Key events
Was Graham Poll reffing?
“There’s going to be a national inquiry in Canada as to how this was missed.” 😬
Czech Republic scored with an extra player on the ice which went unnoticed by the entire Canada side! pic.twitter.com/Rb80VBJ0Wm
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) February 19, 2026
Following a goal, the scored-against team has 45 seconds to appeal.
Right, we’re back under way in the women’s hockey, Switzerland 0-0 Sweden at the start of the second.
And what’s this?! GB have a chance to make two – though not in the way I suggested, “excellent jiujitsu” and all that. They slide a stone on to the button, and that’s 3-1.
Back with USA – tangentially, last week I learnt that the USA USA USA chant was born at Lake Placid in 1980, during the Miracle on Ice happened – they now lead Switzerland 2-1 playing the fifth, but the Swiss have the hammer.
(When a mate and I were getting into MMA, we’d find ourselves gobbing off to each other like we knew what we talking about. From there, we found ourselves saying “excellent jiujitsu” every time one of us – or anyone else – was, in our opinion talking ill-informed nonsense about any topic.)
Italy have equalised in the curling, but GB have the hammer and Sophie Sinclair has a chance to knock one yellow into another, in the house. She gets close but not close enough, though there’s a red guard just outside the house that might work to grabbing a two later in the end.
“A tweak to Nordic combined, says Eivind Krog, “should be that the athletes had to choose one pair of skis to use for both events (ski jump and cross-country), i.e. either ski jump-skis or cross-country skis. This would bring in a new tactical element, and would make for a great viewing. Do you opt for a really good head start on the cross-country part, but with 2.5 m long skis, or do you risk your life with chopsticks in the ski-jump hill in order to go fast in the second part of the race?”
I’ve swallowed my insides merely thinking about either.
Great news: my wife has gone to the office meaning a) I’ve whacked the heating off, *knee slide*, and b) I’ve retrieved my laptop so now have Switzerland v USA on that in the women’s curling …. and it’s now 1-1 after three. This is going be tight.
Biggup Yara and hold tight all. GB lead Italy 1-0 playing the third, but USA, who GB need to lose, are up 1-0 on second-placed Switzerland. In the women’s hockey bronze-medal tussle, it’s Switzerland 0-0 Sweden with two minutes left in the first.
Another email on ski mountaineering tweaks, this one from Dan:
Re the email about the diamonds: Skimo is great. I think the diamonds are to test the ability to ski across the gradient as well as up. But the competition should really go the full Jeux sans frontières. How about some additional tasks at the top? Transferring water from one tub to another, or aiming sponges at a dummy. Ho ho ho, in a Stuart Hall voice. Switzerland have played their Joker.
Keep the ideas coming. In fact, what tweaks would you make to any Winter Olympic sport? Send them over to Daniel, who is back to take you through the rest of the afternoon.
Curling: Great Britain opt to blank the first end against Italy in a must-win game, with the thinking that they can keep the hammer for another end. A semi-final spot is on the line.
An email from Chris on the ski mountaineering, which was such a thrill:
What’s with the “diamonds” in the uphill section of Ski Mountaineering – isn’t skiing uphill hard enough already? And couldn’t they make the downhill more tasty by making the competitors somersault off the jump?
Maybe for 2030 in the French Alps? Somersault off the jump and then cartwheel across the finish line.
🥇 Norway win nordic combined team sprint
Norway’s Jens Lurås Oftebro crosses the finish line first with a time of 41:18.0 in gruelling, snowy conditions. He has a hat-trick of gold medals at Milano Cortina, and what a way to nab the third – coming back after a mistake and stumble early on. He celebrates with his Norway teammates as Finland win silver (+0.5sec) and Austria claim bronze (+22.3sec).
Nordic combined: Finland are now in the lead, with Eero Hirvonen battling against Norway’s Jens Lurås Oftebro. Austria’s Johannes Lamparter is targeting bronze.
Ice hockey: the women’s bronze medal match has just begun. Sweden, who shocked Czech Republic in the quarter-finals are taking on Switzerland.
Nordic combined: The second phase of the team sprint competition, the cross-country skiing, is under way. Germany started with a 13sec advantage over Norway, and a 21sec advantage over Japan.
Norway are the big movers early on. Germany holds the lead, but it’s shrunk demonstrably by about 4sec at the second exchange. Meanwhile, Austria has caught up to Finland and Japan.
🥇Cardona Coll of Spain wins ski mountaineering gold in the men’s sprint
The Swiss duo surge ahead but the Spaniards are right on their tails but Jon Kistler loses his footing on the diamonds and trips. Oriol Cardona Coll of Spain is the first on the steps and the oldest man in the race maintains his lead all the way to the end! The world champion becomes the Olympic champion!
Russia’s Nikita Filippov wins silver, making it the first medal at the Milano Cortina Games for individual neutral athletes. Thibault Anselmet, who was last to arrive at the diamonds, somehow wins bronze!
Ski mountaineering: Men’s final coming up. Can Switzerland do the double with either of Arno Lietha or Jon Kistler winning gold. Here we go …
🥇Fatton of Switzerland wins first ever Olympic ski mountaineering gold
Marianne Fatton manages to bypass Emily Harrop as the Frenchwoman loses some time in a transition. She collapses in a bank of snow – she can’t quite believe it! Harrop wins silver and Spain’s Ana Alonso Rodriguez takes bronze.
Ski mountaineering: The women’s final is underway, with Emily Harrop as the favourite. The Frenchwoman will be defending her world No 2 ranking in the women’s sprint from last year.
Curling: the afternoon sessions have been delayed by about 25 minutes. The snow in Cortina is coming down quite heavily which has delayed some of the curlers coming into the arena. Team GB have just arrived. Italy and Canada are the only other teams still in the building.
Meanwhile, Fabiana gets in touch:
Just wanted to share with you, on the topic of how much people are taken by curling these days, that in a small town near where I grew up they invented a version of curling called “curling bisiac” (from the name of the area) for which they use “modified” pressure cookers instead of the stones (cause they were too expensive).
They started in 2013 and now they organise a yearly tournament with up to 800 players; they even trademarked the name and rules (some are from curling, some from bocce and some made up by them).
Ski mountaineering: The snow is coming down quite heavy now before the second semi-final unfolds. Will this be a repeat of the first semi-final? The Swiss and the Spaniard are in front, with Arno Lietha and Ot Ferrer Martinez in joint first position. But oh no, bad transition from Ferrer Martinez! Lietha and Nikita Filippov (competing as a neutral) cross the finish line first and book an automatic spot in the final. Ferrer Martinez has done just enough to sneak in alongside Thibault Anselmet.
Ski mountaineering: First men’s semi-final, here we go! Jan Kistler of Switzerland is at the front with Oriol Cardona Coll of Spain on his tails. Those two make the final and now Thibault Anselmet of France must wait to see if he can sneak in as a lucky loser. There was a power cut midway through which meant fans watching missed some of the racing after the big screen went out.
Ski mountaineering: Before we get to the men’s semi-final, here is a bit of history about this sport that is making its Olympic debut. Not only does skimo’s history trace back hundreds of years to Alpine military training, it also has a lot of rich history specific to its Olympic host location.
“It’s kind of where ski mountaineering racing came to life,” Michela Martinelli, the sport manager of ski mountaineering for Milano Cortina, said of the Alpine region surrounding Bormio, which boasts many successful skimo athletes and a leading ski manufacturer for the sport.
Skimo evolved largely in the 1980s when recreational races started to appear, its first world championships being held in 2002 in Serre Chevalier, France. In 2022 it was adopted into the Youth Olympic Games before being added for Milano Cortina.
Two of the competing Italian athletes, Giulia Murada and Michele Boscacci, are from the surrounding region and both have their fathers helping to prepare the Olympic course. Their fathers, Ivan Murada and Graziano Boscacci, are themselves decorated ski mountaineers. Together they won the team race at the first ever world championship, playing a large part in Italy’s success in the sport.
Ski mountaineering: Margot Ravinel of France wins the second semi-final and Tatjana Paller of Germany is in second. They will be joined by lucky losers Giulia Murada of Italy and Ana Alonso Rodriguez of Spain in the final.
Thanks Daniel and hello all. Emily Harrop of France and Marianne Fatton of Switzerland have qualified for the skimo final from the first semi.
Righto, I’m off for a little break. Here’s Yara to croon you through the next bit – and it should be a jazzer.
Harrop still leads, and she’s going to win; Alonso Rodriguez can’t catch Fatton, but she might qualify as a fastest loser; her time of 3:09.19 will need bettering by two others to keep her out
“A little note about the Italian national anthem, which you mentioned on Tuesday.,” says Licia. “Its official name is indeed ‘Il Canto degli Italiani’, but it is not the name Italians would use. We call it ‘l’inno di Mameli’ and previously it was also commonly referred to as ‘Fratelli d’Italia – that is, before the name was hijacked by Giorgia Meloni for her own party. I suspect that if you asked random Italians to sing ‘il Canto degli Italiani’, without specifying, most would answer they are not familiar with it!”
I love stuff like this, thanks a lot.
Harrop of France leads, from Fatton of Switzerland, from Alonso Rodriguez of Spain; two go through into the final.
Email! “Not only is Spain a hotbed of ski mountaineering,” writes Meg Cartwright, “but I learnt from Australian Olympic statistician Andrew Hawkins that they are very likely to win gold in the event – and it would be the first gold that Spain has won at the Winter Olympics since 1972 in Sapporo! And that was a shock win in the men’s slalom. In fact, it remains their only gold. So history coming up!”
Here we go!
Well, mates, it was tough but we made it: an hour and 10 without live sport, over in 60, 59, 58….
Coming up next: at 11.55, we’ve the semis of the women’s sprint skimo; the men’s follows at 12.25, then the finals at 12.55 and 1.15 respectively.
In between times, the cross-country aspect of the men’s team sprint, large hill, Nordic combined, gets going at 1pm, with GB taking on Italy in the women’s curling at 1.05pm; they need to win, and need Switzerland to sort out USA.
Then, at 1.40pm, Sweden meet Switzerland in the bronze-medal match of the women’s ice hockey, and at 3.30pm, we’ve the medal race in the men’s 1500m speed skating.
Ouch.
Not directly related to the Winter Olympics but, as we know, everything is everything – and it’s always worth reading Thomas Hauser.
Live sport!
Back to Chen Meiting, I might’ve picked this one.
A banger I found looking for that last photo. Spinks became the only man to take the world title away from Ali in the ring – his other losses came in non-title bouts or as the challenger.
What on earth?!
Photograph: David Davies/PA
Yessssss.
Alreet, we’re bereft of action until the semis of the women’s sprint ski mountaineering at 11.55; unfortunately, a heavy snurr-storm means the final of the men’s aerials and quallies of the men’s halfpipe have been postponed until tomorrow. So we’ll chat over what we’ve seen and what’s to come, then get right back involved.
Here comes Norway’s final shot, they ram stones away and is there a chance for Canada to score two with their final shot? There is not, so the teams shake hands with Norway winnings 8-6; the teams will meet again at 6.05pm, with Switzerland taking on GB.
Canada call a timeout for a blather, working out what they might do to set up their final shot, the last of the match. If they can clip off one stone and career across the house, they’ll have a chance of a two … but they go way too hard, catch it full in the face, and Norway are nearly there.
