Day 12 of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

American freeskier Alexander Hall stands atop the podium after the men's slopestyle event on February 16.

There were eight gold medals at stake on Wednesday at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Here’s a recap of who won and where the medal count stands.

Alpine Skiing: France’s Clement Noel captured the gold in men’s slalom event.

Biathlon: Sweden won the women’s 4x6km relay event.

Cross-Country Skiing:

Germany landed the top spot at the women’s team sprint classic event.

Norway bagged the gold in the men’s team sprint classic event.

Freestyle Skiing:

USA’s Alexander Hall emerged the winner in men’s freeski slopestyle.

China’s Qi Guangpu clinched the gold in men’s aerials event.

Short Track Speed Skating

Canada won the men’s 5000m relay event.

South Korea’s Choi Minjeong won the women’s 1500m event.

Here’s where the official Olympics medal count stands so far.

Austria's Johannes Strolz holds up his silver medal for the men's slalom and gold medal for the Alpine combined on February 16.

Despite settling for a silver medal in the men’s slalom, the Beijing 2022 Games have been nothing short of a fairytale for Austrian skier Johannes Strolz.

Just seven months ago, the 29-year-old was dropped by the Austrian ski team and had been working in the police force. Now he’s a two-time Olympic medalist.

France’s Clement Noel clinched victory in the slalom on Wednesday, executing a lightning-quick second run to overtake Strolz for top position.

Last Thursday, Strolz overcome the odds to win gold in the Alpine combined race, emulating his father’s success in 1988.

You can read the full report below.

BEIJING, CHINA - FEBRUARY 16 : Clement Noel of Team France wins the gold medal during the Olympic Games 2022, Men's Slalom on February 16, 2022 in Yanqing China. (Photo by Alain Grosclaude/Agence Zoom/Getty Images)

Related article Clement Noel ends rival's fairytale run to win men's slalom gold at Beijing 2022

Kamila Valieva, the teenage Russian figure skater at the center of a doping controversy roiling the Beijing Olympics, had three substances that can be used to aid the heart in her testing sample, according to a report in the New York Times, which cited an exhibit filed in a Sunday hearing by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Two of those substances, Hypoxen and the supplement L-carnitine, are not banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which regulates the use of drugs in international sport.

Valieva declared both of these on a doping control form, according to a court application allegedly filed by WADA in a case raised after it came to light that Valieva tested positive for a banned substance in December.

The London-based Dossier Center, an investigative website run by an exiled Russian businessman, published part of the WADA court application online and it was reviewed for CNN by Travis Tygart, head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

“It raises a whole host of questions that have yet to be determined and what appears to be the case of a pretty deliberate attempt to use substances in order to enhance performance,” Tygart said.

An emotional Valieva came out at the top after the short program of the women’s singles competition on Tuesday. She will compete in the second portion of the event — where she is the favorite for gold — on Thursday.

You can read the full report below.

Kamila Valieva of Team ROC skates during the women's singles competition on Tuesday in Beijing.

Related article Russian skater Kamila Valieva's drug regimen 'raises questions' following hearing

Gus Kenworthy during his interview with CNN.

Gus Kenworthy’s story is one of bravery and courage.

The skier is competing at his third and final Olympic Games, this time for Team Great Britain, after switching allegiances from Team USA after Pyeongchang in 2018.

However, besides being a skiing sensation — and also part-time actor — Kenworthy has blossomed into an activist for the LGBT community.

A kiss between Kenworthy and his then-boyfriend Matthew Wilkas during the 2018 Winter Olympics was captured by TV cameras and used to signify changing attitudes.

When asked by CNN’s Coy Wire about what he wants to be remembered for, Kenworthy pointed to his sexuality and possible position as a role model, saying, “My coming out story is my legacy.”

Sweden beat reigning world champion Canada 2-0 in a hard-fought match to book its place in the men’s ice hockey semifinals.

A Canadian error allowed Lucas Wallmark to finally get the breakthrough with just eight minutes of the match remaining, before Anton Lander sealed the win with a goal into an open net after Canada had pulled its goalkeeper for an extra outfield player as it went in search of an equalizer.

Sweden will now play the Russian Olympic Committee in the semifinal as it goes in search of a first Winter Olympic gold medal since Turin 2006.

Slovakia, who earlier stunned the USA, will face Finland in the other semifinal.

Podium finish gets you a medal and a panda.

After their podium finish at the men’s 5000m relay final, winners from Canada, South Korea and Italy take a group selfie with their pandas after the flower ceremony at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at Capital Indoor Stadium.

The Beijing Olympic mascot is a playful panda wearing an icy shell. It had been a crowd favorite at the Winter Games — until it started talking.

Slovakia's Peter Cehlarik scored the winning goal against the United States.

Team USA was stunned by Slovakia 3-2 in the men’s ice hockey quarterfinals at Beijing 2022 on Wednesday.

Slovakia, bidding for its first Olympic medal in the event, advanced to the last four after winning a nail-biting shootout in a dramatic conclusion to the game.

With the game tied 2-2 after overtime, Peter Cehlarik was the only man to convert his effort as Slovakia goalie Patrik Rybar stopped all five of Team USA’s shots.

Though the US will be frustrated that they weren’t able to see the game out, they remained proud of what the young team achieved — many of the athletes representing the US are still playing college ice hockey.

“Hockey is a game of inches,” said Team USA’s Steven Kampfer. “They (Slovakia) played well, they stuck to their identity, and when it comes to a shootout there isn’t really that much you can do.”

South Korea's Choi Min-jeong crosses the finish line ahead of Italy's Arianna Fontana and Dutch skater Suzanne Schulting to win the gold medal in the 1,500m short track on February 16.

It came down to the wire, but in the end, South Korea’s Choi Min-jeong held off her closest rivals to win gold in the women’s 1500m speed skating final.

The defending champion — who had set a new Olympic record in the discipline in a semifinal earlier in the day — finished just milliseconds ahead of Italy’s Arianna Fontana and the Netherlands’ Suzanne Schulting.

Finishing with a time of 2:17.81, Choi won her third medal of Beijing 2022 and her third gold medal of her Olympic career.

It required a photo finish to separate Fontana and Schulting, but Fontana just about held on to silver, the 31-year-old’s 11th Olympic medal.

Fontana, the most decorated short track speed skater in Olympic history, becomes Italy’s most decorated Winter Olympian with her silver medal.

For Schulting, her bronze medal was the end of her quest for the women’s speed skating gold medal hat-trick, after gold’s in the women’s 1000m and the women’s 3000m relay.

Canadian speed skater Charles Hemelin celebrates after winning the gold medal in the men's 5,000m relay on February 16.

Charles Hamelin’s glittering career had a fairytale ending as the veteran speed skater helped Canada win gold in the men’s short track speed skating 5,000m relay.

The 37-year-old, who is competing at his fifth Winter Games, said in the build up to these Olympics that he plans to retire after Beijing 2022.

This win gives Hamelin his fourth career Winter Olympics gold medal and sixth overall, having also won a silver and bronze.

Alongside Hamelin were Jordan Pierre-Gilles, Steven Dubois and Pascal Dion, who held off South Korea in second place.

There was a photo finish for bronze, with Italy pipping the Russian Olympic Committee on the line.

China's Qi Guangpu competes in the freestyle skiing aerials on February 16.

Qi Guangpu took home the gold medal for host country China in the men’s freestyle aerials final, emulating the success of compatriot Xu Mengtao who won gold in the women’s event.

The visibly emotional Guangpu was in a league of his own, posting a huge final score of 129.00 that wasn’t even close to being challenged.

Ukraine’s Oleksandr Abramenko, gold medalist four years ago in PyeongChang, took the silver with a score of 116.50.

The Russian Olympic Committee’s Ilia Burov took home the bronze with a final jump of 114.93 to add to his bronze from PyeongChang.

Belgian alpine skier Dries Van den Broecke looks on from the bottom of the hill during the men's giant slalom event on February 13.

Belgian Alpine skier Dries Van Den Broecke only thought of his brother and father when he crashed out of the men’s giant slalom event, thinking he may need medical help.

And help would not have been too far since his father and brother are two of the 12 foreign doctors on site at the National Alpine Skiing Centre, helping the local medical team ensure any on-course injuries are attended to as quickly as possible.  

Having his family close is of great comfort to the skier, who is also competing in the slalom on Wednesday. Van Den Broecke, who put Belgium on the Alpine map by taking slalom silver at the 2012 Youth Olympic Games, says he is not the star in the family.

“It’s not me as the star,” he said. “All the doctors here know them pretty well so when I pass by they go, ’Oh, you are from Belgium, you know Robin, you know Robin?’”

His brother, a trauma specialist, but also a former junior world championship skier, has already had to put his skills to use, working with Swiss skier Yannick CHABLOZ, who broke his forearm and shoulder blade during the downhill portion of the Alpine combined. 

Wouter, a member of the International Ski Federation (FIS) medical commission, is naturally a proud father. 

Switzerland's Yannick Weber (L) and Finland's Harri Pesonen vie for the puck during their men's hockey quarterfinal match on Feb. 16. 

Finland comfortably eased past Switzerland 5-1 to reach the semifinals of the men’s ice hockey competition.

They join the Russian Olympic Committee and Slovakia, who stunned the USA on penalties earlier on Wednesday, in the final four.

Sweden and Canada face off later this afternoon for the fourth semifinal berth.

Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo of Norway reacts crossing the finish line to win the gold medal during the men's cross-country team sprint classic final on Wednesday. 

After a tense finish in the women’s event, there was no such drama in the final straight of the men’s team sprint classic as Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo powered away from the field to finish more than 15 meters clear of his nearest rival.

It’s a remarkable fifth Winter Olympics gold medal for Klæbo – his second of Beijing 2022 – who, at just 25 years of age, is already considered one of the greatest cross-country sprint skiers of all time.

Teammate Erik Valnes was there to greet Klæbo as he crossed the finish line to clinch Norway’s 13th gold of these Games.

Finland finished a distant second to take the silver medal, with the Russian Olympic Committee taking bronze.

Bruce Mouat of Great Britain competes at the curling mixed doubles on Feb. 8.

Curling at Beijing 2022 has been almost a daily event, with men and women lacing up to slide their rocks around at the National Aquatics Centre.

And after a while, it’s beginning to have an effect on some of the maneuvers athletes need to perform.

According to Team GB’s Bruce Mouat, getting down low and stretching his legs is where he’s most feeling it now after almost 12 consecutive days on the ice.

“I think it’s maybe lunging, you do that a lot when you’re sliding. You obviously got a wee bit of fatigue there,” he said after his GB team beat the ROC 8-6 in the men’s curling round robin on Wednesday.

“Body feels really good, mind as well. I’m in a really good head space. I feel like I’m playing really well.”

But Mouat says he’d happily keep playing the sport he loves for as long as possible.

“I love curling so if I get to do that for a month straight, then I’ll do it for a month straight.”

General view of the National Speed Skating Oval on Feb. 1.

The Winter Olympics are a global Games for athletes, but that’s also true of the people working behind the scenes at Beijing 2022.

Canadians Mark Peter Messer and Matthew James Messer are the men responsible for ice making at the National Speed Skating Oval.

Both worked on the ice in PyeongChang in 2018, and four years later they’ve been intent on providing record-breaking surfaces.

But, Mark – widely regarded as the finest ice-maker on the planet – believes that the ice in the National Speed Skating Oval is even faster than the one they made in South Korea, as evidenced by the fact a number of Olympic speed skating records have already been broken in Beijing.

“We have been very successful with our records,” he said during a press conference. “We have records in almost every distance. We’re getting very good feedback from the athletes and from the coaches that we have made a good surface for them to perform on.”

A process that began almost immediately after the last Winter Olympics, they have been working with a small team from Canada alongside local ice-makers in China to ensure the ice is maintained after the games.

Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

“As the pandemic started to hit, we started doing longer trips but less work, because we would do quarantining before and quarantining when we got back to Canada, so it created some challenges there, for sure,” said Mark.

“Some of the trips we would have done, we didn’t do because of the restrictions. So we did more work over Zoom calls and technology calls.

“We had some challenges, for sure. We did not have a lot of experience before the Games where we could learn. Usually, if you open a building, it takes you three or four or five years to really understand how everything works together.

“There are the effects of the air, the effects of the humidity, the lights, the people that come in. There are many factors that affect the quality of the ice and we did not have a big opportunity to learn that because with the pandemic that’s going on we did not have the opportunity to have the test events.

“We had some small test events, and we appreciated the people that came for those. We learned some small stuff, but most of the learning that we did we had to make as soon as the Olympic athletes came.”

As well as making the fastest circuit possible, both men have been tasked with making the National Speed Skating Oval as environmentally friendly as they could.

“The CO2 refrigeration that we are using here is very efficient, much more user-friendly as far as the environment (is concerned), and it’s definitely the way that things should be proceeding in the future,” said Mark.

“The HFC (hydroflourocarbons) refrigerants that are used in many of the older buildings will be slowly phased out and this will be the way that it happens in the next few years.

“We had to re-design a lot of the refrigeration so that we could incorporate the CO2 system into the building, which as I said before was a brilliant move. It’s been so successful having that system.

“That was something that took a little bit longer to design, but was well worth the effort.

“This technology is going to be used extensively moving forward. There’s a push to go to natural refrigeration, so C02, ammonia, are two of the main ones that of course we’ll get back to.”

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach reached out to US figure skaters Wednesday to discuss the ongoing situation concerning Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) skater Kamila Valieva and the postponed team event medal ceremony, United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) spokesperson Kate Hartman confirmed to CNN.

Team USA had won the silver medal at the team event on February 7, where the ROC took the gold as Valieva became the first woman to land a quad at the Winter Olympics.

The medal ceremony was subsequently postponed after a positive drugs test, now known to be Valieva’s, was returned by a member of the ROC figure skating team.

The IOC announced Monday that it would “not be appropriate” for the medal ceremony to take place at the Beijing Games until Valieva’s case had concluded.

Hartman told CNN that Bach’s meeting with US figure skaters lasted two hours, longer than expected, and the skaters said they found the meeting helpful.

Katherine Sauerbrey of Germany celebrates winning the gold medal during the women's cross-country team sprint classic final on Feb. 16. 

Germany pipped pre-race favorite Sweden and the Russian Olympic Committee to win gold in the women’s team sprint classic in a thrilling three-way finish down the home straight.

The tall figure of Victoria Carl burst past Sweden’s Jonna Sundling on the final corner and held her off by a mere 0.17 seconds, with the ROC’s Natalya Nepryayeva just 0.71 seconds behind.

Sweden looked certain to take the gold medal in the closing stages, but Carl impressively found another gear to claim Germany’s 10th gold medal of Beijing 2022.

Sweden's Elvira Oberg celebrates a she crosses the finish line to win the biathlon women's 4x6km relay event, on Wednesday.

Elvira Öberg takes in the cheers and applause from the Swedish contingent in the stands as she makes her way down the finishing straight.

It was a brilliant final leg from Öberg – holding off the challenge of the ROC’s Uliana Nigmatullina – on a bitterly cold afternoon in Zhangjiakou, where temperatures reportedly dropped to -14°C (6.8°F).

Öberg was mobbed as she crossed the finish line by her delighted teammates, sister Hannah – who she took the baton from for the final leg – Mona Brorsson and Linn Persson.

Germany finished just behind the ROC to take the bronze medal.

Italy appeared to be well placed around the halfway mark, but five penalty loops for missed targets in the shooting cost the team dearly.

Team Slovakia celebrates after winning the men's ice hockey quarterfinal match against Team USA on Wednesday.

Team USA were dumped out of the Beijing 2022 men’s ice hockey event on Wednesday, being stunned by Slovakia after a dramatic penalty shootout.

The US held a 2-1 lead late in the third period, but a goal by Slovakia’s Marek Hrivik tied the game with 43.7 seconds left in regulation.

After a goalless overtime, Peter Cehlarik’s penalty was the descive goal, with Slovakia goalie Patrik Rybar stopping all five of Team USA’s shots.

Team USA forward Sam Hentges lamented his side’s performance afterwards.

The combination of the last minute equalizer and the penalty shoot heartbreak was a tough pill to swallow for the Americans.

Steven Kampfer, Team USA’s defender, called the defeat “really tough.”

“It’s disappointing. We were the better team for a majority of the game. You just come up a little bit short.

“Going into these games we’ve got a great team and a chance to get a medal here.”

France's Clement Noel poses during the men's slalom victory ceremony on Wednesday.

France’s Clement Noel won the men’s slalom on Wednesday, with a combined time of 1:44.09. 

Noel became the third man from France to win Olympic gold in the slalom, and was cheered on from some keen supporters back home.

“They woke up really early to see me (on TV), to be behind me. I think they were really stressed, my girlfriend was more stressed than me. She couldn’t sleep.” 

It’s the 24-year-old’s first Olympic medal having narrowly missed out on a medal four years ago in PyeongChang.

Celebrating with his medal, Noel called it “one of the most important races in my career.”

“It’s not often that you are able to win a medal in the Olympic Games. It’s one shot – one minute and 40 seconds every four years,” he said.

“I knew that I was in shape. My races in January were not good but training here was really good, I was fast.

“This is the best I can do. I have no words to describe it. Olympic champion … wooh!”