Norway takes first gold of Beijing Games

Six gold medals will be awarded on Saturday as competition kicks into high gear at the Beijing Winter Games.

The first gold medal of the Games went to Norway’s Therese Johaug, who stormed ahead of the competition in the women’s 7.5km-plus-7.5km skiathlon cross-country skiing.

Johaug, the clear favourite ahead of the event, finished the course in 44min 13.7sec to take what is expected to be the first of many cross-country skiing medals for Norway at these Games.

The Dutch will be closely watching the women’s 3000 metres speed skating about 4.30pm when national darling Irene Schouten looks to give the Netherlands another clean sweep in the event.

The beloved biathlon competition starts on Saturday with the mixed relay, which could turn into a duel between France and Norway, with Belarus looking to cause an upset in potentially tricky conditions. The action starts at 5pm.

The ascendancy of women in Olympic ski jumping will be on show in the normal hill event at 7.35pm. Germany’s Katharina Althaus is looking to improve on her silver with the absence of Norway’s Maren Lundby and Austria’s Marita Kramer, who was ruled out by a positive Covid test.

Canadian Mikael Kingsbury will defend his championship in the men’s freestyle moguls at about 8.40pm.

A local highlight will be China’s hunt for a first gold in the short track speed skating mixed team relay expected at 9.26pm. The nation has won two World Cup relay events this season ahead of the race making its Olympic debut in Beijing.

However preparations for alpine skiing events were affected by inclement weather on Saturday.

High winds led organisers to pull the plug on the third training run for Sunday’s opening medal event, the men’s downhill, with Austria’s Matthias Mayer, Italian Christof Innerhofer and favourite Aleksander Aamodt Kilde of Norway the only racers able to get on the track.

“Due to the present situation with high winds and no window in the forecast for decreasing winds, in the best interest of safety, the jury together with the organiser have decided to cancel today’s run,” the International Ski Federation (FIS) said in a statement. (Reuters/AFP)
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Last updated: 2022-02-05 HKT 16:47