Lindsey Jacobellis wins Team USA’s first gold

When Zoi Sadowski-Synnott won New Zealand’s first ever gold medal at the Winter Olympics last week, the reaction wasn’t just about the 20-year-old’s performance in the snowboard slopestyle, but also her dad’s viral interview back home.

“He’d definitely had a few too many beers,” Sadowski-Synnott told CNN, having watched the interview from Beijing.

“I just cracked up laughing because it was so him,” she added.

Watch Sadowski-Synnott speak with CNN’s Coy Wire about her gold medal — and her dad’s response — here:

Team USA’s Lindsey Jacobellis says she felt a pressure to be the “golden girl” during her career before winning an elusive gold medal at Beijing 2022.

The 36-year-old claimed victory in the women’s snowboard cross competition on Wednesday — her country’s first gold medal of the Games.

Success was redemption for throwing away a gold medal in the 2006 Turin Games, where Jacobellis had the win in the bag before she fell after opting for a flashy move on a jump.

She finished with the silver 16 years ago and had come to terms with the possibility that she may never experience Olympic glory before she retired.

“That’s definitely something that the media doesn’t always understand and you don’t realize how young some of these athletes are,” she added.

Jacobellis suffered injuries and required surgery during her long career but pushed through a tricky season to make it to Beijing 2022.

She says she has no desire to slow down and wants to continue competing at the highest level.

“I can’t really remember last year, but my body was allowing me to keep racing,” she said. “I’ve had surgeries, I’ve had injuries, and it’s just day by day and season by season. It seems like you blink your eye and another four years have gone by.

She added, “Maybe I’ll blink again and I’ll be back the next Olympics, but I want to say that I’m really excited with how things are happening right now so I’m going to try to live in this moment a little bit longer.”

Read the full story here.

We’ve seen some thrilling performances from teenage athletes in Beijing – including 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva and 18-year-old freestyle skier Eileen Gu – but it would be remiss to overlook the competitors at the other end of their sporting careers.

Introducing Claudia Pechstein, the German speed skater who turns 50 later this month.

At the age of 49 years and 348 days, Pechstein became the oldest woman to compete at a Winter Olympics when she took to the ice on Saturday, making a record-equaling eighth appearance at a Winter Games.

Having already won nine Olympic medals, Pechstein – who served a two-year doping ban earlier in her career – had more humble ambitions heading to Beijing: “To be negative for Covid,” she joked on Friday.

She placed 20th in the 3,000m event last week as Dutch skater Irene Schouten won gold and broke Pechstein’s 20-year-old Olympic record.

Norwegian curler Torger Nergaard is the oldest male athlete in Beijing, aged 47 and competing in his sixth Winter Olympics.

But who was the oldest Winter Olympian ever? That distinction goes to another curler: Sweden’s Carl August Kronlund, who at the age of 58 years and 155 days, competed at the 1924 Chamonix Games and won a team silver in the process.

Walking into the Shangri-La Hotel in Beijing’s Olympic bubble, it’s immediately clear that Covid-19 prevention measures are being taken to the next level – even in the context of one of the strictest places in the world.

Guests are sprayed from head-to-toe with a mist of disinfectant in a neon-lit walkway upon entering the building, and guests walk through a roped-off alley surrounded by half a dozen staff wearing full hazmat suits.

Temperatures are also checked, N95 or KN95 face masks are mandatory, and hand sanitizer is dispensed from hands-free containers – as with all locations within the “closed loop.”

Airport-level security is also employed at building entrances, with the Olympic accreditation identification scanned through the security gates, so people can be traced at all times.

Preventing Covid-19 from spreading within the “closed loop” – or more importantly, escaping into the rest of the population – has been a key priority for Olympic organizers.

Even the restaurant at the Shangri-La takes an extreme approach to safety. The famous northern Chinese dish of Peking duck was hand-rolled by a member of staff wearing a hazmat suit, who spread out the wafer-thin pancakes, adding the plum sauce, juicy duck and spring onions, all while wearing surgical gloves.

The Olympic personnel, media and other guests staying at the dozens of hotels inside the “closed loop” are tested for Covid-19 every day, a mandatory process which has to take place before 11pm (local time.) If anyone tests positive within the “closed loop,” staff will come to remove them from the hotel and transfer them to an isolation facility or a hospital until they test negative twice.

The Covid-19 testing staff at CNN’s hotel are stationed outside in temporary metal shelters, unable to leave their station for hours on end, relying on layers of clothes under their hazmat suits to protect them from the sub-zero temperatures. Guests at some hotels have received warnings for forgetting to take their Covid-19 tests on time and have been warned that they will be banned from leaving the hotel until they do their test.

So far, the strict containment measures have prevented an outbreak of Covid-19 within the “closed loop,” with only five cases reported on Tuesday.

The medal ceremony for the figure skating team event has been delayed due to “legal consultation,” International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesman Mark Adams told a press briefing on Wednesday.

The ROC clinched the gold medal with the United States taking silver and Japan bronze in Monday’s event.

The ceremony was due to be held on Tuesday evening local time but was removed from the events list.

Adams said the situation arose at short notice, adding that it was an “emerging issue,” which requires “legal consultation with the International Skating Union.”

When asked whether the legal issues will be resolved in time before the athletes leave Beijing, Adams said everyone is doing “absolutely everything” to sort the situation out as soon as possible as it includes athletes who won medals.

“We will be doing our level utmost to make sure it is resolved as quickly as possible, but as you know, legal issues can sometimes drag on,” he added.

Flying head first down a narrow ice track at speeds of over 100km/h (about 62mph) might not be everyone’s idea of a good day out but it’s certainly fun to watch.

Skeleton has been a fan favorite at the Winter Olympics since it first appeared in competition but it’s had a love hate relationship with the Games ever since.

After British and American holiday goers constructed the first toboggan run in 1882 in Davos, Switzerland, a new steel sledge was built ten years later — which became known as the skeleton.

It fell in and out of the Olympic program for a number of years, before it was reintroduced at the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics.

In Beijing, there will be six gold medals across the discipline with athletes participating on the same track across two days, getting four runs each, which are then added together.

The competitor who gets to the bottom of the track in the quickest cumulative time wins the event.

Great Britain and the United States are two of the powerhouses in the sport but, given the nature of the event, anything can happen on the day.

The skeleton takes place from Thursday, February 10 to Saturday, February 12.

You can learn more about the events at this year’s Games in CNN’s event guide here:

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is in contact with Peng Shuai “all the time,” its president Thomas Bach told reporters at the Beijing Games on Wednesday.  

Bach said that the governing body has been regularly communicating with the Chinese tennis star since their first video conference with her in November last year. 

“Since then, we have been all the time in contact and this is why also because we wanted to keep this contact up that we invited her for the first meeting, for a meeting here, to show everybody it’s not only just a one off effort, but it is a continuous effort … and we will keep this contact up,” Bach told reporters. 

“Now, we are continuing by having invited her to come to Lausanne and maybe also to visit other places in Europe, so that whenever she wants, she can travel, and in all the conversations, we have assured her that we will support her, whatever she decides,” he continued. 

Bach held an in-person meeting with Peng on Saturday inside the Olympics “closed loop” system, which separates athletes, stakeholders, and staff from the public in Beijing. On Tuesday, the two then watched China’s Eileen Gu take home gold in the big air freestyle skiing competition. 

Bach said Peng’s various appearances show that “she is enjoying the Games and enjoying being among athletes and the public.”

The IOC Chief ended by telling reporters he will not see Peng again during this trip, as the tennis star will soon leave the Games’ “closed loop” system. 

Team USA’s Lindsey Jacobellis won the women’s snowboard cross competition Wednesday, finally claiming an elusive gold medal in her fifth Olympics.

It’s the first gold medal for the United States at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

In the 2006 Turin Games, Jacobellis had the gold medal in the bag when she went for a flashy move on a jump and then fell. She finished with the silver.

The 36-year-old, who has been chasing gold since then, beat France’s Chloe Trespeuch, who took silver, and Canada’s Meryeta O’Dine who earned bronze.

According to sports data site Gracenote, Jacobellis is the second US athlete to win a Winter Olympics medal at least 16 years after her first.

Belarusian skier Darya Dolidovich has fled her home country, after being barred from competing in the Winter Olympics over accusations regarding her involvement with the country’s opposition movement. 

The 17-year-old cross-country skier was stripped of her International Ski Federation (FIS) code — which is required for athletes to compete in events run by the governing body —back in December. It followed a decision from the Belarus Cross-Country Skiing Federation, according to Reuters. 

Darya told Reuters in December that the ban — which precluded her from competing in the Beijing Winter Games — came after sports officials accused her of “supporting” the country’s opposition movement. 

CNN has reached out to FIS, the Belarus Ski Union, and the Belarus Cross-Country Skiing Federation for comment on Dolidovich’s case. 

Family flees: Her coach and father, Sergei Dolidovich, is a seven-time Olympian who has spoken out publicly against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime and took part in street protests following the disputed presidential election in August 2020, which opposition groups say was marred by fraud.

Darya confirmed that her family had relocated to Poland during a video interview with Reuters Wednesday. 

Her father told Reuters the family had been targeted over their political views, and that his daughter had been “stripped” of her right to compete. 

Some background: Dolidovich is one of several Belarusian athletes who have been banned from competing or forced to flee the country in the past year, due to their criticism of sporting authorities or Lukashenko’s regime. 

Belarusian sprinter Kristina Timanovskaya received a humanitarian visa from Poland in August, following her abrupt departure from the Tokyo Summer Olympics after she said team officials tried to forcibly send her home over her public criticism of national sporting authorities.