Olympics

With its 3-2 gold-medal win over the USA on Thursday at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Canada reclaimed bragging rights as the top dog in women's hockey.

It's the fifth gold for the Canadians since women's hockey became an Olympic sport in 1998, and the sixth time that Canada and the U.S. played in the gold-medal game (Sweden eliminated Team USA in the 2006 semifinal in Turin and then went on to win silver).

Some have said the talent gap between the two North American nations and the rest of the competition is too great to justify keeping women's hockey as an Olympic sport. But similar imbalances exist in other events—the U.S. dominates basketball on both the men's and women's sides, China is virtually unbeatable at table tennis and Norway is a consistent force in Nordic sports such as cross-country skiing and biathlon.

And the global women's hockey landscape is changing for the better—perhaps not as quickly as it could, but certainly despite a boatload of challenges.

And it's not like Thursday's result was preordained. The 2022 Canadian squad will go down as one of the greatest of all time, but getting to gold took plenty of blood, sweat and tears. Meanwhile, the American team was diminished over the last four years by the retirement of a number of key players, including captain Meghan Duggan and the Lamoureux twins, Monique and Jocelyne, who delivered the big goals that led to gold in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018.

Now, the U.S. has work to do if it wants to get back onto level ground with Canada.

Signs of Growth

As a sport, women's hockey is still in its infancy. Many of today's American players grew up idolizing the trailblazing 1998 U.S. team that won gold in Nagano, Japan. Hilary Knight wears No. 21 in honor of that group's captain, Cammi Granato.

And while men's enrollment in USA Hockey programs had leveled off even before the pandemic wreaked havoc on the sports world, the U.S. women's game was still growing. Around the globe, the pattern is similar. From 2007 to 2018, the number of female players registered with the International Ice Hockey Federation grew by more than 33 percent.

This year, the Olympic women's hockey field expanded from eight teams to 10. The IIHF has talked about raising that number to 12, to match the men's tournament.

And did the Czechs ever take advantage of their opportunity! After climbing from ninth to seventh in the IIHF world rankings from 2016 to 2020, they punched their first ticket to the Olympics through a four-team qualifying tournament last November.

They finished second in Group B with a 2-0-1-1 record. Then, in their knockout quarterfinal game against Team USA, they scored first and made it to the end of the second period in a 1-1 tie before eventually falling 4-1. It was a stunning display despite the final margin, which bodes well for the future of their program.

Fighting for Dominance

 
While the U.S. women must start analyzing how they can work their way back to the top of the podium, that's the exercise Canada had been going through since Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson's shootout dagger forced it to settle for silver in Pyeongchang.

The Canadians were on shaky ground at that point. Though they had maintained Olympic superiority before those Games, they hadn't won a standalone World Championship since 2012. 

Then, it got worse. At the 2019 Worlds, they were ousted in the semifinal for the first time in history and forced to settle for bronze while the hosts from Finland came within a controversial video review call of going on to upset the U.S. and steal gold. 

Recognizing the need for change, the Canadian brain trust replaced head coach Perry Pearn with his associate coach, Troy Ryan, in January 2020. They went on to make other tweaks to their roster construction and preparation process.

Pandemic Paralysis 

Then, COVID-19 changed everything, all but eliminating the players' already scarce opportunities to test themselves in high-end competition.

The Women's World Championship scheduled for April 2020 was one of the first major sporting events to be canceled. The 2021 edition was also initially scrubbed before being mounted in Calgary last August.

Smaller events such as the Four Nations Cup were also put on ice. At the youth level, the last two women's U18 tournaments were canceled, throttling a crucial development pipeline for the best prospects in the world.

Those cancellations created big hurdles for the top-ranked Canadian and U.S. teams. The situation was even more difficult for the lower-ranked nations, many of which work tirelessly to secure enough funding and support from their national federations and sponsors to cover the bare necessities.

The IIHF announced Thursday that it plans to hold the 2022 Under-18 tournament in the United States this summer.

The IIHF announced the Men's World Juniors and Women's U18 tournaments will be played over the summer  pic.twitter.com/13uL59aRiq

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) February 17, 2022

With any luck, that announcement will signal a turning point back to a positive growth cycle for women's hockey, with players striving to establish a sustainable professional league that pays a living wage and provides them with the health care and other support they need.

The time to strike is now, when fan interest is at an all-time high following another Olympic show of excellence from the world's best players.

As for whether women's hockey belongs at the Games, Granato has no time for that argument.

"To me, it's just noise, something we've heard all our lives," said the Hockey Hall of Famer, who continued to help pave the way for women in the sport when she signed on last week as the second female assistant general manager of the Vancouver Canucks, joining former player agent Emilie Castonguay.

"It's just what people say. You're always going to get people complaining about something."

Sakari Manninen's first-period goal, Harri Pesonen's empty-netter and Harri Sateri's 28-save shutout propelled the Finland men's national hockey team to a 2-0 win over Slovakia in the semifinals at the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Finland will now advance to the gold-medal game, where it will face the winner of the semifinal between the Russian Olympic Committee and Sweden.

Manninen scored at 15:56 in the first off assists from Petteri Lindbohm and Sami Vatanen, giving him four goals against Slovakia in these Olympics.

The 30-year-old forward netted a hat trick in a 6-2 win over Slovakia in group play.

He's also been good otherwise, adding a pair of assists in a 4-3 comeback win over Sweden to close group play and contributing another helper in Finland's 5-1 quarterfinal victory against Switzerland.

Finland appeared primed to go up 2-0 in the second period after going on a five-on-three power play for 73 seconds. Peter Ceresnak committed a tripping penalty 8:35 into the frame, and Pavol Regenda went to the box for the same infraction at 9:22.

However, Slovakia's penalty kill persevered and kept the score 1-0 heading into the final intermission.

Finland went on the power play again in the third period after Slovakia's third tripping penalty. Kristian Pospisil went to the box at 1:21, but the Finns could not take advantage.

Slovakia ramped up the pressure in the latter portion of the third period and pulled goaltender Patrik Rybar, who had 25 saves, for an extra skater with under two minutes remaining.

But Pesonen iced the game with a tap-in empty-net goal at 19:21.

Finland entered this matchup with an undefeated 4-0 record and an 18-7 goal differential. In addition to its aforementioned matchups, Finland also took down Latvia 3-1 in group play.

Slovakia scratched and clawed its way to the semifinals. It opened group play with the 6-2 loss to Sweden before falling 4-1 to Sweden. Slovakia rebounded with a 5-2 group-play win over Latvia and then entered the playoff round, where it took down Germany 4-0.

The undefeated United States team was up next in the quarterfinals, but Slovakia won 3-2 after a shootout.

The gold-medal matchup will occur on Saturday at 11:10 p.m. ET (Sunday at 12:10 p.m. CST).

Finland is fighting for its first-ever Olympic gold medal in hockey. It made the gold-medal game once before in 2006, but Sweden defeated the Finns 3-2.

Slovakia will play the loser of the ROC-Sweden matchup in the bronze-medal game at 8:10 a.m. ET Saturday (9:10 p.m. CST).

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach criticized Russian Olympic Committee coaches for their "tremendous coldness" following the free skate at the women's figure skating competition at the 2022 Beijing Games on Thursday.

"When I afterwards saw how she was received by her closest entourage, with such, what appeared to be a tremendous coldness, it was chilling to see this," Bach said at a news conference, per James Ellingworth of the Associated Press.

"Rather than giving her comfort, rather than to try to help her, you could feel this chilling atmosphere, this distance."

While Bach didn't mention anyone by name, Russian figure skating coach Eteri Tutberidze's conduct appeared to be a target.

"Why did you let it go? Why did you stop fighting?" Tutberidze asked Kamila Valieva after a free skate that saw her drop from first after the short program to fourth overall.

"Explain it to me," she continued. "Why? You let it go after that axel. Why?"

The 15-year-old Valieva, who tested positive for the heart medication trimetazidine, was allowed to compete in the free skate despite the test result. A full investigation is pending.

Bach acknowledged the fact, though, that the people responsible for giving her the drug are ultimately responsible (h/t James Toney of Sportsbeat).

"There is a 15-year old girl with a drug in her body that shouldn't be there," Bach said. "The ones that administered it to her, these are the people that are guilty."

The gold medal Valieva won alongside the rest of Russian Olympic Committee in the team event is subject to be taken away pending the investigation. If Valieva medaled Thursday, there would not have been an Olympic ceremony.

Naturally, emotions were high, and it resulted in tense and dramatic moments, specifically for the Russian Olympic Committee skaters.

The Russian Olympic Committee still took gold and silver, with Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova earning those honors.

"I still don’t comprehend what has happened," Shcherbakova said. "On the one hand I feel happy, on the other I feel this emptiness inside."

Trusova was heard saying "I hate this sport" and that she would not "go onto the ice again.”

Ellingworth also relayed a reported "fractious relationship" with her coach:

Of the three teenagers, Trusova has had the most fractious relationship with Tutberidze. She switched coaches briefly, returning to the Tutberidze camp in May of last year. And her music selection seemed to send a message. She danced her long program to 'Cruella' from the movie soundtrack.

Tutberidze coaches at the Moscow skating school Sambo-70. Reports of abusive training methods have come under the spotlight, with Rita Wenxin Wang of Slate providing information:

Tutberidze has come to be regarded as the world’s leading expert in creating figure skating champions. Her methods are no secret. The Eteri girls talk openly about not being able to drink water during competitions. They do their best to delay puberty by eating only 'powdered nutrients' or by taking Lupron, a puberty blocker known to induce menopause. They are subjected to daily public weigh-ins and verbal and physical abuse. And they compete while injured, huffing 'smelling salts' while wearing knee braces and collapsing in pain after programs.

Every year, a new, younger Eteri girl emerges on the scene while others retire, at age 17, 16, or even 14. Skating fans call this the 'Eteri Expiration Date.'

Other reports can be found via Dvora Meyers of FiveThirtyEight, Louise Radnofsky and Georgi Kantchev of the Wall Street Journal and more.

The spotlight will only shine brighter after Bach's comments.

Eileen Gu won gold at the women's freeski halfpipe on Friday at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Gu won China's eighth gold medal and 14th overall at the Beijing Games. Canada won the silver and bronze, with Cassie Sharpe and Rachael Karker taking those medals, respectively. Sharpe was the gold medalist in this event at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Twelve skiers had three runs to post their top result, which served as their best score. Gu was the only competitor to score 91 or more points, and she did so twice.

Here's a look at the final results alongside some notes and highlights.

Results

1. Eileen Gu (China): 95.25

2. Cassie Sharpe (Canada): 90.75

3. Rachael Karker (Canada): 87.75

4. Kelly Sildaru (Estonia): 87.00

5. Fanghui Li (China): 86.50

6. Hanna Faulhaber (United States): 85.25

7. Kexin Zhang (China): 78.75

8. Amy Fraser (Canada): 75.25

9. Zoe Atkin (Great Britain): 73.25

10. Brita Sigourney (United States): 70.75

11. Carly Margulies (United States): 61.00

12. Sabrina Cakmakli (Germany): 54.00

Source: olympics.com

Notes and Highlights

Gu would have set the gold standard after her first run, which resulted in 93.25 points. 

However, she eclipsed her phenomenal run the second time around:

Gu, who already won gold in big air and silver at slopestyle in this Olympics, made history with her third medal in these Games.

Sharpe was excellent in her own right, landing back-to-back 1080s on her second run. Her third run ended up being her best (90.75), and she posted 89 or more points each time.

Four skiers finished within two-and-a-half points for third. Karker's first run ended up placing her on the podium.

Olympic figure skating has been embroiled in controversy ahead of the sport's final two events of the Games, pairs short program and pairs free skate.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that Kamila Valieva of the Russian Olympic Committee was allowed to compete in the women's free skate on Thursday even though it was reported after the team event that she had tested positive for a banned substance.

The 15-year-old's legal team has said that the positive test was "caused by a mix-up with her grandfather's heart medication," per Iain Axon, Karolos Grohmann and Joseph Campbell of Reuters.

Shockingly, Valieva finished off the podium, in fourth. 

The United States' last best chance of making the podium was in the women's free skate with 16-year-old Alysa Liu, the youngest American athlete at the 2022 Games. However, Team USA is not favored to make the podium in the upcoming pairs events 

The U.S. has won three medals so far in figure skating. Its lone gold was claimed by Nathan Chen in men's singles. The Americans captured silver in the team event, and Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue took bronze in ice dance. 

Let's take a closer look at the remaining figure skating schedule and the odds for the pairs short program and the pairs free skate, which will be held Friday and Saturday, respectively. 

U.S. Olympic Figure Skating Remaining Schedule

Friday, Feb. 18

Pairs short program, 5:30 a.m. ET, USA Network

Saturday, Feb. 19

Pairs free skate, 6 a.m. ET, USA Network

Pairs Odds

Anastasia Mishina/Aleksandr Galliamov, Russian Olympic Committee: +140

Sui Wenjing/Han Cong, China: +175

Evgenia Tarasova/Vladimir Morozov, Russian Olympic Committee: +300

Aleksandra Boikova/Dmitrii Kozlovskii, Russian Olympic Committee: +550

Peng Cheng/Jin Yang, China: +2500

Vanessa James/Eric Radford, Canada: +3500

Riku Muira/Ryuichi Kihara, Japan: +5000

Kirsten Moore-Towers/Michael Marinaro, Canada: +5000

Ashley Cain-Gribble/Timothy Leduc, United States: +5000

Alexa Knierim/Brandon Frazier, United States: +5000

Pairs odds via DraftKings Sportsbook

In pairs, it's possible the ROC could sweep the entire podium. 

The United States pairs, Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy Leduc and Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier, round out the top 10 pairs in the odds, and aren't expected to land on the podium in Beijing. 

LeDuc and Cain-Gribble began skating together in May 2016 and are coming off a first-place finish in the 2022 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Nashville. LeDuc is first openly nonbinary U.S. Winter Olympian.

Knierim and Frazier had to withdraw from the U.S. championships due to Frazier testing positive for COVID-19. The two started skating together in April 2020; longtime figure skating fans will remember that Knierim used to skate with her husband, Chris, who stepped away from the sport in February 2020. 

The couple competed at PyeongChang 2018, finishing 15th.

Knierim and Frazier found success early in their partnership, winning the 2021 U.S. Nationals and placing seventh at the 2021 World Championships.

But none of the Americans are expected to be able to best the three ROC pairs, as well as China's Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, all of whom are expected to threaten the podium. 

Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov, who are favored, have been skating partners since 2017. They helped the ROC win gold in the team event.

The ROC has four total medals and two gold at these Games. 

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The Canada women's hockey team waited four years to avenge its loss to the United States in the finals of the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Thursday, they completed their journey and secured a gold medal at the expense of their previous conquerors.

In a bit of poetic justice, they won by the same 3-2 scoreline they found themselves on the losing end of the last time the teams met with gold on the line. 

"This is redemption," Marie-Philip Poulin told the press after the game. "It's just so good. It's a great feeling. It was one hell of an effort."  

Poulin scored two of her team's three goals in a game that was never really as close as the score indicated.

The victory returned Canada to the top of the global hockey scene, a place that had become reflective of the country's excellence in the sport. 

Medal Winners

Gold: Canada

Silver: United States

Bronze: Finland

Canada's dominance was indisputable in the Olympics.

The team outscored opponents 24-5 in the medal round, including an 11-0 dismantling of Sweden in the quarterfinals. They demolished the opposition throughout the entire Games and won the country's first Olympic gold medal in women's hockey in nearly a decade.

Canada had defeated the United States earlier in the Games by a score of 4-2, hinting both at a championship showdown between the two and the eventual outcome of it.

After the gold-medal game, American Amanda Kessel discussed the emotions following the disappointing loss, per Chris Bumbaca of USA Today: "It stings for a while. I won't forget this, probably, forever."

Forward Hilary Knight said: "I don't think we scratched the surface with our ability to play. It is what it is. They won a gold medal. We didn't. I've seen us put together 60 minutes. That just wasn't it."

The United States outshot Canada in both losses by a total of 93-48.

"I think a big thing for us is quality over quantity. I know today the Americans took a bunch of outside shots. We have the best goaltender in the world in Ann-Renee [Desbiens]. They're not going to be scoring from the outside very often," Canadian forward Sarah Nurse said after the game.

The two countries have dominated international competition, winning every gold medal since 1998 when the sport was added to the Olympics.

Based on their play in these games, that dominance does not appear to be ending anytime soon.

Finland won the bronze medal for the second time in as many years, blanking Switzerland, 4-0.

Redemption, the theme of these medal games, reared its head against as Finland's victory came after a disappointing 3-2 loss to their opponents in the prelims.  

There will be a medal ceremony. But nobody imagined it would happen like this. 

In a shocking turn of events at the women's free skate Thursday, Kamila Valieva, the Russian national champion and the overwhelming favorite coming into the Beijing Olympics, faltered in the worst performance of her elite career.

Reeling from days of media scrutiny after her positive doping test became public, Valieva fell multiple times during her free skate and walked off the ice in tears, finishing fourth. She was heartbroken; compatriots Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova, who came in first and second, respectively, were stunned. Trusova sobbed, her makeup running down her face.

Japan's Kaori Sakamoto, sixth at the most recent world championships, won the bronze with an incredible performance. Her tears were joyful. 

But their victories are sadly overshadowed by the week's events and the toll they have taken on one young athlete. After it was revealed last week that Valieva had tested positive for a banned heart medication and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that she could still compete at these Olympics, the spotlight on her shone brighter than it ever should have.

The situation, likely the result of child neglect and an institutional failure to wrangle Russia's doping problem, tainted the free skate competition—how could the other figure skaters compete knowing their biggest competition had potentially cheated? Thursday's result, though, highlighted the fact that no one is more damaged by this than one 15-year-old girl.

Valieva's finish was a rough end to what was otherwise a thrilling competition, as the other top competitors excelled despite the media frenzy. Athletes are used to putting on blinders and focusing on their own performances when it counts, and Thursday, it showed.

Current U.S. national champion Mariah Bell, competing in her first Olympics at 25 years old, had a beautiful free skate, as did compatriot Alysa Liu, who evoked joy throughout her performance; the two Americans embraced after Liu's skate. South Korea's You Young hit a technically incredible skate and broke into tears of joy. Japan's Wakaba Higuchi landed a triple axel, the first successful one of the night. And Trusova and Shcherbakova each landed multiple quads to put them solidly ahead of the rest of the field.

The skaters' ability to compartmentalize was all the more impressive considering the inherent unfairness of this event. Valieva's positive test and the subsequent ruling that she could compete anyway exposed double standards regarding Russian doping.

Alongside Valieva's case, two athletes have tested positive for banned substances and have been suspended from these Olympics. Valentyna Kaminska of Ukraine tested positive for a banned substance and was provisionally suspended, the International Testing Agency reported. The same goes for Iranian skier Hossein Saveh Shemshaki.

While Valieva's case is unique in that she's a minor, having to compete as a clean athlete against her would make any competitor jaded going into this free skate. And after the IOC announced it would cancel the medal ceremony if Valieva placed top-three, athletes competed knowing that if they medaled, they might not even get to participate in a ceremony, and any potential bonuses or sponsorships that came with it would be left in limbo. 

Valieva's errors put that potential controversy to rest, but her destiny is still in question as she now faces a doping investigation, as well as an investigation into her support personnel, such as her coaches. According to the WADA Code, she will have the option to have her B sample—one collected at the same time as the sample that tested positive—tested. She will also have the right to participate in a hearing.

It's unlikely that things will go her way or that a test of her B sample will have a different result, though, given new evidence that emerged around the time of her short program. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Valieva actually tested positive for multiple medications that could help improve performance, though, of the three, only trimetazidine is banned. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that WADA considers this a detriment to her defense that she tested positive from an accidental contamination from grandfather's medication. As a minor, though, Valieva will likely not be found to be at fault and might face no sanctions at all.

Still, this doesn't bode well for Valieva's future in the sport. It's unclear if she would have been sent to compete at the 2022 World Figure Skating Championships on March 21, but even if she's cleared to compete by that point, her coaches may not be. And with such a short expected lifespan on her career—coach Eteri Tutberidze's trainees rarely compete past 17—these Olympics could very well be Valieva's peak, a heartbreaking idea, considering her incredible talent. 

Most troubling, though, is the prospect of lasting trauma that this experience will likely inflict on such a young girl. The distress is amplified by the cruel irony that the CAS decision to allow her to continue competing, setting the stage for this awful scene, was an attempt to avoid "irreparable harm" to Valieva.

Until now, her stoicism has been a trademark of her skating. The ability to compete at such a high level at only 15 displayed a remarkable emotional strength; by comparison, her free skate was disastrous and a revealing look at how the controversy has rattled her. This, combined with what many already suspect about Tutberidze's coaching methods, paints a troubling picture about her mental state as well as the state of the sport.

Justice for Valieva and the rest of the athletes will only come, though, if things change so that something like this can never happen again. Russia showed in Beijing that the slap on the wrist of not allowing athletes to compete under their own flag is not enough of a disincentive to cheat.

It's clear that the country should not be allowed to compete in the Olympics, full stop, until the World Anti-Doping Agency can get the country's doping under control. In addition, the International Skating Union needs to question, once again, whether 15 is old enough to compete at the Olympics and launch a new initiative to make child welfare a priority in the sport.

Until that happens, Valieva's struggle will be in vain.

Mike Krzyzewski and LeBron James had to work on their relationship ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Ian O'Connor provided a breakdown of the Duke coach's transition to international basketball in a Sports Illustrated excerpt for his book Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski.

Krzyzewski was brought to Team USA to turn things around after a disappointing bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics, but he didn't do any better in his first opportunity as the Americans lost to Greece in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. LeBron was on both teams and was seemingly unsure of the team's direction.

Former Duke player Shane Battier said he was "absolutely sure NBA players were skeptical of Coach K, especially the guys who didn't play in college."

James skipped college and was five years into his professional career in the summer of 2008, coming off his second first-team All-NBA selection. He led the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals one year earlier.

Krzyzewski clearly needed buy-in from LeBron going into the Olympics, but there was a particularly uneasy moment leading up to the first practice. The coach asked the superstar to speak to the team about expectations, and he thought he was going to be left hanging.

"We were close to ending the meeting, and this motherf--ker didn't speak up," Krzyzewski reportedly told a confidant about James. "I needed him to talk."

The person called it a "great power struggle" happening in the room as LeBron waited to speak.

James finally spoke up, saying Team USA needed to be a "no-excuse team" based on the world-class talent on the roster.

"Coach K just wore him down and established a trust," a coach said afterward.

There were other tense moments in the relationship—including LeBron calling on Coach K to keep Kobe Bryant in check when he was forcing shots—but the coach was able to prove his worth. By the end of the summer, the team brought home a gold medal.

With James, Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Jason Kidd, Carmelo Anthony and more on the roster, the team swept through the tournament in Beijing, China, winning all eight games by double digits.

Krzyzewski returned in 2012 to join forces with James and won another gold in London, England. 

The United States earned two medals on Thursday morning at the 2022 Winter Olympics, but the main story out of Beijing focused on which athlete did not medal. 

Mikaela Shiffrin crashed in the slalom portion of the women's combined event to leave her without a medal from five events in Beijing. 

Shiffrin entered the Beijing Games as one of the top American medal hopefuls. There were expectations for her to win multiple medals of some kind. The U.S. has a single medal from the individual Alpine skiing events, and the team event will be the last one to be contested. 

The women's figure skating competition was also made about the athlete who did not medal. Kamila Valieva suffered a series of falls in her free skate to drop from first to fourth as questions have surrounded her eligibility in the competition.

The Russian Olympic Committee still came away with first and second place in the competition to add to its medal tally. ROC trails Norway by three in the overall medal table. 

Medal Count Top 5

1. Norway (14 gold, 7 silver, 8 bronze) - 29 

2. Russian Olympic Committee (5 gold, 9 silver, 12 bronze) - 26

3. Germany (10 gold, 7 silver, 5 bronze) - 22

4. United States (8 gold, 8 silver, 5 bronze) - 21

5. Canada (4 gold, 5 silver, 11 bronze) - 20

Full medal table can be found on NBCOlympics.com.

Day 13 Medal Winners

Alpine Skiing

Women's Combined

Gold: Michelle Gisin (Switzerland)

Silver: Wendy Holdener (Switzerland)

Bronze: Federica Brignone (Italy)

Figure Skating

Women's Competition

Gold: Anna Shcherbakova (ROC)

Silver: Aleksandra Trusova (ROC)

Bronze: Kaori Sakamoto (Japan)

Freestyle Skiing

Women's Ski Cross

Gold: Sandra Naeslund (Sweden)

Silver: Marielle Thompson (Canada)

Bronze: Daniela Maier (Germany)

Women's Hockey

Gold: Canada

Silver: United States

Bronze: Finland

Nordic Combined

Men's Team Large Hill

Gold: Norway

Silver: Germany

Bronze: Japan

Speedskating

Women's 1000m

Gold: Miho Takagi (Japan)

Silver: Jutta Leerdam (Netherlands)

Bronze: Brittany Bowe (United States)

Shiffrin Fails to Earn Individual Medal

Shiffrin entered the slalom portion of the women's combined in fifth place. She had a decent chance to win her first medal in Beijing in the fifth and final individual event, but once again, she crashed out. 

The 26-year-old failed to complete the slalom course for the second time in China after not finishing the regular slalom competition earlier in the Games. 

The three-time Olympic medalist will leave Beijing without an individual medal, which is something that has happened before to the two American skiers. Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller and Ted Ligety all came away empty from one Olympics during their careers, and they are still considered some of the best skiers in American history. 

Shiffrin was understandably hard on herself in her interview with NBC after the competition.

"Oh, man, I don't know if anybody has failed that hard with so many opportunities maybe in the history of the Olympics," Shiffrin said. "But I'll take it. I mean, it is a joke. That's fine. I just really selfishly wanted to have a good run of slalom down this hill, and I'll be left wanting there."

Shiffrin can still compete in the team event, which allows her to potentially leave China with one medal. 

The United States own a single alpine skiing medal from Beijing, which is two fewer than the total earned four years ago. 

The Americans picked up two medals in other sports Thursday. The women's hockey team took silver in a loss to Canada, and Brittany Bowe earned bronze in the women's 1,000 meters in speedskating. 

ROC Goes 1-2 in Women's Figure Skating Without Valieva

The Russian Olympic Committee was expected to win the women's figure skating competition, but most predicted Valieva to capture gold. 

Over the last week, she became a controversial figure in the sports world because of a positive drug test that emerged from late December. 

Valieva was allowed to compete in the Olympic women's event, but the IOC ruled that no medal ceremonies would be held if the 15-year-old finished in the top three. 

The Russian was in first place following the short program, but she was unable to remain on top in the free skate. She went through a tumultuous free skate that featured a few falls and it dropped her to fourth place in the event. 

ROC skaters Anna Shcherbakova and Aleksandra Trusova finished first and second with free-skate scores that eclipsed 175 points. 

Japan's Kaori Sakamoto moved up to third place with Valieva's drop. 

Unfortunately for the medalists, not many people will remember who placed in the top three since the competition will be remembered for the controversy and the eventual failure of Valieva in the free skate.

American skier Mikaela Shiffrin spoke out Thursday on social media amid her struggles at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

After missing a gate and failing to finish the slalom portion of the women's combined event Thursday, Shiffrin posted the following message on Twitter in response to her detractors:

Shiffrin was expected to contend for and win multiple gold medals at the Beijing Games, but she hasn't won a medal of any color.

In addition to Thursday's DNF, Shiffrin failed to finish both the giant slalom and slalom earlier in these Olympics despite those being two of her best events.

She followed that up with ninth- and 18th-place finishes in the super-G and downhill, but there was hope for a better performance in the combined, which is an event that saw her win gold at the 2021 world championships and silver at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Shiffrin was a solid fifth after the downhill portion of the combined, which put her in ideal medal position since the slalom is her better event. Instead, the race ended in more disappointment for the 26-year-old.

Despite all that has gone wrong for her in Beijing, Shiffrin tried to have a positive outlook during her interview after the combined:

Shiffrin is widely considered to be not only one of the best skiers in the world currently but also one of the best of all time thanks to her three Olympic medals and 73 career World Cup race wins.

She was expected to add to her medal haul in Beijing, and doing so would have allowed her to make history.

One medal of any kind would have tied Julia Mancuso for the most career Olympic medals by an American female Alpine skier with four, and one gold would have given her the most career Olympic gold medals by any American Alpine skier with three.

While things haven't gone according to plan for Shiffrin in Beijing, all hope is not lost, as she still has one event left to compete in.

Shiffrin will be part of the mixed team parallel slalom on Saturday, marking the second time the event has been contested at the Olympics.

If she and Team USA can find their way onto the podium, Shiffrin could still salvage something in Beijing.