2026 Olympic Games Day 10: Courtney Sarault captures silver in short-track speed skate on Day 10

Canada's Courtney Sarault is awarded her 3rd medal at the Milano-Cortina Olympic Games

Canada's Courtney Sarault captures 1,000m atomic number 47, earns her 3rd unawares caterpillar tread medal of Milano Cortina 2026

Canadian pair Pereira and Michaud score personal best to put them in podium position

Canada blows out France to finish atop Group A

Canada's Valérie Grenier finishes 13th in Olympic giant slalom

Mikaël Kingsbury 'very proud' to capture gold, reflects on Olympic career

Canada's Brad Jacobs steals his way to a win over China

Atle Lie McGrath was charging toward what looked like a winning run in the men's slalom final in Bormio, Italy.

But in an instant, it was over.

The Norwegian skier straddled a gate midway down the slalom course. Moments later, he threw his poles into the air and disappeared into the trees.

Swiss coach Thierry Manet celebrated as skier Loic Meillard took first place — and did so right next to Lie McGrath, who then slipped under a fence and walked into the forest, settling into a snow bank and covering his face in his hands. 

Lie McGrath, who was wearing a black armband for his grandfather, who died during the Games' opening ceremony, saw his lifelong dream of gold disappear in that moment.

Meillard finished first after overtaking Lie McGrath, securing the gold. Austrian Fabio Gstrein claimed silver by three-tenths of a second and Norwegian Henrik Kistoffersen got bronze by just over a second.

Kris Reyes, here in Milan. We've been visiting neighbourhoods around the city where the lines at the official Olympics merchandise stores are growing by the day, and items are flying off the shelves.

The Quebec-based company V12 Trackside is contracted to run all the official stores for Milano Cortina. They're predicting these Olympics could be one of the most successful for merchandise sales. 

According to V12's chief commercial officer Jeremy Roy, plushies of the Games' mascots Milo and Tina are mostly sold out at all stores, making them the best-selling items other than daily limited drops.

"They're an incredible hit," said Roy. "We're running out. Now we have to set the limit per day per store. That's been amazing."

Roy said the best chances of getting them is by winning an Olympic medal, because they are gifted to the winning athletes during the medal ceremonies.

Roy said a so-called knitted ugly sweater that's gone viral on social media, and anything with the Olympic rings have also been popular.

The IOC says it will release final sales numbers at the end of the Games.

That's one way to open a conversation with the prime minister. 

Team Canada has posted a video call between gold medallist Mikaël Kingsbury and Prime Minister Mark Carney. 

"Look at that," Kingsbury calmly says, raising the gold around his neck into the camera's view. 

Carney laughs and says, "Oh! Oh!"

"Mikaël, I'm so happy for you," the prime minister says, before switching to French: "I heard you say that you'd heard talk on social media that Canada wouldn't get gold, and that you did it for Canada."

Kingsbury said he'd gone to bed Saturday night watching his phone and seeing people saying there was a curse on Canada in Italy. 

"I woke up very motivated and I wanted to get that gold," he said. He also said part of his motivation was to be the first in history to win dual moguls at the Olympics; the event made its debut at Milano-Cortina.

"So good … and you do it at a time, can I say, where Canada needs — we're coming together because of the tragedy, because of other things and you just make us so proud," Carney said, referencing last week's deadly mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

Canada's Courtney Sarault is awarded her 3rd medal at the Milano-Cortina Olympic Games

Watch as Courtney Sarault of Moncton, N.B., receives her silver medal from the Olympic women's 1,000-metre short track speed skating race in Milan, Italy.

Sarault came in today wanting gold, but says the silver is "so rewarding." 

While she started off the final heat out front, gunning ahead of Italian star Arianna Fontana, Sarault says she may have wanted the top spot "a little too bad." 

"I worked my way through the quarter and the semi and I was really, really smart. I feel like I made a little error in my 1,000 metre. I got a little too excited," she said. "Sometimes when we're too intense, we miss little things."

Despite being hard on herself — "I wanted to win and bring a gold for Canada," she said — Sarault is still "so proud" of herself and how hard she's worked.

"This is amazing. I raced a strong race. It's short track, things happen, and my opponents are so strong as well."

Canada’s Courtney Sarault finds strength, new perspective after injury

After a concussion forced her to pause and recover, Canadian short track star Courtney Sarault shares how she’s gained confidence and a fearless mindset as she heads to her second Olympics.

Sarault's rise this season came after a difficult stretch that included a concussion and other physical recovery challenges due to over-training — challenges she's described as transformative and strengthening, mentally and physically. 

Sarault narrowly missed the podium at Beijing in 2022, but she says she gained confidence in the interim despite the difficulties.

She turned what could have been billed as a comeback season into a breakthrough Olympic performance.

"It's kind of like working in perfect harmony," Sarault said. 

Sarault's family has been cheering her on in Italy — including her father, former professional hockey player Yves Sarault. 

"Having a dad that achieved what he wanted to achieve, and he followed his dreams and he was successful in the sport world, made me feel like maybe my dreams were closer than I thought," she said.

Canada's Courtney Sarault captures 1,000m silver, earns her 3rd short track medal of Milano Cortina 2026

Courtney Sarault of Moncton, N.B., finishes second in the women's 1,000-metre short track speed skating final for her third medal at the Milano-Cortina Winter Games. Sarault won bronze in the 500-metre and silver in the mixed relay.

Courtney Sarault has captured silver in the women's 1,000-metre short track, coming one-tenth of a second behind Dutch skater Xandra Velzeboer, her third medal of the Milano-Cortina Games.

Sarault started the race out front, holding her lead until the closing laps when Velzeboer slid into second, then first. But Sarault held the position, accelerating out of every corner with a finish time of 1:28.523, right behind Velzeboer's 1:28.437. South Korea's Gilli Kim takes bronze with 1:28.614.

The Canadian men's short-track relay team advanced to Friday's 5,000-metre final, after winning their heat this morning at 6:54.075. 

There were some tumbles from Canada and Italy in the last push, but William Dandjinou weaved comfortably into first place in the final laps. 

The team consists of Canadian short-track stars Dandjinou, Steven Dubois, Felix Roussel and Maxime Laoun. They are favoured to win gold Friday with the race starting at 3:30 p.m. ET.

All three Canadian men have qualified for the 500-metre quarterfinals after topping their respective heats this morning. 

William Dandjinou (40.593) was the fastest in Heat 1. Reigning world champ and Beijing 2022 bronze medallist Steven Dubois (40.284) was the fastest in Heat 3 and Maxime Laoun (40.943) won Heat 5.

The quarterfinals take place Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. ET.

This event is Canadian star Dandjinou's last chance to win an individual medal after he missed the podium in the 1,000 metres and the 1,500 metres — as the gold-medal favourite in both. 

Canada's Steven Dubois is the reigning world champion in the 500 and won bronze at the 2022 Olympics. The medal rounds are on Wednesday.

Also, the men's relay competition begins with the semifinals at 6:06 a.m. ET. Canada, led by Dandjinou and Dubois, is favoured to win gold. The top two in each heat qualify for the final on Friday.

With a silver in the mixed relay and a bronze in the women's 500 metres already under her belt, Courtney Sarault has an excellent chance here to win her third medal of the Games. 

Her three world-championship medals in the 1,000 metres include a silver last year, and the 25-year-old from Moncton owned this distance on the World Cup tour this season, winning three of the four races and taking silver in the other.

Expect Sarault to battle for the gold with the Netherlands' Xandra Velzeboer, who won the 500m on Thursday and was the 1,000-metre world champion in 2023; and Belgium's Hanne Desmet, the reigning 1,000-metre world champ and the only skater to beat Sarault in the one-kilometre on the World Tour this season.

Kim Boutin was edged out in quarterfinals with a time of 1:28:907 behind South Korea's Minjeong Choi. Florence Brunelle came third in her semifinal race, meaning she'll skate in Final B.

Boutin took Olympic silver in this event back in 2018 and earned her fifth career Olympic medal on Tuesday in the mixed relay.

Rachel Homan defeats China, gets Canada back in win column at Milano Cortina 2026 

After dropping three-straight matches, Rachel Homan and her Ottawa-based rink defeats China's Wang Rui 10-5. Canada improves to 2-3 and is tied with China and Great Britain for sixth place in round-robin play.

Canada’s Rachel Homan is in the win tower erstwhile over again. After tercet square losses, Homan got back on track with a 10-5 victory over China’s Wang Rui. 

Trailing 2-0, Homan jumped ahead with a huge score of four points in the fourth end. 

Homan counted three in the sixth end after a measure to lead 7-3. 

Wang scored two in the seventh to cut the deficit in half, but Homan drew for a pair of points in the eighth to re-establish the four-point gap. 

A steal of one in the ninth led to handshakes. Team Homan curled 87 per cent as a unit with Team Wang at 81 per cent. Both teams now hold 2-3 records. 

Up next: Homan and the team play Japan (1-4) at 1:05 p.m. ET. 

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