Two skaters from the Russian Olympic Committee took the top two spots at the women's program at the Beijing Olympics. Kamila Valieva, who has been at the center of a scandal, took fourth place.
The three-time Olympic medalist told reporters that she felt "like a joke" after failing to finish her third race of the Winter Games. Her last chance at a medal is a team competition on Saturday.
Canada defeated Team USA 3-2 on Thursday to win its fifth gold medal in the sport. Either Canada or the U.S. has won every gold medal since women's hockey debuted at the winter Olympics in 1998.
Each day the International Olympic Committee holds a press conference to answer a variety of press questions. Today, the spokeswoman for the Beijing Games interjected several times to defend China.
The 15-year-old athlete tested positive in December for trimetazidine, a drug typically prescribed to much older patients suffering from angina and other heart-related conditions.
A triple jump used to be the gold standard in figure skating. Now it's the quad. For the first time at an Olympics, a woman — Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva — landed a quad in competition.
Team USA had been one minute away from advancing to the Olympic semifinals — but Slovakia came back to force overtime in the final minute of regulation.
"The only difference I see is I'm a black young lady," U.S. sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson said, after the Russian figure skater is allowed to compete at the Olympics despite a failed drug test.
NPR's Jaclyn Diaz got the rare chance to step outside the COVID quarantine bubble of the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. She and a few others got to visit the famed Great Wall.
With a population roughly equal to Minnesota, Norway is a global superpower in winter sports. The Scandinavian country leads in Beijing by a lot - both in golds and total overall medals.
With Kamila Valieva seizing the top spot, 25 skaters advance to the next segment. Normally, only the top 24 move on from the short program. But these Games aren't normal.
The U.S. women's ice hockey team defeated Finland 4-1 on Monday. The U.S. team will go up against its longtime rival, Canada, in the gold medal game later this week.
The International Olympic Committee says it will abide by a decision that 15-year-old Kamila Valieva be allowed to skate in Beijing but if she wins "no medal ceremony will take place."
