Milan Cortina 2026: Czechs Win, Biathlon & Curling Updates

Adverse weather in Livigno has altered the schedule for snowboarders and ski and freestyle aerials competitors, including Adéla Měrková and Nicholas Novák.

Due to snowfall and strong winds, the slopestyle final and ski jumping qualifications were canceled. Organizers have rescheduled the slopestyle and women’s qualifications for Wednesday, with the men’s ski jumping now set for Thursday.

Fillon Maillet leads France to gold in biathlon relay

Tomáš Mikyska, Vítězslav Hornig, Petr Hák, and Michal Krčmář finished sixth in the biathlon relay. The team recorded ten reloads on the shooting range, but avoided any penalty laps. France claimed their first triumph, followed by Norway, and Sweden.

Despite a penalty lap from Fabien Claude on the first leg, the French team secured their first Olympic gold in the relay. Émilien Jacquelin brought the team back into contention, and Quentin Fillon Maillet and anchor Éric Perrot maintained their lead. Norway finished just under ten seconds behind France, whereas Sweden trailed by 57.5 seconds.

Mikyska started the race with a clean prone shooting stage, needing two reloads in standing. He left the shooting range in thirteenth place, but tagged off in seventh, 34 seconds behind the leading Norwegians.

The race became more challenging for France after Claude’s penalty lap, dropping them to thirteenth. The Italian team also struggled, with Patrick Braunhofer handing off in second to last place, nearly a minute and a half behind.

“It’s quite difficult on the track, you can really only follow one line. If you want to overtake someone, you have to leave that line and lose a lot of energy. The first two laps were gradual. After two reloads, I had to push a little harder,” Mikyska told Czech Television.

Hornig mirrored Mikyska’s shooting performance on the second leg, with two reloads in standing after a perfect prone stage. He fell to tenth place. Jacquelin then propelled France back into the lead.

Hák, making his relay debut, initially lost ground. He needed one reload in prone and narrowly avoided a penalty lap with three reloads in standing.

“It’s always terrible shooting one-for-one. I remembered my friend Adam Václavík. You just have to make that last shot. Unfortunately, my legs started shaking. I apologize to my team. I lost some seconds there, I was there for a long time. I had to work my tail off in the last lap,” said Hák, who tagged off ninth with a more than two-minute deficit.

Heading into the final leg, France, Norway, and Sweden were within one second of each other. Krčmář then moved the team up three positions.

After a clean prone stage, Krčmář needed two reloads in standing, but managed to pass Finland’s Otto Invenius and Switzerland’s Niklas Hartweg in the finish. The Czech team finished over two and a half minutes behind the winning French squad.

This marked the Czech team’s third consecutive sixth-place finish, following similar results in World Cup events in Oberhof and Ruhpolding. They improved upon their 19th-place finish from Beijing four years ago, where they were disqualified for being a lap down. They matched their sixth-place result from Turin 2006 and Vancouver 2010, with their best result remaining a fifth-place finish in Salt Lake City 2002.

Curlers achieve first victory after six losses

Skip Lukáš Klíma’s team rallied from a 2-5 deficit to break a six-game losing streak. The Czechs will face China on Wednesday and Sweden on Thursday to conclude their tournament. They no longer have a chance to advance.

The curling team secured their first Olympic win on their seventh attempt. They previously lost to the USA, Switzerland, Norway, Great Britain, Italy, and Canada. Their group stage record now stands at 1-6.

Even against Germany, the Czechs started slowly, trailing 2-5 after six ends. They then scored three points to tie the game and took the lead with another point in the eighth end. Germany responded to regain a narrow lead at 7-6, but the Czechs secured three points in the final end to win the match.

“Here’s the first win for men’s curling at the Olympics, and we’ve been waiting for it for a while. We’ve been very happy with how we’ve been playing in recent games, even if the score didn’t reflect it. We were waiting for it to finally turn around, and now it has,” said team member Martin Jurík.

Nordic combined: Oftebro wins again

Norway’s Jens Luraas Oftebro won the large hill event, adding a second gold medal to his victory in the individual competition on the normal hill. The result solidifies his position as a top contender in the Nordic combined events.

Austria’s Johannes Lamparter finished second again. Finland’s Ilkka Herola took the bronze medal. The Czech team had a less successful day: Jiří Konvalinka finished 25th, and Jan Vytrval was 29th.

Twenty-five-year-classic Oftebro became the first athlete since Finland’s Samppa Lajunen at Salt Lake City 2002 to win both individual events in Nordic combined at the Olympics.

After the ski jumping portion, he was in fifth place, but he closed the gap on leader Lamparter during the four-lap, 10-kilometer race. He overtook Japan’s Rjotu Yamamoto and took the lead.

While last week, Oftebro secured his win in a close finish, this time he attacked earlier in the climb and entered the final stretch with a comfortable lead.

He defeated Lamparter by 5.9 seconds, and Herola finished 14.8 seconds behind.

“I dreamed of one (gold), but to win two is something really special,” said Oftebro, whose older brother Einar finished sixth, adding to the family’s success.

“When I attacked in the penultimate climb, it went really well, and I’m really glad I came to the finish line alone,” he added.

Konvalinka didn’t replicate his 20th-place finish from the normal hill event. He started the race in 21st place after the ski jumping portion and dropped four places in the race, finishing nearly four minutes behind the winner.

“I have a clear conscience that I did everything I could today. I still have to accept that I’m not a specialist runner. Usually, I fall back ten to fifteen places. The fact that I fell back four places at the Olympics, I feel I can hold my head high. I’ll take these experiences with me,” said Konvalinka in a statement to the Czech Olympic Committee.

Vytrval remained in 29th place, where he started the race. He finished about a minute behind Konvalinka. He felt better during the race than in the first event, where he was recovering from an illness.

“Unfortunately, I was already out of the pack after the jump. I would have to give it everything to gain back in there, which didn’t happen. It’s hard to say how I would have done if I had been in a normal group, but from the back, I didn’t have it,” he admitted.

The Nordic combined team will compete in a sprint relay on Thursday. This will be the final Olympic race for 27-year-old Vytrval. “I’m old, I definitely won’t be here in four years,” he said.

Canadian women defend speed skating title

The Canadian speed skating team of Ivanie Blondin, Valérie Maltais, and Isabelle Weidemann won the team pursuit, defending their gold medals. In the men’s event, Italy’s Davide Ghiotto, Andrea Giovannini, and Michele Malfatti took the gold.

The Canadian women faced the Dutch team in the final, trailing for much of the race before ultimately winning by 96 hundredths of a second. The Japanese team won the bronze medal, defeating the Americans in the medal race.

The Italian men dominated the final, winning by 4.5 seconds over the United States team of Ethan Cepuran, Casey Dawson, and Emery Lehman, the reigning world champions and bronze medalists from the Beijing Games. China finished third.

This was a career-defining triumph for Giovannini and Malfatti, while Ghiotto had previously won a bronze medal on the 10,000m in Beijing. The result secured a third medal for Italian speed skating at the home Games, following two gold medals from Francesca Lollobrigida, who watched the final from the stands.