Olympics Live: Russia takes team figure skating lead

BEIJING (AP) — The Latest on the Beijing Winter Olympics:

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The powerful Russian figure skating team is in first place in the team competition at the Beijing Games after a winning performance from world champion Kamila Valieva and another strong skate from Mark Kondratiuk.

The team representing the Russian Olympic Committee has 45 points, two ahead of the U.S., which had a couple of shaky performances from Karen Chen and Vincent Zhou to slip out of first place.

The biggest surprise on the second of three days of team competition was Japan. Wakaba Higuchi was second in the women’s short program before 18-year-old Yuma Kagiyama delivered a personal-best score of 208.94 points to easily win the men’s free skate, sending the Japanese team into medal contention with 39 points.

The team competition concludes Monday with the women and pairs free skate and the free dance.

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The start of the men’s downhill skiing competition at the Beijing Games has been postponed because of high wind.

The race, the first of the Alpine competition at the Winter Olympics, will start at least three hours later than expected.

Saturday’s third and final training session had to be canceled because of high wind.

The world’s best skiers only saw The Rock course up close for the first time on Thursday.

At the top of the course, the wind was whipping at 30 mph, with gusts up to 40 mph, when the race was originally scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Beijing time.

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Australia’s first-ever Olympic mixed doubles curling team has pulled out of the Beijing Games after Tahli Gill returned a series of positive COVID-19 tests.

The Australian Olympic Committee said it was trying to make arrangements to have Gill and Dean Hewitt fly home rather than having Gill remain in an isolation hotel. They will miss their final two games and finish 0-7 in round robin play.

Gill contracted COVID-19 prior to the games. Ongoing testing alternated between negative and positive. She had been allowed to compete under the close contact arrangements after discussions with the IOC and games organizers.

Attempts to return Gill to competition were rebuffed by the IOC and health authorities, Australian Olympic team head Geoff Lipshut said.

“We made the case that Tahli was at the end of the infection cycle but further positive results early this morning ended our hopes. Rather than remain in isolation, we now have the option of returning Tahli and Dean home,” Lipshut said.

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Zoi Sadowski Synnott won New Zealand’s first gold medal in Winter Olympics history, stomping down a pressure-packed run on her last trip down the mountain Sunday to win the title in women’s slopestyle.

The 20-year-old was one of the very few to put down clean run on a supersized course, where hardpacked snow and bone-cold wind chills made things difficult for all 12 finalists, including two-time defending champion Jamie Anderson, who finished ninth.

Sadowski Synnott went into her last of three runs trailing American Julia Marino but came up big.

She landed a double-cork 1080 on the second jump, and while not repeating that jump the way she did when she won the Winter X Games last month, her backside 1080 off the final kicker was more than enough.

She raised her hands in the air after landing, knowing what she’d done. Marino and third-place finisher Tess Coady of Australia knew it, too. They gang-tackled her at the finish line to celebrate.

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Olympic favorite Kamila Valieva nearly eclipsed her own world record in the short program of the team figure skating event at the Beijing . That sends her Russian team into the lead heading into the men’s free skate later Sunday.

The 15-year-old Valieva’s score of 90.18 points to “In Memoriam” by the Russian pianist and composer Kirill Richter at the Beijing Games was just off the record of 90.45 points set just weeks ago at the European championships.

The Russians moved into first place with 36 points, two ahead of Day 1 leader Team USA and seven ahead of Japan.

Karen Chen took the ice for the Americans but made a couple of mistakes, including a fall on her triple loop near the end of the program. That left her in fifth place in the short program and cost her team valuable points.

Wakaba Higuchi was second, pushing her Japanese team into podium contention. Reigning gold medalist Canada survived the cutoff thanks to a strong performance from Madeline Schizas, while China claimed the last spot in the free skates by winning a tiebreaker with Georgia.

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