BEIJING – Kamila Valieva was always going to be the main attraction on the second Thursday of the Beijing Winter Olympics, although it will be under far from ideal circumstances.
Her free skate routine will attract even more viewers because of the failed drugs test that emerged last week and has been the subject of so much controversy in the days since.
The Russian holds the world record for the highest ever free skate score of 185.29, achieved at the Roestelecom Cup in Sochi, a grand prix event held last November.
Given that she fell twice warming up for her short programme and then slipped on the same jump in competition, it is unrealistic to expect Valieva to produce those kinds of numbers, but her narrow lead over team-mate Anna Shcherbakova should still be enough to ensure she retains the top spot she earned on Tuesday.
How to watch Winter Olympics 2022
If you want to watch every moment live, you will need to have a Discovery+ subscription. You can sign up for Discovery+ here.
Discovery is promising subscribers access to up to 15 simultaneous events and special “pop-up channels” for the most popular sports such as ice hockey and curling.
As with last year’s Tokyo Summer Games, the BBC will be restricted to two live feeds.
The BBC will screen more than 300 hours of live coverage across BBC One and BBC Two, with additional coverage available on a second live digital stream on BBC iPlayer, the red button and the BBC Sport website.
Beijing is eight hours ahead of the UK, meaning many of the events will take place late at night in UK time.
Here’s the daily BBC schedule:
- Midnight-6am – overnight action presented by Ayo Akinwolere, BBC One
- 6am-9am – Jeanette Kwakye hosts live action, BBC Two
- 9.15am-1pm – Hazel Irvine presents the main morning show, with live events and highlights, BBC One on weekdays, BBC Two on weekends
- 9.15am-1pm – Hazel Irvine presents the main morning show, with live events and highlights, BBC One on weekdays, BBC Two on weekends
- 3pm-6pm – JJ Chalmers presents extended replays, BBC Two
- 7pm-8pm – Today at the Games with Clare Balding, BBC Two
- 8pm-8.55pm – Aimee Fuller presents another extended highlights package, BBC Three
However, if Valieva does earn a medal, she will not receive it for some time. The IOC have said that if the Russian does win a medal, it will not hold the ceremony or give out the prizes.
Medals will be awarded and given out in the women’s ice hockey, which reaches its climax on Thursday.
For the fourth time in a row, the gold medal match will be contested between Canada in the USA, with the former getting the better of the match up twice and the latter once. Sweden are the only non-North American team to have ever reached the final of this event when they were beaten by Canada back in 2006.
Canada have scored 21 times in their last two games and beat USA 4-2 in the group stages, making them firm favourites to claim their fifth Olympic title.
Medals schedule
- 4.10am: Ice hockey, gold medal match, Canada vs USA
- 4.30am: Alpine skiing, women’s combined downhill (slalom run: 6am)
- 6am: Freestyle skiing, women’s ski cross (final: 7.15am)
- 8.30am: Speed skating, women’s 1000m
- 10am: Figure skating, women’s free skate (concludes around 2pm)
- 11am: Nordic Combined, cross-country round
Britwatch
By Tom Harle in Beijing — Both Bruce Mouat and Eve Muirhead face defining days in the Ice Cube as Britain’s curlers continue to single-handedly shoulder Team GB’s medal hopes.
Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan have looked a cut above in the men’s tournament and top the standings with a round robin game to play.
After taking on Canada in their ninth group match, Mouat’s men are guaranteed to start with the hammer in the semi-finals and could well face the Canadians in a rerun.
It is a more complicated matter for Muirhead and her rink who need to beat Russian Olympic Committee and hope other results go their way.
Muirhead, Vicky Wright, Jennifer Dodds and Hailey Duff won four and lost four of their first eight games and will hope to find consistency in the latter stages of the tournament.
Elsewhere, Gus Kenworthy and Zoe Atkin both make their Team GB debuts in the freestyle skiing halfpipe.
Kenworthy won a slopestyle silver medal at Sochi 2014 and switched allegiance to the country of his mother’s birth in 2019.
“I obviously want to medal and I want to win, and I have those aspirations,” said Kenworthy.
“But also it is a judged sport and we have no control over it.
“I have come up with a run that I feel like will do pretty well if I’m able to land it cleanly and execute well, but ultimately that’s the only thing I have control over. But I’m hoping to land my run and where I end up is where I end up.”
Atkin, whose sister Izzy pulled out of the defence of her slopestyle bronze medal, could spring a surprise having won bronze at the World Championships in 2021.
Ellia Smeding concludes her speed skating campaign in the 1000m.
Watch all the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 live on discovery+ , Eurosport and Eurosport app