Winter Olympics LIVE: Team GB hopes to break medal drought as Charlotte Bankes goes in snowboard cross

LIVE – Updated at 02:26

There are six gold medals up for grabs on day five of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, with attention focussing on the women’s slalom ski race, the men’s big air in freestyle skiing, the luge doubles, the Nordic combined, women’s snowboard cross and the men’s 1500m short track speed skating.

The US will hope to end its longest-ever wait for its first gold medal of a Winter Olympics, having come up short in 31 events so far in Beijing, while Great Britain is still to win its first medal of any kind in China.

American Mikaela Shiffrin will hope to bounce back from her poor showing in the giant slalom earlier this week when she goes in the slalom, who will be challenged by Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova.

Charlotte Bankes, the current world champion in snowboard cross, is a big medal hope for Great Britain and the current World Cup points leader. If she can secure gold it would be Britain’s 12th Winter Olympic’s title, and the country’s first ever on snow.

Meanwhile, American snowboard stars Sean White and Chloe Kim begin the defence of their Olympic halfpipe titles and will go through qualifying for the 12-person finals. Kim is a strong gold-medal favourite, while White has said this is the last competition of his legendary career. He has medalled only once since making a 2018 comeback from a three year competitive break.

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Everyone will be watching the women’s slalom to see whether Team USA’s Mikaela Shiffrin regains her Olympic crown in this discipline.

Shiffrin, a 2014 Olympic slalom champion, surprisingly finished just fourth in PyeongChang in what is her favoured event. The four-time world champion will face a stern test from Austria’s Katharina Liensberger and Slovakia’s Petra