Olympic Updates: Norway’s Johaug wins gold in cross-country

Cross-country skier Therese Johaug of Norway has won the first gold medal of the Beijing Games in the women’s 15-meter skiathlon.

Johaug fought wind and frigid temperatures to win by skiing away from a chase group of four.

Russian athlete Natalia Nepryaeva, the current overall World Cup leader, pulled away from the group on the last climb to take the silver. Teresa Stadlober of Austria followed just behind for the bronze medal.

The skiathlon was a mass-start race that began with 7.5 kilometers of classic skiing. After striding two laps around the 3.75-kilometer course, racers came through the stadium and quickly switched to skate skis before heading out for another two laps.

Johaug crossed the line with her arms in the air and a huge smile on her face. She has 10 world championship titles but has never won an individual Olympic gold medal.

Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a skier from China’s Uyghur community who helped deliver the Olympic flame to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games, placed 43rd.

A total of 45 new positive tests for COVID-19 have been announced by organizers of the Beijing Olympics.

Athletes and officials account for 25 of the cases, with 20 detected in people arriving at the airport in Beijing and five more in daily PCR tests taken by everyone at the games.

The 20 other cases involved people working at the games, including media, with six at the airport and 14 inside the Olympic bubbles.

Organizing committee official Huang Chun says the numbers are “within our expectations.”

A drop in cases is expected in the days ahead as fewer people arrive for the games and those inside the bubbles have already returned several days of negative tests.

The overall total of COVID-19 cases at the games is 353 since Jan. 23. More than 12,000 people have arrived from outside China.

It was still gusty during the women’s Olympic qualifying round on a bitterly cold day in the mountains above Beijing.

The swirling wind made judging the rails and jumps along the course tricky.

Snowboarder Zoi Sadowski Synnott of New Zealand navigated the extreme conditions and turned in the top score of 86.75. Synnott may just be the biggest challenger to two-time defending Olympic gold medalist Jamie Anderson of the United States.

Anderson finished fifth in qualifying. The top 12 advanced to Sunday’s final.

The 31-year-old Anderson said the Great Wall barrier was helpful, but joked “they need a bigger wall.”

The course makers built a carved-out, block-by-block structure at the top of the slopestyle course in recognition of China’s iconic monument and to provide wind protection.

The temperature was 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 Celsius) and felt like minus 12 (minus 24 Celsius) during the competition.

The International Olympic Committee says an Olympic security guard was “being overzealous” by manhandling a reporter broadcasting live on Dutch television before the opening ceremony.

Asked about the incident, Beijing Olympics spokeswoman Yan Jiarong says “we welcome all the international media” to report on the games and will protect their legal rights.

Sjoerd den Daas was speaking to the camera Friday evening when a security official pushed him away. He was able to complete his report later.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams says “it was an unfortunate circumstance” and Olympic officials have contacted broadcaster NOS.

NOS is the Netherlands’ state broadcaster and an official rights holder of the Olympic Games. Den Daas is its correspondent in China.

Beijing Olympic organizers and the International Olympic Committee responded to questions about why an athlete from China’s Uyghur community was picked to help deliver the Olympic flame to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games.

Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a cross-country skier, is from Xinjiang province, where Western governments and human rights groups say the Beijing government has oppressed members of the Uyghur Muslim minority on a massive scale.

Asked about the choice, IOC spokesman Mark Adams said “we don’t discriminate against people on where they are from” and she was entitled to take part as a competitor.

The 20-year-old cross-country skier was among seven current and former Chinese athletes chosen as the final torch-bearers to cap the ceremony.

Organizing committee official Chang Yu says the IOC gave final approval this week to picking athletes by age to represent each decade. The idea was to respect the Chinese tradition of passing legacy on between the generations.

China denies allegations of human rights abuses in a crackdown on the Uyghur community that the U.S. government and others have called genocide. That issue and others have led to diplomatic boycotts of the games by the United States and other countries.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping will meet with his counterparts from Egypt and Serbia on the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Olympics, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic are among more than a dozen world leaders who attended the opening ceremony Friday night.

Egypt’s ties with China have grown stronger, particularly during the pandemic. There are signs their worldviews are becoming more closely aligned, as el-Sissi seeks to move away from Western leaders who have concerns over his human rights record.

Vucic has been cultivating close ties with China, which has become one of the main investors in Serbia. He called Xi his “brother” at the start of the pandemic for supplying Serbia with respirators and vaccines. Opposition officials have been warning about a lack of transparency in deals Vucic has made with China, including major loans for building roads, highways and factories.

The third and final training session for men’s downhill skiing at the Beijing Games has been canceled because of high winds.

Organizers say they made the decision “in the best interest of safety.”

The start of the second training session had to be delayed Friday because of wind. Organizers said Saturday there was no window in the forecast that would allow them to push back the third session rather than canceling it.

The world’s best skiers only saw the Rock course up close for the first time on Thursday because test events were canceled over the last two years amid the pandemic.

The men’s downhill opens the Alpine competition on Sunday.

Ukrainian figure skater Ivan Shmuratko has cleared COVID-19 protocols by returning two negative tests on consecutive days. That allows him to begin preparing for the men’s individual competition that begins Tuesday.

It was one day too late for his team, though. The Ukrainians scored zero points for the men’s discipline in the team competition on Friday because Shmuratko was still going through protocols, taking them out of the running for a medal.

The team competition resumes Sunday with the women’s short program. Then the top five nations will advance to the free skate, which begins with the men later the same day. The event concludes with the women, pairs and dance free skates on Monday.

China’s National Health Commission says new domestic cases of COVID-19 in China have fallen into the single digits, allaying fears for now of a new outbreak that could disrupt the Winter Olympics.

The commission says nine cases were reported in a 24 hour period, only one of them in Beijing.

The Beijing case was in the western district of Fengtai, far from the Olympic venues that have been sealed off into a bubble with gates and fencing to prevent any contact between athletes, officials and other participants on the inside and the general public.

Chinese authorities credit a strict “zero-tolerance” policy with keeping case numbers down through lockdowns and mass testing, even when only small numbers of cases are reported.

The commission on Saturday reported another 18 cases among people who had traveled from abroad, along with 60 imported asymptomatic cases.

As of Thursday, a total of 308 people associated with the Olympics had tested positive since Jan. 23, including athletes, officials and workers at the Games. Almost 12,000 people have arrived in Beijing from outside China for the Olympics.

Canadian hockey forward Melodie Daoust will not play against Finland in the Olympics and is being listed as day-to-day with an upper body injury.

Hockey operations director Gina Kingsbury says Daoust is expected to return during the tournament.

The three-time Olympian was hurt in the second period of Canada’s 12-1 win over Switzerland in an opening day preliminary round Group A matchup on Thursday. Daoust has been playing on a line with Natalie Spooner and young star Sarah Fillier, who combined for four goals and three assists against the Swiss.

Sofia Goggia is back on snow and preparing to fly to China to defend her Olympic downhill title two weeks after crashing and injuring her left knee and leg.

Goggia posted a video on Facebook showing herself wearing Italy’s Olympic team jacket and says, “today I got back on skis and it was great.”

She adds, “So much work over these two weeks, so many injuries to cure, so much effort … but so much desire to make it.”

Goggia sprained her left knee, partially tore a cruciate ligament and has a “minor fracture” of the fibula bone in her leg. She also had some tendon damage after the crash in a World Cup super-G in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

Goggia has won the last eight World Cup downhills that she completed.

The Italian says that she’s “always been able to focus on the goal and I never considered it lost.” She adds that she’ll fly to China “soon” and that once there she’ll “put everything together turn after turn like always.”

Goggia could race the super-G next Friday. The women’s downhill is scheduled for Feb. 15.