BEIJING — The Latest on the Beijing Winter Olympics:
China has won its first gold of the Beijing Games, emerging victorious in the mixed team relay at short track speedskating in the event’s Olympic debut.
Wu Dajing edged Italy’s Pietro Sighel by .016 seconds. That’s half a skate blade. Hungary earned bronze Saturday night.
Qu Chunyu, Fan Kexin and Ren Ziwei joined Wu for the historic victory. The small number of Chinese fans at Capital Indoor Arena cheered and waved tiny flags.
The results were delayed while the referee reviewed the race. Canada was penalized for pushing from behind and causing contact with Hungary.
China was the favorite coming in, having led the World Cup standings this season.
Italy remained undefeated in mixed doubles curling at the Beijing Olympics with a 7-5 victory against Britain while defending gold medalist John Morris of Canada and his new partner, Rachel Homan, beat Chris Plys and Vicky Persinger 7-2 to snap the Americans’ win streak at two games.
Italy’s Amos Mosaner and Stefania Constantini beat the British pair of Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds to improve to 6-0 in the round robin competition in the 10-team field. Britain dropped to 4-2.
Morris and Homan scored a 3-end in the seventh to clinch their game against Plys and Persinger. The Canadians improved to 4-2 while the Americans dropped to 3-3.
The top four teams move into the semifinals on Monday and the medals will be decided on Tuesday.
Walter Wallberg of Sweden has dethroned the so-called King of Moguls to take home the gold in the freestyle skiing men’s moguls.
The Swede looked almost in shock when his score of 83.23 flashed on the scoreboard, edging that of defending Olympic champion Mikael Kingsbury of Canada late Saturday night. Wallberg picked up points for his speed over the smooth and technical skiing style of Kingsbury, who ended up with silver.
Ikuma Horishima of Japan took home the bronze.
Wallberg’s surprise victory interrupts the men’s moguls dominance of Team Canada, which had won the event in the last three Winter Games. This was his first major win. The 21-year-old has never even won a World Cup event.
Slovenia’s Ursa Bogataj has taken Olympic gold in women’s ski jumping, floating 100 meters (328 feet) with 121 points on the final jump.
Katharina Althaus of Germany won silver for the second straight Olympics and Bogataj’s fellow Slovenian Nika Kriznar took bronze. Japan’s Sara Takanashi had entered as one of the favorites, but finished fourth.
Takanashi had won a record 61 World Cup events and earned bronze four years ago in South Korea. 2018′s gold medalist, Maren Lundby, did not participate this year. The top-ranked women in World Cup standings, Austrian Marita Kramer, could not compete after testing positive for COVID-19.
This was the third time women had jumped for gold in the Winter Olympics.
The final round of women’s ski jumping was delayed by 15 minutes, giving the athletes a brief break after the first round took more time than expected.
Germany’s Katharina Althaus jumped 105.5 meters (346 feet) had 121.1 points in the first round. Althaus won silver at the 2018 Olympics and was aiming to hold off a trio of Slovenians: Ursa Bogataj, Nika Kriznar and Ema Klinec.
Japan’s Sara Takanashi, the bronze medalist four years ago, was fifth after the first round.
Norway has won gold in the biathlon mixed relay, beating France and the Russian team in the first biathlon event of the Beijing Olympics.
Johannes Thingnes Boe of Norway, Quentin Fillon Maillet of France and Eduard Latypov of the Russian team left the range close together after the last round of shooting and raced for position until the final stretch, when Boe sprinted for the win.
Norway, which came into the relay as the World Cup leader, also got strong performances from Marte Olsbu Roeiseland and Tarjei Boe. But they trailed early in the race when Tiril Eckhoff struggled.
Fillon Maillet was joined on the French team by Emilien Jacquelin, Julia Simon and Anais Chevalier-Bouchet. The Russian team of Uliana Nigmatullina, Kristina Reztsova, Alexander Loginov and Latypov were leading after the last hand-off, but France and Norway caught them on the range.
