Photo Credit: AP
Canada beat the United States 7-6 in the Olympic women’s curling tournament and moved ahead of the Americans in the race for the four-team playoff.
Jennifer Jones’ Canadian foursome (4-3) took the lead with back-to-back two-point ends in the second and third. The Americans tied it with two in the eighth and a steal of one in the ninth when Jones missed a takeout with the last stone and slammed her broom to the ice in frustration.
Canada retained the last-rock advantage in the 10th and final end, though, and delivered an easy draw to win it.
The Americans (4-4) could still qualify for the semifinals with five wins, if they beat Japan on Wednesday night and get some help.
Johannes Strolz of Austria is leading the first run of the men’s slalom with only lower-ranked skiers remaining as he bids for a second gold medal at the Beijing Games.
Strolz will take a 0.02 second advantage over Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway into the second run. World champion Sebastian Foss-Solevaag of Norway is third, 0.06 behind.
The 29-year-old Strolz won the Alpine combined on Thursday in his first ever Olympic race. Before a win in Adelboden, Switzerland, last month, he had a career-best finish of 10th in more than eight years of World Cup racing and was dropped from the powerhouse Austrian team at the end of last season.
There have been six different winners in six World Cup slaloms this season.
Lucas Braathen leads the discipline standings but he straddled a gate and is out of the race. Another pre-race favorite, Manuel Feller, did the same.
Freestyler skier Alex Hall led a 1-2 American finish in the men’s Olympic slopestyle competition with a trick on his first run where he completely stopped his rotation mid-air and went the other direction.
Hall’s opening run earned a score of 90.01 and it stood up throughout the competition. His teammate Nick Goepper turned in a creative run on his second pass to earn silver. Jesper Tjader of Sweden took home bronze.
The Americans have now earned six of nine Olympic medals since the event made its debut in 2014. Goepper has three of them, including silver from the 2018 Pyeongchang Games and bronze from the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
