The Latest: SKorean hockey team makes history with 1st goal
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) The Latest on the Pyeongchang Olympics (all times local):
9:45 p.m.
South Korea’s men’s hockey team has made history, scoring its first goal in the first period of its first Olympic game.
Canada-born Brock Radunske fired a shot past Czech Republic goaltender Pavel Francouz to give South Korea a 1-0 lead on Thursday.
The goal happened right in front of North Korea’s 200-member cheerleading troupe.
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9:35 p.m.
Speedskater Jorrit Bergsma of the Netherlands has broken his own Olympic record in the 10,000 meters at the Pyeongchang Games.
He was timed in 12 minutes, 41.99 seconds on Thursday, bettering his old mark of 12:44.45 set four years ago in Sochi when he won the gold.
Bergsma increased his speed around the 6,000-meter mark and his lap times dipped under 30 seconds. He kept them there until the finish of the grueling race.
Still to skate are rivals Ted-Jan Bloemen of Canada and Dutch teammate Sven Kramer.
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8:45 p.m.
Two hundred North Korean cheerleaders have arrived to watch South Korea’s opening Pyeongchang Olympic men’s game against the Czech Republic.
The all-female cheerleaders were dressed identically in red, white and blue tracksuits and white hats. They filed into the Gangneung Hockey Centre with male minders and sat down behind one of the goals.
They are waving flags as the South Korean team warms up while ”Power” by Kanye West plays over the arena music system. Dozens of South Koreans around their section are taking photos of the cheerleaders and selfies with them as a backdrop.
The hockey team is made up of 18 South Koreans, six Canadians and one American. The seven North Americans are all dual citizens.
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8:25 p.m.
Snowboarder Regino Hernandez made a bet with his skiman that if he won a medal at the Pyeongchang Olympics, they would both tattoo their big-bearded faces on each other.
Well, he won.
Hernandez took home bronze in men’s snowboardcross Thursday, giving Spain only its third Winter Games medal – and first since 1992.
Now he and Luca Trionte, the man in charge of preparing his boards, are getting tattoos.
Hernandez says, ”Here, the bets are for life. Nothing like just shaving beards. Beards will grow back.”
Hernandez’s only concern was where exactly to place his friend’s face.
He tells Spanish sports daily Marca: ”I will have to find a place that is not too visible. Luckily, I have many tattoos, so I hope it won’t get noticed too much.”
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7:20 p.m.
Sweden has opened the Pyeongchang Olympic men’s hockey tournament with a 4-0 win over neighbor Norway, even without playing highly rated young defenseman Rasmus Dahlin.
Linus Omark finished Thursday with three assists, including a backhand no-look pass to set up Par Lindholm’s opening goal. Anton Lander then made it 2-0 as Sweden dominated the first period.
Early in the third, a Norwegian goal was disallowed on review for interference before Sweden killed off the game with two goals in quick succession.
Sweden left the 17-year-old Dahlin out of its team for the game against Norway even though he’s healthy. He’s widely considered the favorite for the NHL No. 1 draft pick.
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7:05 p.m.
Michelle Karvinen scored two power-play goals and Finland beat the Olympic athletes from Russia 5-1 to finish third in the top group of women’s hockey behind Canada and the United States.
Finland will play Sweden in the quarterfinals Saturday for a slot in the semifinal against Canada, the defending gold medalist. Still winless, the Russians will play Switzerland, with the winner advancing to a semifinal against the U.S.
Riikka Valila and Pera Nieminen each had a goal and an assist for Finland on Thursday, and Minamarri Tuominen added a goal. Goaltender Noora Raty made 24 saves for her eighth career Olympic victory.
Anna Shokhina scored the Russians’ first goal of this tournament in the third period.
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6:50 p.m.
Sweden’s Hanna Oeberg has pulled off a major upset in the women’s 15-kilometer biathlon at the Pyeongchang Olympics, beating out two-time gold medalist Laura Dahlmeier to capture the gold medal.
Oeberg entered the race ranked 42nd in the World Cup standings in the individual event. She was in tears Thursday after winning her first medal in her first Olympic Games by hitting all 20 shots.
Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina took home silver, and Germany’s Dahlmeier captured the bronze.
Dahlmeier won the previous two biathlon events in Pyeongchang and looked almost unbeatable, but she had one costly miss that led to an automatic one-minute penalty.
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6:30 p.m.
U.S. figure skater Nathan Chen is offering condolences to families of the victims of the Florida school shooting that killed 17 people.
Chen skated in the Pyeongchang Olympics team competition where the U.S. won bronze, and he’s due to skate in the men’s individual competition starting Friday.
The two-time U.S. champion was asked about the shooting during a pre-competition press conference.
”Truly my heart goes out to them,” he said. ”It’s devastating. It’s terrible that things like this keep happening.”
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5:40 p.m.
Russian fans are proudly waving their country’s flag at the Pyeongchang Olympics, where Team Russia is technically banned and Russian athletes must compete under the Olympic flag.
Many fans say the ban makes them more determined to represent their country.
Hockey star Ilya Kovalchuk has one rule for such fans: Put down the flag if they want to take a photo with him.
The athletes from Russia are banned from using the flag or national symbols. The fans say that makes them even more patriotic and committed to make sure the athletes know that Russians are at these Olympics.
At hockey and figure skating, the Russians have been among the loudest fan bases.
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5 p.m.
French skiers are unhappy that Olympic organizers wouldn’t allow them to wear stickers on their helmets to commemorate David Poisson, a teammate killed in a training crash last November.
The sticker showed a drawing of a fish’s head, a play on Poisson’s name in French, which means fish. The International Olympic Committee has strict rules preventing Olympians from wearing unauthorized labels or stickers on their gear.
”I’m really very disappointed that they didn’t allow us to wear it, given that it’s not commercial advertising for anything,” French skier Adrien Theaux said after placing 26th in the men’s downhill on Thursday.
Poisson, 35, was killed in training at the Canadian resort of Nakiska. The French wore tri-color hearts with ”DP” in the center during World Cup races this season.
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4:40 p.m.
Ragnhild Haga of Norway has won her first gold medal in the women’s 10-kilometer freestyle at the Pyeongchang Olympics, dusting the field by more than 20 seconds.
She finished in just over 25 minutes Thursday.
Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla won her second medal of the Olympic Games by finishing in second, while Norway’s Mart Bjoergen and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski finished tied for third with identical times of 25 minutes, 32.4 seconds.
It is the 12th career medal for Bjoergen, leaving the 37-year-old one shy of matching the record of 13 held by Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjoerndalen.
USA’s Jessica Diggins finished in fifth place and now has three top-six finishes at the Olympic Games.
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4:30 p.m.
The Dutch Olympic team has been hit by a 4-year-old match-fixing scandal involving one of its speedskating coaches.
The Dutch Olympic committee says it has officially warned Jillert Anema for an attempt at match-fixing in the Olympic team pursuit four years ago at the Sochi Games. Anema also worked for the French team.
In a 2014 letter to Anema published Thursday, the committee chastised him for asking a Dutch team leader not to be too hard on the French squad in the quarterfinals because a humiliating result might have funding consequences for their team.
Anema is in Pyeongchang and trains Dutch speedskater Jorrit Bergsma and his American wife, Heather. Jorrit Bergsma is a medal favorite in the 10,000-kilometer race later Thursday.
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4:10 p.m.
Defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, who is almost a lock to be the No. 1 NHL draft pick in June, won’t play for Sweden in its Olympic opener against Norway even though he’s healthy.
The 17-year-old Dahlin has drawn rave reviews from teammates for Sweden and Frolunda, his team in the Swedish Hockey League. Analyst Craig Button says Dahlin is far and away the best 2018 draft prospect.
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4 p.m.
A San Francisco Bay area radio station has fired one of its hosts over comments he made about 17-year-old Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim on another station.
Program director Jeremiah Crowe of KNBR-AM said in a statement Wednesday that host Patrick Connor has been fired.
On Tuesday, on the Barstool Sports network on SiriusXM, Connor made vulgar comments about Kim, then said ”the countdown is on” until her 18th birthday.
Connor apologized on Twitter, calling his comments ”inappropriate.”
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, without referring directly to Connor, said on Twitter that his network sometimes misses the mark with humor, but ”cry babies” will not dictate its actions.
Kim, of Torrance, California, won gold in the women’s halfpipe Tuesday at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
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3:50 p.m.
The Crown Prince of Norway had not planned to be at the men’s downhill at the Pyeongchang Olympics, but the wind changed the race schedule, allowing him to see two of his compatriots take home gold and silver medals.
Crown Prince Haakon joined a jubilant victory photograph Thursday with gold medalist Aksel Lund Svindal and silver medalist Kjetil Jansrud.
Haakon told The Associated Press that he was supposed to see the super-G on Thursday, but the Alpine schedule was blown off course by fierce winds.
Norway dominates at the men’s super-G and has won four straight Olympic titles, including gold for Svindal in 2010.
There would have been no royal presence had downhill been raced last Sunday as intended.
Haakon says unfortunately he will not be able to attend Friday’s super-G, where more Norwegian medals are expected.
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3:25 p.m.
Pierre Vaultier of France has defended his title in men’s snowboardcross at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Vaultier barely qualified for the final after crashing during the semifinals but recovered to win his second Olympic gold medal on Thursday with relative ease.
Jarryd Hughes of Australia took silver, with Spain’s Regino Hernandez earning a rare Winter Games medal for his country by taking bronze.
Americans Nick Baumgartner and Mick Dierdorff advanced to the final, but both washed out on a jump and finished well back of the leaders.
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2:55 p.m.
American Mikaela Shiffrin has won gold in the women’s giant slalom in her Pyeongchang Olympic debut.
She used a hard-charging final run to win her second career Olympic gold medal.
The 22-year-old American standout trailed by 0.20 seconds heading into the last run, but made up ground in no time by powering through ruts that had developed on the course.
Shiffrin finished 0.39 seconds ahead of Norway’s Ragnhild Mowinckel at Yongpyong Alpine Center. Federica Brignone of Italy captured bronze, 0.46 behind Shiffrin’s combined time of 2 minutes, 20.02 seconds. First-run leader Manuela Moelgg of Italy wound up eighth.
At the 2014 Sochi Games, Shiffrin won the slalom crown at age 18. She will defend that title Friday.
There were still 37 lower-ranked ski racers left to go, all of whom were well back of the leaders after the first run.
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2:40 p.m.
Defending gold medalist Canada has clinched the top spot in pool play by edging the United States 2-1 in an early Olympic showdown between the dominant powers in women’s hockey.
Meghan Agosta and Sara Nurse each scored in the second period, and Genevieve Lacasse made 44 saves. Canada and the United States are the only countries to ever win gold at the Olympics.
Lacasse stopped Hilary Knight at the post inside the final 90 seconds. Brianne Decker hit two posts, the second in the final seconds, before punching, pushing and shoving. Officials reviewed the final play and ruled no goal.
The Canadians also had two goals disallowed, the second midway through the third for Haley Irwin kicking the puck in off her left skate.
The Americans have not taken home gold since 1998, while Canada is here looking for a fifth straight.
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2:35 p.m.
Eeli Tolvanen shined with a goal and three assists as Finland flashed skill and sharp shooting to beat Germany 5-2 in each team’s Olympic opener.
Tolvanen, the Nashville Predators’ top prospect, scored at even strength and assisted on a power-play goal by Sami Lepisto and captain Lasse Kukkonen’s first goal in the Olympics or world championships since 2006. Former Philadelphia Flyers forward Mika Pyorala also scored for Finland on Thursday.
Former New York Islanders goaltender Mikko Koskinen stopped 22 of 24 shots for the victory. Germany goaltender Danny aus den Birken allowed five goals on 20 shots.
Brooks Macek and Frank Hordler scored for Germany, which could not match Finland’s firepower.
Stars prospect Miro Heiskanen had a turnover that led to one of Germany’s goals but played a strong game overall.
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2:05 p.m.
Tongan cross-country skier Pita Taufatofua jokes that he has two primary goals when he competes in his first Winter Olympics: Don’t hit a tree and finish before they turn the lights off.
The medal podium is far from the mind of the famously shirtless Tongan, who qualified for the event despite having taken up the sport less than a year ago and having spent less than 12 weeks of his life on snow.
The 34-year-old Taufatofua says his real long-term goal in Pyeongchang is to inspire others from the South Pacific.
He says he knows he won’t medal on Friday, ”but in four years, someone from Tonga might. In eight years, someone from the Pacific might.” He says kids who are watching will have ”access to something they never knew existed before.”
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