The first full day of Olympic competition takes place on Saturday. Here is what we have in store.
Curling
The Canadian mixed doubles team of Jocelyn Peterman of Red Deer, Alberta and Brett Gallant of Summerside, Prince Edward Island have a record of three wins and one loss. They are in a third place tie with Italy in the standings. Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds (the 2021 World Champions) are at 5-0 and the American team of Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin (the 2023 World Champions) are at 4-0. On Saturday, Peterman and Gallant play Great Britain at 2 am MT and Estonia (1-3) at 11 am MT.
Women’s Hockey
Canada will have their first game of the Olympic women’s hockey competition against Switzerland on Saturday at 1:10pm MT. It will be interesting to see if the United States play Finland at 8:40 am MT. That is because the game between Canada and Finland on Thursday was postponed until February 12 because Finland has a Norovirus outbreak.
Best chance for a medal
I am predicting Canada to win a bronze medal in the women’s 3000m speed skating event. Isabelle Weidemann of Ottawa, Ontario won the bronze medal in the women’s 3000 metres at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. Weidemann also won a silver medal in the women’s 3000 metres at the 2024 World Single Distance Speed Skating Championships in Calgary.
Other Canadians with a chance
Valerie Maltais of La Baie, Quebec won three medals on the World Cup circuit in the women’s 3000 metres this year (one silver and two bronze). Meanwhile, Francis Jobin of Quebec City, Quebec has qualified for the men’s big air snowboarding final (11:30 am MT) and Calgary’s Abigail Strate is in fifth in the World Cup women’s ski jumping standings. She will be competing in the women’s normal hill event (11:57 AM MT).
Olympic medal predictions
Men’s Downhill–Gold–Marco Odermatt–SUI, Silver–Franjo Von Allen–SUI, Bronze–Dominik Paris–ITA (3:30 AM MT)
Women’s 20KM Skiathlon–Gold–Ebba Andersson–SWE, Silver–Heidi Wang–NOR, Bronze–Jessie Diggins–USA (5 AM MT)
Women’s 3000m Speed Skating–Gold–Ragne Wiklund–NOR, Silver–Joy Beune–NED, Bronze–Isabelle Weidemann–CAN (8 AM MT)
Men’s Big Air Snowboarding–Gold–Yuto Miyamura–JPN, Silver–Hiroto Ogiwara–JPN, Bronze–Ian Matteoli–ITA (11:30 AM)
Women’s Normal Hill Ski Jumping–Gold–Nikita Prevc–SLO, Silver–Selina Freitag–GER, Bronze–Lisa Eder–AUT (11:57 AM MT).
