2026 Olympic Games: ‘Quad God’ looks to win 2nd gold, Gogolev goes for Canada in men's figure skating

canadian river chieftain Marie-Philip Poulin resumes practising followers human knee injury

Days after head injury were 'living nightmare,' says Canadian skater

Mark McMorris 'feeling much better' and ready to compete in Olympic snowboard slopestyle

Canada defeats U.S. For 2nd straight Olympic men's curling victory

Slovakia avoids an Olympic hockey scare by the host Italians

Finland defeats archrivals Sweden in Olympic men's hockey matchup

Canada's Courtney Sarault storms to short track 500m bronze

Courtney Sarault hopes her medal wins inspire future generations of New Brunswick athletes

Canada opens Olympic men's hockey tournament with a shutout win over Czechia

These Olympians are carrying the torch for their families

Éliot Grondin relied on his experience to win Olympic snowboard cross silver

Macklin Celebrini scores Canada's 1st Olympic goal with NHL'ers in nearly 12 years

Mikaël Kingsbury 'proud' to win his 4th Olympic medal in what might be his final moguls run

American Ilia Malinin is the headliner heading into the men's free skate final, which is underway now. 

Everyone is watching for whether the 21-year-old phenom with the well-earned nickname, "Quad God," will unleash his signature quadruple axel, recognized as the hardest jump being performed in the world right now. What makes the quad axel so hard is that it is actually four-and-a-half rotations in the air. 

Malinin has a five-point lead after the short program, where he did not attempt the quad axel. Rumour has it he has been working on landing the first ever quint jump, even though Quint God just doesn’t have the same ring.

Steven Gogolev goes for Canada after finishing a solid 10th in the short program, where he had to survive one of his skate laces coming loose.

Both teams have 1-0 records heading into the game. Canada blanked the Czechs, 5-0, yesterday. Switzerland, meanwhile, shut out France, 4-0, yesterday.

The Canadian lines should be out about an hour before puck drop. With Jordan Binnington earning the start yesterday and facing a decent workload, one assumes we’ll see Logan Thompson’s first appearance in net.

A few players to watch on the Swiss team: New Jersey Devils forwards Nico Hischier and Timo Meier. The latter had two goals in the win over the French team. It’s also always fun to watch captain Roman Josi, long one of the top defencemen in the game.

That's it for women's skeleton today. The Canadians haven't managed to crack even a top 10 spot. Right now, Channell is sitting at 15th and Clarke is 20th. Meanwhile, Austria's Janine Flock is sitting comfortably in the top spot, followed by two Germans: Susanne Kreher in second and Jacqueline Pfeifer in third.  

The next two heats will be on tomorrow, so tune in!

Brad Jacobs and team face one of their toughest tests of the curling round robin today at 1:05 p.m. ET, as they take on the defending champion, Sweden. The Swedes are skipped by Niklas Edin, who has led his country to three Olympic medals.

Earlier today, Team Jacobs defeated the Americans to improve to 2-0.

On the women’s side, Rachel Homan’s Canadian team lost to the U.S. 9-8.

The man to beat is of course Ilia Malinin, the 21-year-old American superstar who has captured back-to-back world titles and has not lost a competition in more than two years. Malinin led the U.S. To victory in the team event on Sunday and will now try to secure his first individual Olympic gold after posting the top score in the short program on Tuesday.

Malinin has a healthy lead over 2022 silver medallist Yuma Kagiyama of Japan. Kagiyama has finished second at the world championships three times and was also the runner-up at this season's Grand Prix Final, where Malinin landed an unprecedented seven quads to break his own world record for the highest free-skate score.

On Friday, will the Quad God upgrade to the Quint God? Malinin has teased that he might attempt a five-rotation jump, which has never been seen in competition. 

Canada's Stephen Gogolev sits in 10th place as he looks to put the finishing touches on an encouraging Olympic debut. The 21-year-old placed third and fourth in his two skates in the team event, helping Canada to a fifth-place finish.

In both men's and women's skeleton, the athletes get to race down the serpentine ice track a total of four times. The first two heats for the women's skeleton are happening this morning. Tomorrow, we'll get to watch the third and fourth heats.

The three athletes with the lowest cumulative race times after all four runs get gold, silver and bronze. 

So even though the Canadians didn't do well in the first heat, they still have room to make up for it.

Channell's second go looked really good. She ended up taking the lead away from Italy's Valentina Margaglio. Again, this will continue to change — and quickly! In fact, she's already been bumped to second. Still, it's a good sign for the North Vancouver native who's currently Canada's top female skeleton athlete. 

That's it for Canada’s women skeleton athletes today. Hopefully, tomorrow will be even better.

Hockey fans, there are six games on the Olympic schedule today — including the Canadian men's team's second game of pool play against Switzerland at 3:10 p.m. ET.

Remember when the Swiss stunned Team Canada in the 2024 World Championships semifinal? Oh right, you wiped that from your memory … sorry to bring it up.

Here's what went on in the earlier faceoffs:

Team Canada didn't add any new hardware to our total medal count this morning. But there are more opportunities this afternoon with figure skater Stephen Gogolev in the men's single free skate at 1 p.m. ET.

We currently have seven medals (three🥈 and four🥉), and we're still on the hunt for our first gold at these Winter Games. The Milano-Cortina Olympics opened a week ago and there are still nine days of competition to go.

The big Canadian story from this morning is the men's curling team, skipped by Brad Jacobs, going 2-0 in the curling round robin with a victory over the U.S. They're back up this afternoon at 1:05 p.m. ET as they take on Sweden.

Our top-ranked women's curling team in the world, skipped by Rachel Homan, lost a hard-fought battle 9-8 against the U.S. In their second round-robin game. Homan missed a crucial shot in the 10th end that would have seen the Americans only score one point and send it to extra ends. But the U.S. Came away with two points and the win. They're back up against Great Britain at 3:05 a.m. ET tomorrow.

Now, if you missed it, the men's 10K cross-country interval start this morning was delightful — and it wasn't because of the podium. It's all about the magic at the finish between athletes who didn't grow up in places with a lot of snow.  

Here are some quick hits from that race that'll make your heart grow two sizes:

The good news doesn't stop there. We got a number of injury updates!

Snowboarder Mark McMorris received the green light from doctors to compete in the men's slopestyle on Monday after suffering a concussion in a big-air training fall. The Canadian has won three back-to-back Olympic bronze medals in men's slopestyle dating back to the 2014 Sochi Games.

Marie-Philip Poulin was the first player on the ice during Canada's practice in Milan today. The captain sat out the team's final two preliminary games — including the big upset against the U.S. — earlier this week due to a knee injury from a big hit in the game against Czechia. 

Poulin has one final medical assessment to clear her for play ahead of Canada's quarterfinal against Germany at 10:40 a.m. ET Saturday. (We'll have to wait and see if her linemate and wife, Laura Stacey, will be collecting Canada's warm-up pucks alone or not.)

Jílek claimed gold in the 10,000-metre speed skate despite an impressive showing by France's Timothy Loubineau in the final pairing. Ultimately, the French skater wasn't able to maintain his lead in the last laps, though, and finished fourth at 12:44.20. 

Silver goes to Poland's Semmirunniy with the stylish silver helmet at 12:39.08. He is the first Polish man to stand on an Olympic podium for this event. 

And another fashion statement makes it to the podium as the hero of the mullet fans, Jorrit Bergsma, takes bronze with 12:40.08. 

Canadian Ted-Jan Bloemen still landed in ninth with 13.00.01 in his final skate at the Olympic Games. 

Jílek, on the other hand, is at the beginning of his Olympic career, with Milano-Cortina being his first Games, and he already has two medals under his belt. The 19-year-old claimed silver in the men's 5,000 metres.

---

---