Day 15 of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

American bobsledders Elana Meyers Taylor, left, and Sylvia Hoffman pose with their medals during the flower ceremony for the two-woman event on February 19.

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:

“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.

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.

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 skating duo Sui Wenjing and Han Cong pose during the medal ceremony following the pairs free skating event on February 19.

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.

Read more about the initiative here.

Team USA figure skaters pose for photos during the flower ceremony for the team event on February 7.

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 Huang Yu-Ting reacts after skating in the 1,000m speed skating event on February 17.

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.  

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.

Team Sweden celebrates their win in the men's curling final match between Britain and Sweden on Saturday.

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.

Gold medallist Eileen Gu after receiving her medal for the women's freeski halfpipe on Friday in Beijing.

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.

“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.”

Team ROC's Alexander Bolshunov celebrates during the flower ceremony for men's 30km cross-country skiing mass start race on Saturday.

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.

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

Belgium's Bart Swings celebrates after winning gold in speed skating on Saturday, finishing first in the men's mass start final.

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 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.

A course worker removes gate flags after the alpine skiing mixed team event was postponed due to poor weather conditions on Saturday.

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.

Australia's chef de mission Geoff Lipshut attends a press conference in Beijing on Feb. 2.

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.

A course technician removes flags from the alpine skiing course due to strong winds on Saturday.

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

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

A worker disinfects the ice rink after the women's gold-medal hockey game on Thursday.

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's Nico Porteous performs a trick during the freestyle skiing halfpipe final on Saturday.

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.