bobsled.

Read more:

The Jamaican four man bobsleigh team in action at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic Games held on February 25, 1988 in Calgary, Canada.

Related article It's been decades since 'Cool Runnings,' but Jamaica's bobsled team are still inspiring a generation of winter athletes

Before Saturday, it had been 74 years since Belgium had won a gold medal at a Winter Olympics.

That changed when Bart Swings won gold in speed skating on Saturday, finishing first in the men’s mass start final.

“It is unbelievable. I have been dreaming of this a long time. I have worked very hard, and it all came together,” Swings said following his win.
“It has been very nervous days, the last few days, but I managed to pull it together, and it all came through today,” he added.

It was a photo finish for silver and bronze, with South Koreans Chung Jae-won and Lee Seung-hoon coming second and third respectively.

Speed skating legend Sven Kramer of the Netherlands finished 16th and did not medal in any of his events at the Beijing 2022 Games.

In his career, he won nine Olympic medals, four of them gold.

Before Beijing 2022, Belgium’s lone gold medal at a Winter Olympics was in pairs figure skating by Micheline Lannoy and Pierre Baugniet.

Two billion viewers worldwide have tuned into the Beijing 2022 Olympics, making it the most-watched Winter Games ever, a Chinese official said on Saturday.

The 2008 Beijing Summer Games saw the largest TV audience for an Olympics on record, with 4.7 billion viewers, according to Guinness World Records.

Speaking in Beijing Saturday, Zhang Jiandong, a deputy to China’s National People’s Congress, also said that 90,000 spectators attended the Winter Games this year.

Ahead of the Games, organizers said the event would not be open to the general public due to coronavirus concerns, and that a select group of spectators would receive invitations to attend.

Some 150,000 spectators were invited from outside the Olympic bubble, including international residents in China, diplomatic personnel, marketing partners, winter sports enthusiasts, residents, and local students.

The closing ceremony takes place tomorrow.

As we head into the final weekend of the Winter Olympics, Great Britain has been handed unwelcome news from the Tokyo 2020 Games — with its 4x100 meter relay team stripped of the silver medals they won last summer due to a doping violation.

British sprinter Chijindu Ujah tested positive for a pair of banned substances after the race, the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) Anti-Doping Division ruled on Friday. Apart from the team’s stripped medals, Ujah’s results in that relay and the 100m sprint have been disqualified.

In a statement released through UK Athletics, Ujah said he accepted the CAS decision, adding he never knowingly took a banned substance. He blamed his positive test on a “contaminated supplement.”

“I sincerely regret that this has inadvertently led to the forfeiture of the men’s 4 x 100m relay team’s Olympic silver medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games,” Ujah said.

The silver now goes to Canada and China takes bronze. Italy won the gold.

Today’s windy weather has forced a number of events to be rescheduled, including:

The wind caused disruptions in the men’s freeski halfpipe final earlier today, with many skiers falling and pointing out the tough conditions.

“I woke up in the morning and I saw the wind,” said bronze medal winner Alex Ferreira afterward in a news conference. “We get to the halfpipe, see the wind, and it’s obviously very windy — but not as windy as what we’ve competed in previously this year. And I think that’s the line. I think everyone was safe enough.”

Australia’s chef de mission Geoff Lipshut, the head of the national team, commented on the treatment of 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva at a closing news conference today, saying athletes were “people first.”

“I am aware of it because I took special note because the way that we’ve consoled our athletes who haven’t met their performance expectations is a very different experience to that of the young figure skater,” he said.

Valieva had a disappointing free skate on Thursday, falling several times before leaving the ice in tears. She was met with what the International Olympic Committee president described as “tremendous coldness” from her coach and entourage.

“Athletes are very much people first and they are sportspeople second,” Lipshut said. “So when a young person, especially an underage person, hasn’t met their own expectations, hasn’t met what they perceive to be the expectations of others … I mean, anybody involved in sport really needs to look after those people.”

The alpine mixed team parallel event has been postponed due to poor weather conditions.

“Due to the continuing wind gust and the updated forecast — the Jury together with the the organiser are unable to stage the Mixed Team Parallel Event today. Additional information will follow,” said a statement from the International Ski Federation on Saturday.

Strong winds have impacted other events, with several freeskiers commenting on the difficult conditions at the men’s halfpipe final today.

No new Covid-19 cases were reported inside the Beijing Winter Olympics “closed loop” today, as the Games enters its final weekend.

Since Jan. 23, Games organizers have detected 436 Olympics-related cases inside the bubble. In that same period, more than 1.7 million tests have been conducted in the bubble.

Sunday is the last day of the Beijing 2022 Games

New Zealand freeskier Nico Porteous has won gold at the men’s halfpipe, following a difficult final filled with painful falls and poor weather conditions.

Team USA’s David Wise takes silver, and his US teammate Alex Ferreira wins bronze.

It’s a freezing cold day at the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou, with strong wind gusts hampering the freeskiers’ ability to throw their usual tricks high in the air as many of the top competitors crashed on their runs. The temperature with wind chill has dropped below -30 degrees Celsius, according to the official Olympics site.

Team USA’s Aaron Blunck, who qualified in top spot, fell hard on his last run, laying at the valley of the halfpipe for a long time as medics skied down to him. His teammate Wise, watching from the bottom, sprinted up the slope in his ski boots to check on Blunck — who eventually got back up.

Great Britain’s Gus Kenworthy also had a nasty fall, landing right on the edge of the halfpipe in his way down from a jump on the second run. He managed to finish his third run without incident, though placed far from the podium.

“The wind was the deciding factor for everyone,” Kenworthy said afterward. “Even the guys who are on top, they put down incredible runs — it was awesome to see — but they have all scaled back from what I think they were hoping to do. I certainly scaled back from what I was hoping to do.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov pushed back at comments made by IOC president Thomas Bach on Friday about 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who placed fourth in the women’s individual event and was in tears as she left the ice.

After Valieva’s disastrous freeskate on Thursday, Bach said he had been “very disturbed” watching her performance and the “tremendous coldness” from her entourage afterward, including her coach.

Peskov responded in a news briefing, saying “we respect his point of view, but we don’t necessarily agree with him.”

Peskov added that although Bach didn’t like seeing the “tough” tactics at play, “everybody knows that in the sport of great achievements, the toughness of a trainer is the key to victory.”

Russian skater Anna Shcherbakova placed first in the women’s individual event, with her Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) teammate Alexandra Trusova winning silver.

Valieva has been at the center of a doping controversy after it emerged during the Games that a sample she submitted in December tested positive for a banned substance. She was ultimately allowed to continue competing, though investigations into any doping violations by Valieva and the adults responsible for her training continue.

Great Britain’s Gus Kenworthy had a bumpy start to the men’s freeski halfpipe final, landing several tricks before falling on his first and second runs.

On his second run, he landed right on the edge of the halfpipe on his way down from the first trick — a painful landing that threw off one of his skis.

He has one more shot — the competitors each get three runs, with the best score taken as their final result.

The skiers are facing strong winds today, with several commenting on the difficult conditions after their runs.

This is Kenworthy’s final Winter Olympics. The two-time US Olympian won silver in slopestyle at the 2014 Sochi Games before switching sporting allegiances to compete for Great Britain in Beijing.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach on Friday rebuked a Chinese official over comments she made that appeared to violate Olympic rules of keeping political neutrality.

Bach’s remarks came after Yan Jiarong, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG), spoke about Taiwan and Xinjiang at a Thursday news conference.

“This problem we did not ignore,” Bach said. “We were in touch with BOCOG immediately after this press conference and both organizations, BOCOG and the IOC, have restated the unequivocal commitment to remain politically neutral as it is required by the Olympic charter.”

Comments on Taiwan: On Thursday, when the IOC spokesperson was asked whether the Taiwan delegation would attend the closing ceremony, Yan said “there is only one China in the world, and Taiwan is an indivisible part of China.”

“The IOC has 206 members, including members of nations such as the People’s Republic of China and members of regions such as Taiwan,” Yan said — then quickly corrected herself to “China Taipei,” before finally correcting it to “Chinese Taipei,” the official name for the Taiwan team at the Olympics.

Xinjiang allegations: Yan also jumped in after the IOC spokesperson answered CNN’s question about whether the Olympic uniforms were made by forced labor in China’s western Xinjiang region, saying the allegation is “a lie made up by forces with ulterior motives, and the relevant organizations have provided large amounts of facts to dispute that.”

Beijing has long denied claims of rights abuses and genocide in Xinjiang, claiming its policies are part of a program of mass deradicalization and poverty alleviation.

Olympic neutrality: Yan’s comments seemed to have violated Rule 50 of the Olympic charter, which prohibits any kind of “demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda.”

The organizing committee, BOCOG, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on this matter.

The penultimate day of the Winter Olympics brings a packed schedule — and for some athletes, a last chance to medal. Here are the names and events to look out for on Saturday:

⛷️ One more shot: Team USA’s Mikaela Shiffrin will compete for the sixth and final time at these Games at the alpine skiing mixed team event today. Shiffrin, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, has had a difficult run these past two weeks, crashing out of three events. She finished two others, but placed ninth and 18th, far from the podium. “Why do I keep coming back? Gosh knows it hurts more than it feels good lately,” Shiffrin tweeted Thursday after failing to finish the combined event, calling out some of the online abuse she has received.

 🛷 Last race before closing ceremony: Four-time Olympic bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor from the US will compete in the two-woman bobsleigh, hoping to score a gold before attending the closing ceremony tomorrow as a flag bearer. She had originally been elected as a flag bearer for the opening ceremony, but was forced to miss it after testing positive for Covid. After the first two heats for the race today, Meyers Taylor is in third, with Germany’s Laura Nolte and Mariama Jamanka taking first and second.

⛸️ Chinese stars on ice: The final figure skating competition will be the pairs free skate today, with China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong looking to score another victory. The event combines the scores of the free skate with the short program — and the pair are already top of the leaderboard with a score of 84.41 following a short program that has been described as “the greatest ever,” eclipsing their previous world record, set less than two weeks ago.

 🥌 Reigning champions defend title: Sweden and Great Britain are facing off for gold in the men’s curling final today. Three-time defending world champion Sweden got off to a 7-0 start at these Olympics and was the first team to qualify for the semifinals — but lost their final two games in the round-robin play. Meanwhile, Great Britain hasn’t been in the gold medal game since 2014.

 ⛸️ Start your engines (or skates): Speed skating concludes today with the mass start events for both men and women, meaning two semifinals of 15 skaters in each discipline, with eight athletes from each skate advancing to the finals. This mass start is unusual — and has been described as “NASCAR on ice.” USA’s Joey Mantia is the reigning men’s world champion, but is still searching for his first individual medal. In the women’s event, Japan’s Nana Takagi is looking for redemption after losing out on gold in the team event, and Dutch skater Irene Schouten could score a medal in all four of her events.

Teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva has become one of the faces of Beijing 2022, but as the Winter Olympics nears its conclusion the spotlight is likely to remain on the 15-year-old and her entourage for the foreseeable future.

A blame game has already broken out between the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) over the drugs test controversy surrounding Valieva, who completed her competition run at the Winter Olympics on Thursday.

The 15-year-old finished in fourth place in the women’s individual figure skating event, leaving the ice in tears after falling and faltering during jumps in her routine, despite having previously been the favorite to take gold.

Before being cleared to take part in the women’s individual figure skating competition, Valieva was suspended by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) on Feb. 8, although the body lifted her suspension the next day following a hearing.

WADA, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Skating Union (ISU) then subsequently filed an appeal against the lifting of the ban.

However, CAS cleared Valieva for competition, saying she would suffer “irreparable harm” if not allowed to compete, citing the “exceptional circumstances” of her being a minor.

Given the pressures she was facing, many commentators have questioned why she was cleared to skate, with former US Olympic figure skater Polina Edmunds saying it was “devastating that she was put in this situation.”

CAS published a 41-page document on Thursday outlining its reasons for allowing Valieva to compete, notably blaming WADA for the way events had unfolded in the teenager’s case.

“It is unfortunate that this episode occurred to mar this Athlete’s, and other Athletes’, Olympic Winter Games experience,” said CAS.
“This has been the result of the relevant anti-doping bodies to ensure timely analysis of pre-Games samples, and failing to ensure that pending cases are resolved before the Olympic Winter Games commence.”

Read more:

Kamila Valieva of ROC performs during the Women Single Skating Free Skating at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games on February 17, 2022.

Related article Kamila Valieva: Blame game breaks out over Russian skater's positive drugs test

As the 2022 Winter Olympics nears its conclusion, there’s been no shortage of exhilarating moments and compelling storylines.

Here’s a recap of the biggest Olympic moments that happened on Friday:

⛷ Home favorite makes history: China’s Eileen Gu has had a historic Olympic run, cementing her status as the face of her team’s sporting dreams at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. The American-born teen took gold in the women’s freeski halfpipe on Friday, adding to a medal haul that had already included a gold in last week’s big air event and a silver in Tuesday’s freeski slopestyle event. Gu — whose face is plastered across China on billboards and magazine covers — is now the first athlete to capture three medals in three separate freestyle skiing events at a single Olympics. After her performance on Friday, Gu spoke to the confidence that helped propel her to skiing stardom, revealing, “”At the top I said, ‘My name is Eileen Gu, and I’m the best halfpipe freeskier in the world.’”

🇺🇸 Bobsledder to carry US flag: American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor will get the chance to carry the stars and stripes at Sunday’s closing ceremony. The four-time Olympian had been tapped as a flag bearer for the opening ceremony but was forced to miss as she quarantined following a positive Covid-19 test.

🥇 Norway’s Winter Games dominance: Norwegian Johannes Thingnes Bø has captured his fourth gold medal in Beijing, and fifth medal overall. This helps Norway set a Winter Games record with 15 total gold medals. The 28-year-old won Friday’s men’s biathlon 15km mass start by more than 40 seconds, and had previously earned gold in the sprint, relay, and mixed relay biathlon events, as well as the bronze in the individual.

🥅 ROC advances to gold medal match: The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) moves on to the gold medal game in men’s hockey, skating past Sweden 2-1 in the 8th round of a penalty shootout. The ROC will take on Finland in Sunday’s gold medal match.

The most successful Winter Olympics team of all time is dominating the medal table in Beijing on the final weekend of action, with a record number of golds.

Norway leads the standings with a record 15 golds among 34 medals overall. Germany is in second with 10 golds and 22 total medals. Team USA in third has eight golds and 21 medals in total. Host China is in fourth, tied with the US on eight golds, but with fewer total medals — 14.

In the lead-up to the Beijing Winter Olympics, Chinese officials and state media repeatedly accused the United States and its allies of trying to “sabotage” the Games, lashing out at their diplomatic boycotts over China’s human rights record.

But the past two weeks have shown that it is Russia — China’s close friend and strategic partner — that has ended up partially overshadowing the Games, both in and away from the sporting arena.

Early in the first week, one of the Games’ most watched events, figure skating, was rocked by a doping scandal surrounding Russian skater Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old gold-medal favorite. After a stunning performance on her Olympic debut, Valieva was revealed to have tested positive for a banned substance back in December — an explosive controversy that quickly dominated global media attention of the Games.

And thousands of miles away from Beijing, the massive buildup of Russian military forces near Ukraine’s borders has sent alarm bells ringing across Europe and beyond. Fears of a full-scale invasion by Moscow has put much of the Western world on edge.

For the host nation, both are unwelcome distractions from its big moment in the global spotlight. But given Beijing’s close relations with Moscow — which both sides have described as being at “the highest level in history” — it can’t risk being perceived as critical of Russia.

After all, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Chinese capital earlier this month to show his personal support for the Games, attending an opening ceremony shunned by most Western leaders.

And so as the doping saga and Ukraine crisis made headlines around the world, China downplayed both issues for its domestic audience.

On Tuesday, all eyes were on Valieva when she stepped onto the ice at the women’s short program. Though she had been cleared to compete by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, her positive drug test still loomed over the event, potentially preventing her from collecting a medal should she make the podium.

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.

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Russia's Kamila Valieva competes in the women's single skating free skating of the figure skating event during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at the Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing on February 17, 2022. (Photo by Antonin THUILLIER / AFP) (Photo by ANTONIN THUILLIER/AFP via Getty Images)

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Five medals were at stake across biathlon, freestyle skiing and speed skating events on Day 14 of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Here’s who won gold: 

Biathlon:

Freestyle skiing

Speed skating