Key events
Women’s Luge Doubles: Canada have a horrible near miss, nudging the left wall and nearly going completely over as the sled ricochets away. They sit in last place after the first run, with Italy, Germany and Austria in the top three places going into the second run later this evening.
Women’s Luge Doubles: Just nine hundreths of a second currently separate the top three duos – Italy, Germany and Austria -with three countries yet to luge.
Athletes steer via tiny movements in shoulder and calves, ooof the Slovaks bounce off a wall on their way down.
Women’s Luge doubles: Men have been competing in the doubles event since 1964, but this is the first time women have had the opportunity.
The two athletes lie on top of each other and hurtle down the icy tube at 70mph on a tiny sledge, with nothing to protect them other than a helmet. This is not an event I aspire to.
Each team has two runs, and Italy are leading after three countries have had had their first go.
Men’s ice hockey: the first men’s ice hockey goal of the Olympics puts Slovakia 1-0 up, thanks to six foot four Juraj Slafkovský, the 2022 Winter Olympics MVP. He does it with a little one- handed nudge into the net, and celebrates by pumping the air while sliding across the ice on one knee. The Slovaks in the crowd enjoy that very much.
Ice hockey: there’s a tasty gladiatorial feel to the Milan ice hockey rink, where the defending Olympic champions Finland are taking on 2022 bronze medallists Slovakia. Its high-speed, high-stakes chaos, like British Bulldog on ice. With sticks. Brutal. And 0-0 after the first period.
NHL players return to this Olympics for the first time since 2014, ensuring the best players in the world are on display.
We know that a lot of these extreme sport lunatics stars rely on their earphones for focus and relaxation, often to heavy metal and grime. GB’s Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson have chosen a more melodious tune for tonight’s ice dance final, performing to the Proclaimer’s (I’m Gonna Be) 500 miles.
A reminder that they currently lie fourth, going into the final discipline. If they do manage to pick up a medal, it will be Britain’s first in the ice dance for 34 years.
With four of today’s eight gold medals settled, a 15 minute break in the action.
Things restart with Slovakia and Finland’s Group B ice hockey game at 3.40pm, and then the Women’s and Men’s luge Doubles at 4pm. Then we’ve got speed skating starting at 5.30pm, curling at 6pm, ice dance and half pipe qualification at 6.30pm with Sweden v Italy closing the day’s events in the ice hockey at 8.10pm.
New Olympic champion Julia Simon cuts a somewhat colourful figure. She was found guilty of theft in October, racking up over £1000 worth of purchases on her team-mate’s credit card.
🥇Julia Simon wins her second gold, this time in the Biathlon
Women’s biathlon: apologies, I thought I was watching live Biathlon; I was not. Julia Simon has won her second gold of the games, with her sharp shooting and speedy last lap. Her countrywoman Lou Jeanmonnot comes in second, collapsing in a heap as she crosses the line, and Bulgaria’s Lora Hristova picks up a surprise bronze after shooting clean.
Spare a few minutes with today’s picture gallery, which captures the gravity-defying feats and human emotions of the athletes at the Milano-Cortina games.
Women’s 15km biathlon: Skiing and rifle shooting, the bacon and eggs of mountain activiites. It’s a former military sport that calls for supreme physical fitness, a steady hand and eye, and nerves of steel. Don’t get into a fight with these women.
It is also quite a confusing watch, as a conveyor belt of sharp shooters throw themselves onto the snow in the shooting range, fire off a hail of bullets, before hauling their rifles onto their backs and skiing off.
🥇Gold for Elizabeth Lemley in the Women’s Moguls
So it’s a surprise gold-silver for the USA, with Jaelin Kauf finishing in second, and 2018 champ Perrine Laffont of France in the bronze medal position. The defending champion Jakara Anthony slips off to lick her wounds.
No! Despair for Jakara Anthony, whose skis cross as she hurtles down the mountain, she stays upright but finishes in eighth. Victory goes to Olympic debutant Elizabeth Lemley.
Women’s Moguls: Tension! Afer a great run, Jaelin Kauf jumps into silver, but there is still one skier to go – and it’s the great Australian Jakara Antony.
Women’s Moguls: Japan’s Tomitaka Hinako looks good, but isn’t quick enough to steal the lead and she settles into bronze for now, with two to ski.
Women’s Moguls: eight qualified for the final, where competitors fizz down snow formed into a landscape of waves and do a gravity-defying trick off a mini slope. The USA’s Elizabeth Lemley is currently in the lead.
Thank you, Yara. The conditions in the mountains are rather less miserable than the persistent great grey drops falling outside my window. They’re about to go in the women’s Moguls final, but first an email, from a very happy Patrick Halladay.
“With Ryan Cochrane Siegle’s silver in the Super G, that is three skiing medals for Vermonters in about 24 hours! For context, Vermont has about 600,000 residents. Incidentally, all three medalists (RCS, along with Ben Ogden, and Paula Moltzan) skied on the University of Vermont ski team.”
Congratulations mighty Vermonters!
That is all from me today. But fear not, Tanya Aldred is back to steer you through the rest of the afternoon’s happenings.
Summary of the day so far
If you’re just joining us, here is what has happened on day five at Milano Cortina.
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Franjo Von Allmen became only the third male skier to win three gold medals at the same Winter Olympics after storming to victory in the men’s super-g in Bormio. The Swiss clocked a time of 1:25.32 in front of the silver medallist Ryan Cochrane-Siegel of the US, and Switzerland’s multiple World Cup champion Marco Odermatt.
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Von Allmen, who had already won the downhill and men’s combined titles, joins Austrian great Toni Sailer, who won three golds in Cortina in 1952, and Jean-Claude Killy, who repeated feat in Grenoble six years later.
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Von Allmen said: “For the moment I feel like I am dreaming. I hope I don’t wake up. I’m missing the words today. It’s completely surreal what’s going on today and the whole Olympics.”
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Jens Lurås Oftebrø recovered from a minor collision to win gold in the men’s Nordic combined individual normal hill/10km. The 25-year-old – who clinched team gold for Norway in the large hill event at Beijing 2022, as well as individual silver on the large hill – made a perfectly timed move with one lap remaining, breaking clear of the lead group and surging into the front.
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Johannes Lamparter clung to the charging Norwegian for as long as he could, but couldn’t match Oftebrø’s pace in the closing stretch and had to settle for silver. Finland’s Eero Hirvonen took bronze.
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Chloe Kim of the US got the drama over early in halfpipe qualifying, nailing her first run on the way to a top finish and a spot in the final where she will go for her third straight title.
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Kim showed no signs of rust in her first contest since injuring her shoulder four weeks ago. Her score of 90.25 in her first run was 2.5 better than Japan’s Sara Shimizu and 4.25 better than Kim’s American teammate, Maddie Mastro.
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The Chinese snowboarder Liu Jiayu took a scary fall in the halfpipe qualifying and had to be carried off on a stretcher after landing hard on her left arm and shoulder, slamming her face and stomach to the ground then bending backward and somersaulting through the bottom of the pipe.
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There was no immediate word from the Chinese team on Liu’s status. The fall, which came after the 33-year-old Liu caught an edge while landing her final jump, stopped action on the halfpipe for about 10 minutes while medical personnel attended to her.
Skating: Organisers said today they were happy with the quality of the short track ice after some competitors said it had been hard to navigate in the first races.
The Milano Ice Skating Arena is hosting short track and figure skating events, sometimes with both being staged on the same day. Italy took gold in the mixed short track relay yesterday, beating Canada into second place.
“The ice was pretty bad, honestly, but I feel like that’s always a little bit of the case when we share the ice with figure skating,” said William Dandjinou, part of the Canadian team. “You just got to adapt, and that’s what we did.”
Short track requires thinner, more resistant ice, while figure skating is performed on a slightly thicker surface, meaning work is needed between events to tailor the surface in the appropriate way.
Luca Casassa, a spokesman for Milano Cortina, said he was aware of only a few speed skaters raising issues. “What I can guarantee you is that the ice master measures the temperature of the ice and monitors the quality of the ice constantly during competitions,” he said. “We are honestly getting compliments for the quality of the surfaces.”
Short track and figure skating were also held under the same roof in Beijing in 2022.
The Dutchman Jens van ’t Wout raised the issue at the end of the mixed relay where the Netherlands failed to qualify for the medals final after Xandra Velzeboer fell. “I was having a bit of blade troubles myself. The ice is really tricky here right now,” he said.
The Dutch team set an Olympic record in the B final, scant consolation for missing out on a medal.
The Italian Pietro Sighel, part of the winning Italian team, was understandably more sanguine about conditions. “The ice was difficult today, and we were among the best at interpreting it,” he said.
Freestyle skiing: Jaelin Kauf of the United States takes the lead halfway through the first run of the women’s moguls finals with a score of 80.13.
The American had a rocky start that saw her miss the first day of qualifiers and needed to secure her place in the finals in the second qualification round.
Favourite Charlotte Wilson of Australia is in third with a score of 78.38, with Japan’s Hinako Tomitaka in second with 79.42.
Biathlon: The women’s 15km individual is also underway. The three medallists from Beijing 2022 have retired so we will see a new top three in this event. Lou Jeanmonnot and Justine Braisaz-Bouchet of France are favourites but Sweden’s Hanna Öberg (Olympic gold medallist in PyeongChang 2018), Elvira Öberg and Anna Magnusson are all contenders.
Freestyle skiing: The women’s moguls finals has just begun. This is the event to watch if you have been patiently waiting for Australia’s first medal. The defending champion, Jakara Anthony, topped qualifying round 1 and Charlotte Wilson topped qualifying round 2. The two Aussies will face some stiff competition from the Americans though.
Curling: Great Britain’s men’s team carry the weight of the favourites tag, but Bruce Mouat turned the heat back on their opponents, saying that pressure cuts both ways.
The silver medallists from Beijing had a stellar 2024-25 season in which they became the first rink to win four Grand Slams in one campaign and captured the 2025 world championships.
They followed that up by winning two more Grand Slam events in the lead-up to the Games as well as all nine of their round-robin matches at the European Curling Championships in November before losing to Olympic gold medallists Sweden in the semi-finals.
Asked if their performances had left them with a target on their backs, Mouat said: “Yeah, probably. We have been world number one for over a year now. But we see that pressure as a good thing. A lot of teams know that they have to play well to beat us. And that puts a lot of that pressure on the other teams.”
The 31-year-old will be looking to put his disappointing fourth-placed finish in the mixed doubles competition alongside Jennifer Dodds in the rear-view mirror when he takes to the ice with his men’s team.
“It’s nice to be back with the guys. They have obviously been training without me for the last week, so yeah, it was nice to get back on the ice with them and the practice was good there.”
Britain begin their campaign with a round-robin clash against China at 6.05pm GMT.
🥇Oftebro wins in nordic combined to claim Norway’s seventh gold
Jens Lurås Oftebro opens up a gap on the downhill and here he comes … the best cross-country skiier in the world takes Olympic gold for Norway with a time of 29:59.4. Johannes Lamparter takes silver for Austria and Eero Hirvonen of Finland takes the bronze. The top three collapse after the finish line which shows you just how much this race takes out of you.
Nordic combined: It’s Norway v Austria. Oftebro leads but Johannes Lamparter is right on his tail. Is he going to wait until the final moments to make his move?
Nordic combined: Oh no! Norway’s Jens Lurås Oftebro and Finland’s Eero Hirvonen get their skis and poles taggled on an uphill. Both manage to stay on their feet, and are able to keep going. There are still seven athletes fighting for that gold and there goes the bell for the final lap.
Nordic combined: The front is all packed together at the start of the third lap, and they are all closing in on Ilves, with his lead now cut to about 0.8sec. There are seven athletes in contention for gold.
Nordic combined: Ilves remains in the lead after the first lap. The athletes will complete four 2.5km laps today and the Estonian holds a 23sec lead over a nine athlete chase pack.
Skeleton: The International Olympic Committee has pleaded with the Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych to compete without his banned helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed in the war against Russia and avoid a potential disqualification.
The IOC banned the helmet yesterday for any competition at the Olympics, saying it violated rules on political statements at the Games, drawing the ire of Ukrainian politicians. The 27-year-old, who has been training for days in Italy, including today, with the helmet showing 24 images of dead Ukrainian athletes, has said he will wear it in competition on Thursday. He is free to wear it in training at the Cortina sliding centre but not in competition.
“We would beg him ‘we want you to compete’,” an IOC spokesman said. “We will contact the athlete today and we will reiterate the many, many opportunities he has to express his grief. We want him to express his grief.”
Asked today if it was this helmet or nothing, Heraskevych said: “Yes.”
Athletes can freely express themselves in press conferences, social media and interviews during the Games but they cannot make any political statements on the field of play or the medals podiums. The IOC told Heraskevych yesterday he could wear a black armband instead.
“We really, really want him to have his moment,” the spokesman said, adding that with dozens of armed conflicts around the world it would be impossible to allow political statements in the venues.
“It is what the athletes want. That specific moment on the field of play to be free from any distraction. It is not the message, it is the place that counts.
“For us and the athletes the field of play is sacrosanct. These people have dedicated their whole lives for this moment,” he said.
The IOC said they would look for ways from now until tomorrow to convince the athlete, including having other athletes talk to him.
Tomorrow, all athletes, including Heraskevych, will have to go through a material check prior to entering the ice canal for the competition. If he insists on wearing the helmet, the IOC would have to remove him from the competition.
