Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics daily briefing: Norway add to medal haul

Today in a nutshell: The US men’s team make an unexpected ice hockey exit but American skiers claim a men’s slopestyle 1-2 as Norway continue to dominate the medals

Next up: There is freestyle skiing, ice hockey, curling and short track speed skating still to come today. Tomorrow: the finale of the Kamila Valieva show

A pair of Americans topped the men’s freeski slopestyle podium after Alex Hall soared to Olympic gold ahead of teammate Nick Goepper, who took the silver. Sweden’s Jesper Tjäder won the bronze ahead of Andri Ragettli, the defending world champion from Switzerland. “It definitely was the best slopestyle run I’ve ever done, mainly because it embodied everything I love about skiing and how I approach skiing and I didn’t fade away from that to try and maybe get bigger scores or something,” Hall said.

Clement Noel of France came from sixth place to take men’s slalom gold with an absolutely blistering second run. Austria’s Johannes Strolz won silver to go with his gold in the combined, finishing 0.61 seconds behind Noel, while reigning world champion Sebastian Foss-Solevaag of Norway took bronze. “It’s not often that you are able to win a medal in the Olympic Games. It’s one shot – one minute and 40 seconds every four years,” Noel said.

Dave Ryding’s dream of an Olympic medal of Great Britain faded away after a mistake on his opening run cost him any chance of a podium finish. “I am always realistic and while I would love to say I’ll be back, I probably won’t be. But I’ll for sure take it year by year from now,” the 35-year-old said.

There was an upset in the men’s ice hockey quarter-finals. Slovakia gambled while 2-1 down to the USA by taking off their goaltender and throwing on an extra attacker, grabbed an