The Milan Cortina Olympics delivered plenty of excitement for Team USA on Friday with a gold medal in men’s freeski halfpipe and another medal in women’s 1,500m short track speedskating.
Also, Norway set a record for most golds won at a single Winter Olympics with Johannes Dale-Skjevdal winning the men’s 15km mass start biathlon. Norway has earned 17 gold medals at the 2026 Winter Games.
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Here are five of the top stories from Day 14 of the Milan Cortina Olympics:
U.S. men’s hockey rolls over Slovakia; Canada awaits in gold medal game
The U.S. men’s hockey team will leave Milan with a medal after defeating Slovakia 6-2 in Friday’s semifinal matchup. That would be the Americans’ first medal in ice hockey since the 2010 Vancouver Games.
But Team USA has eyes on gold — potentially its first since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” team finished atop the podium — and its inevitable matchup with Canada is next in Sunday’s gold medal game. Team Canada had a tougher time advancing to the final, falling behind 2-0 to Finland before rallying for a 3-2 win.
Get up early on Sunday! The U.S. and Canada drop the puck at 8:10 a.m. ET.
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Women’s curling team loses in semifinal to Switzerland
Beating Switzerland in consecutive matches proved too difficult for Team USA on Friday. A day after defeating Switzerland to advance to the semifinals, Team USA lost 7-4 to the Swiss team Friday.
Switzerland played a strong defensive game, limiting Team USA to just one point in the ends in which it scored. Switzerland also controlled the hammer, forcing multiple scoreless ends to keep the final stone.
While the U.S. tried to make it tough in the 10th end, Switzerland executed on its hammer throw, picking up two points to seal the victory.
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With the loss, Team USA will play Canada for the bronze medal Saturday.
Alex Ferreira wins gold in men’s halfpipe
Competing in his third (and likely final) Winter Olympics, U.S. halfpipe skier Alex Ferreira earned an elusive gold medal in men’s halfpipe. His gold joins the silver he won in 2018 at PyeongChang and bronze at Beijing in 2022. Landing a 1620 spin in his final run (drawing a 93.75 score), Ferreira, 31, finished .75 points ahead of Estonia’s Henry Sildaru, just 19 years old. Canada’s Brendan Mackay took bronze.
Team USA nearly had two spots on the podium, but Nick Goepper took a hard fall on the edge of the halfpipe attempting his final trick. Had he medaled, Goepper would have been the first male freeskier to win in both halfpipe and slopestyle. Before switching to halfpipe, he won silver at Beijing and PyeongChang, and earned bronze at Sochi in slopestyle.
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Corinne Stoddard takes bronze in women’s 1,500m short track speedskating
Team USA added to its speedskating medal count with Corinne Stoddard earning bronze in the women’s short track 1,500 meters competition. Stoddard’s bronze is the first medal the U.S. has won in short track since 2018.
Competing in her second Winter Games, Stoddard improved upon her seventh-place finish at Beijing in the 1,500 meters with a 2:32.578 time in Milan. That beat out China’s Jingru Yang for bronze. South Korea took the top two spots on the podium with Kim Gilli (2:32.076) taking gold and Choi Minjeong (2:32.450) winning silver.
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Brittany Bowe finishes fourth in final Olympic race
Speedskater Brittany Bowe had one last opportunity to win a medal in Milan Cortina in what is likely her final Winter Olympics. Competing in the long track speedskating 1,500 meters event, Bowe, 37, got off to a strong start but could not maintain her pace and was eventually overtaken.
Antoinette Rijpma-de Jong of the Netherlands won gold, followed by Norway’s Ragne Wiklund taking silver and Canada’s Valerie Maltais earning bronze. Bowe finished fourth, missing the podium for the third time at the 2026 Games. Nevertheless, she had a memorable Olympics, getting engaged to U.S. women’s hockey captain Hilary Knight before Team USA won gold on Thursday.
Highlight of the day
Tage Thompson gave the U.S. men’s ice hockey team a 2-0 lead, firing in a shot from a tough angle. Standing nearly parallel to the net, Thompson took a pass out wide from Jack Eichel and found open space between Slovakia goalie Stanislav Skorvanek’s right pad and the post.
One more thing
Lindsey Vonn is now the 2026 real-life version of 1970s TV character Jamie Sommers.
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“I’m bionic for real now,” Vonn said on social media after sharing a scan of her broken left leg with the myriad plates and screws surgeons inserted to repair the injury. Vonn broke her leg in a crash during her downhill run on Feb. 8 and had to be airlifted from the slope. After undergoing several surgeries in Italy, she returned to the United States earlier this week.
On the 1970s TV series “The Bionic Woman,” Lindsay Wagner portrayed a professional tennis player who suffered critical injuries during a skydiving accident and receives bionic implants from a government agency. She then becomes a part-time operative who carries out missions with her enhanced abilities.
No word on whether or not Vonn will become a secret agent now that her competitive skiing days are likely over. But if that happened, would she tell us?
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