Bugaluu :: Sports

MILAN — There’s something endearingly chaotic about the Winter Olympics. This is a collection of sports that could very easily kill you … and also, curling. So it makes sense that the latest installment of the Winter Games would include one scandal involving skating judging, another involving the crotches of uniforms, and a third involving a scrape of a fingernail. These are the Games where several Olympians got engaged … and one blew up his relationship right there on the podium. 

It’s time to honor the most (and least) notable performers in the Olympics, the same way we honor the best (and worst) for our American sports back home with our “Winners and Losers” columns. Let’s be honest, though: there aren’t really any “losers” in the Olympics, just people who didn’t quite make the podium. So we’ll change it up a bit here, awarding gold, silver and bronze medals to those who deserve it … and no podium whatsoever for those that don’t. 

Now, please bring out the medals and the little stuffed toys …

Gold medal: Alysa Liu

In an Olympics where so many crumbled under the pressure of the rings, Liu laughed … and then went out and snared gold. She’s brought joy and exuberance back to skating, and she might have at least one more Olympics in her to share with the world. 

Off the podium: Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo 

Kidding! The Norwegian cross country skier entered six events and won six gold medals. At this Olympics! Not only is he on the podium, he is the podium. Everybody else, give him your golds. He’s going to win them from you anyway. He is inevitable. 

Gold medal: Nazgul the Dog

Yes, if you or I ran onto an active Olympic cross country race course and started sniffing the skiers, we’d get in a lot of trouble, but Nazgul the dog got nothing but praise. That’s what happens when you’re a very good boy. Bonus: Nazgul didn’t get himself in trouble with any post-race interviews. 

Silver: Brittany Bowe

Look, when you get three straight fourth-place finishes in your final Olympics, you damn sure deserve some kind of medal for that, even if it’s a made-up one. At least Bowe left with a ring courtesy of fiancee Hilary Knight, who proposed before the gold medal game. (Wise idea.) 

Gold medal: Jordan Stolz

Sure, he tapered off a bit at the end, but wouldn’t you? Two golds and a silver in speed skating is a pretty solid haul. And when your quads are getting compared to Saquon Barkley’s, well, you’re in rare air. Next Olympics, he needs to jump over one of his challengers. 

Off the podium: The International Olympic Committee

The IOC has a difficult role trying to thread the needle of creating a competition where the parties involved don’t get too competitive. The Olympics would be a whole lot easier if nations actually carried through on their promise to leave politics out of the Games. The Olympics would also be a whole lot easier if everybody got a participation trophy instead of a gold medal, too. By its own standards of misfiring, this Olympics wasn’t a catastrophic one for the IOC. But the mishandling of the case of a Ukrainian skeleton pilot’s helmet, and the inexplicable decision to sell 1936 Berlin Olympics gear on its website marked two more of the IOC’s self-inflicted black eyes. But with Russia eyeing a full return to the Games, the IOC’s real challenges still lie ahead.  

In ski mountaineering, part of the discipline is climbing up … perfectly crafted stairs. (Christophe Pallot/Agence Zoom/Getty Images)

Silver medal: Ski Mountaineering

What a weird, glorious sport! Skiing uphill, carrying your boots up stairs, skiing downhill! Throw in “waiting in absurdly long lift lines” and “drinking way too much right after you get off the mountain” and you’ve got yourself the full skiing experience! No idea if this sport will stick around or not, but we applaud the Olympics for taking chances with new, strange ideas. 

Bronze medal: Amber Glenn

So close. So very, very close. Amber Glenn missed out on a likely medal by a single missed jump in her short program, then rallied in her longer free skate to climb from 13th place all the way up to fifth. It’s one of the real tragedies of the Olympics that once you learn how to handle the pressure of them … you might be out of chances to compete in them.  

Gold medal: Liz Lemley

The best Olympic stories are the surprises, the unknowns who leap from nowhere right to the top of the podium. Just 20 years old, Lemley was expected to be good — but not this good, this fast. She claimed gold in the moguls event, outperforming a much deeper, older, more experienced field. Sometimes Olympic pressure is no pressure at all. 

Bronze medal: The wayward biathlete 

Sturla Holm Lægreid became an instant worldwide sensation/cautionary tale when he decided to use his bronze medal-winning podium interview to confess to cheating on his girlfriend … after three months. “Six months ago, I met the love of my life, the most beautiful, kindest person in the world. And three months ago, I made the biggest mistake of my life and cheated on her, and I told her about it a week ago.” That’s … that’s a whole lot to deal with there, Sturla! Here’s another bronze, maybe you can give it to a third party … we predict you’re going to have some trouble reconnecting with the first two. 

Gold medal: Lindsey Vonn

Sure, her 2026 Olympic experience didn’t last very long, and ended in the most painful and churning way possible. But she made it there, she made it onto the top of the mountain, she made it onto the slope — despite her age, despite her injuries, despite a terrible crash just a week before the Opening Ceremony. That’s as Olympian as it gets.  

Off the podium: Figure skating judges

One of the traditions about the Olympics is the way that the vast majority of America comes parachuting into a sport with ready-made indignant snap judgments — like, Hey, these figure skating judges sure seem biased! — while the regulars just shake their heads in resignation. Americans raised on football don’t much care for judged sports, but we sure do love to judge the judges. Irony, huh? 

Gold medal: The U.S. men’s hockey team

This wasn’t exactly a miracle — Team USA is end-to-end NHL players —- but knocking off Canada 101 seconds into a dramatic 3-on-3 overtime wasn’t exactly a Dream Team-esque romp, either. Plus, the way the Americans honored their fallen friend Johnny Gaudreau at center ice after the win brought tears along with the smiles.

Silver medal: Mikaela Shiffrin

Splitting the difference between her gold medal-winning run and her earlier Olympic missteps. Shiffrin is the world’s greatest skater by the numbers, but Olympics ghosts have lived in her head since 2018. She finally evicted them with her final run of the 2026 Milan Cortina games, a thoroughly dominant gold medal-winning slalom run that reasserted her dominance over the sport.  

Bronze medal: Eileen Gu

An award purely for her attitude. Gu has managed to deftly straddle the line between U.S. and Chinese culture with more skill — and more profit-taking — than any other public figure. She can leap right over intrusive questions or condescending presumptions and land with more style than anyone in the room. It’s an impressive show … and that’s very much what it is with Gu, a show. 

(Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Silver medal: Cortina d’Ampezzo

Cortina made for an absolutely gorgeous tableau for all the mountain sports. The Dolomites were a spectacular backdrop … and a terrifying one, too, when we got a look at the helicopter rescue of Lindsey Vonn. There were logistical problems with buses, of course, and the weather wasn’t always on the Olympics’ side, but still … what a view. 

Off the podium: Snoop Dogg

We’re way past the point where it’s weird to see the onetime proponent of smokin’ indo and sippin’ on gin and juice palling around with Martha Stewart. Now, Snoop is just flat-out overexposed, stealing the spotlight from every sport he visits. And he visits every sport.  

Gold medal: Alex Ferreira

Yes, the halfpipe legend won a gold medal, validating an entire career. That’s worthy of praise. But he also revealed that he has the finest motivational slogan we’ve ever heard: “I am greatness, and this is my moment.” Perfect. 

General view of the Olympic rings outside the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. (Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Bronze medal: Milan

This is the average of two scores: the gold medal for the very small, but very festive area around the Duomo (that giant cathedral you saw in all the background of all those NBC shots) … and the anonymous office-park vibe that smothered the skating and hockey arenas. Much of Milan didn’t even appear to notice the Games were happening. But in the area around the Duomo and the Arco della Pace — the arch where the Olympic flame hung — you could catch a bit of the classic multicultural Olympic vibe. 

Silver medal: Curling

Every Olympics, America falls in love with curling … and then forgets all about it right after the torch goes out. It’s a shame, really, because curling is a perfect kind of rec sport — easy to learn, difficult to master, able to be done while drinking beer. The Canadian curling scandal — don’t touch that rock! — elevated the sport this year, but the United States’ struggles on the big stage brought it back down to earth a bit. Can a new curling league tide us all over until 2030? 

Off the podium: The Blade Angels hype

Well, that didn’t work out so well. The Blade Angels — Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito — came skating into the Olympics with some observers suggesting they could sweep the podium. That didn’t come close to happening: Liu won gold, but Glenn made a crucial mistake and Levito never really got going. Did NBC (and, uh, other media) hype the Blade Angels too much, or did they underachieve? This is one of those cases where two things can be true at once. 

Gold medal: Team USA women’s hockey

American Olympic hockey is in a very, very good place right now. The men are NHL players, and playing up to every bit of their potential. But the women … the women are just flat-out crushing it. When you allow only two goals during the entire Olympics, you’re doing something very right. And an overtime gold medal win over Canada? Are you kidding me?

Bronze medal: The Slovakian criminal who loved hockey too much. 

Look, some things are bigger than the law, like fandom. A Slovakian fugitive who’d been on the run from Italian authorities for 16 years over a series of thefts made the ill-fated decision to come to Milan — which is, in fact, in Italy — to watch his team play hockey. Italian authorities nabbed him when he checked into a campsite in Milan. You’ve got to respect the dedication to his team, though. Maybe he can trade this bronze in prison. 

Off the podium: Italian Olympic organizers

We get it, planning a full Olympics is hard work. And nobody ever writes about the medals that don’t fall apart. But still … from finishing the hockey arena literal hours before the start of the first game to creating an ice skating medal podium that shredded ice skates, the Italian Olympic organizers had some struggles. 

Silver medal: Crotch-gate

No matter how ridiculous you thought the “crotch-gate” scandal involving ski jumping could be, we guarantee you it was better than that. From fake junk to penis injection, this was perhaps the perfect Olympic scandal — hysterical and absurdly well-planned. The only knock is that it blew up a couple years too early; there actually wasn’t any crotch-related skulduggery in the Milan Cortina Olympics. Well, not on the ski jump, at least … 

Off the podium: Ilia Malinin, Team USA figure skater

The Olympics are the ultimate test of physical skill, yes, but they’re also a test of mental fortitude, too … which is why it’s not enough just to be the most talented skater in the world for the other three years and 50 weeks between the Games. You’ve got to prove it when the torch is lit … and sadly, world champion Ilia Malinin didn’t get it done in Milan, conceding that Olympic pressure got to him. Maybe he’ll fare better in the French Alps … but he’s got four years to wait. 

Gold medal: “Free Bird” and “Country Roads”

A couple of ‘70s classics have found new life as Olympic anthems — “Free Bird” for every time Team USA scored one of its (many) goals, “Country Roads” as the Netherlands won one of its (many) speed-skating medals. There’s a reason why these songs have stuck around … plus, any time playing them is time not playing “Sweet Caroline” or that agonizing “Freed from Desire” song (the Euro-singalong one that goes “Na-na-na-na-na-na-naaaaa”). John Denver forever! 

So there you have it, a wrap on the 2026 Winter Olympics. Congratulations to all the medalists, and better luck in the French Alps to everyone else. Next up: Los Angeles 2028! 

​https://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/article/winter-olympics-2026-the-winners-and-losers-of-the-milan-cortina-olympics-184849127.html 

Arsenal’s Eberechi Eze (L) celebrates scoring against Tottenham (Glyn KIRK)

Arsenal midfielder Eberechi Eze tormented Tottenham again as his double revived the Premier League leaders’ title bid in a 4-1 rout of their north London rivals on Sunday.

Mikel Arteta’s side ended a damaging two-match winless run and moved five points clear of second-placed Manchester City thanks to Eze’s starring role and a brace from Viktor Gyokeres.

Having rejected the chance to join Tottenham in the close season, Eze has produced his best moments in an Arsenal shirt against his former suitors.

The 27-year-old scored a hat-trick when Arsenal thrashed Tottenham 4-1 in November and Arteta brought the England midfielder back into his starting line-up for the rematch despite his recent poor form.

He rewarded Arteta’s faith with his first goals since his treble against Tottenham, ending a barren run that had lasted 18 games.

Eze gave Arsenal the lead in the first half at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium before Randal Kolo Muani grabbed an instant equaliser.

Gyokeres settled Arsenal’s nerves immediately after the interval, Eze bagged the third and Gyokeres wrapped up a valuable victory.

After a difficult first season following his move from Sporting Lisbon, Gyokeres’ goals were as cathartic for the Sweden striker as Eze’s were for him.

The redemption arcs for Eze and Gyokeres couldn’t have come at a better moment after Arsenal’s title push had gone off the rails. 

The Gunners held a commanding lead in their chase to win a first English title since 2004, but blown leads in draws against Brentford and Wolves in their previous two games breathed new life into the title race.

City’s 2-1 win over Newcastle on Saturday had closed the gap on Arsenal to just two points.

Aware of the mounting pressure, Arteta told his players to join another club if they couldn’t cope with the “noise and bullets” that come with fighting for the title, urging them to write their “own destiny”.

– Agile Eze –

Although Arsenal responded to Arteta’s rallying cry, City still hold the destiny of the title in their hands.

If Pep Guardiola’s team win their remaining 11 matches, they will take the title regardless of Arsenal’s results in their last 10 games.

Arsenal are unbeaten in the last eight north London derbies and their fans took great pleasure in reminding Tottenham supporters that there is no guarantee they will meet next season.

Tottenham are just four points above the relegation zone as their winless league run extended to a ninth match in interim boss Igor Tudor’s first game since replacing the sacked Thomas Frank.

Tudor is “100 percent” sure his troubled club will avoid relegation.

But the prospect of playing in the Championship for the first time since 1977-78 remains a bleak possibility after just two wins in their last 18 league matches.

Arsenal’s relentless first-half pressure was rewarded in the 32nd minute.

Pape Sarr carelessly surrendered possession on the edge of his own area and Bukayo Saka crossed towards Eze, who took a touch before netting with an agile volley from 10 yards.

Arsenal’s lead lasted just two minutes as they conceded an equally sloppy goal.

Declan Rice was guilty of dwelling on the ball just outside his own area and Kolo Muani made him pay, bursting past William Saliba for a fierce strike that gave David Raya no chance.

Arsenal were unfazed and punished another moment of defensive weakness in the 47th minute.

Jurrien Timber played the ball into Gyokeres and Tottenham’s dozing defence granted him acres of space on the edge of the area to turn and blast an unstoppable shot past Guglielmo Vicario.

Eze delivered the knockout blow in the 61st minute, with an assist from more miserable Tottenham defending.

Micky Van de Ven’s tackle stopped Saka from shooting but Joao Palhinha made a hash of clearing and Eze gleefully slotted home from 12 yards.

Gyokeres had the last word, holding off Archie Gray to fire home in stoppage time as Tottenham fans flooded to the exits.

smg/mw

​https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/eze-gyokeres-destroy-spurs-boost-184729937.html 

Star Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum met with the media again this Saturday – and before you ask, no, he does not have a return date in mind he would care to share with us just yet. The likely immanent return of the St. Louis native from the Achilles tendon injury he suffered in the 2025 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals vs. the New York Knicks has subjected Tatum to an ongoing barrage of the same basic questions in recent weeks.

And the Duke alum took some time this weekend to answer some of them again in between Boston’s road win over the Golden State Warriors on Friday (Feb. 20) and their game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday (Feb. 22). “It’s a long journey,” said Tatum, “you can’t rush it – you’ve got to take your time, move at your own pace, not really compare yourself to other guys. Everybody is different.”

“I had an option to work out with a couple of them the other day in San Francisco,” revealed the Celtics star, “but … I haven’t practiced with the team.” Remaining noncommittal, he emphasized that how you recover from rehab dictates how or if practicing with the team will take place. “Nothing is set in stone,” said Tatum.

“It’s tough to like go into detail with every single thing I do every day,” he continued. “But I would say just getting acclimated more and doing limited things with some of the guys out there. But it’s all a part of it.”

Asked if he felt a return was close, Tatum pushed away from even a vague prediction. “I think it’s just important that I’ve worked this hard to just get myself in a position where it could be a conversation.”

“And I think we’ve done a really good job of that thus far.”

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This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Tatum says still doesn’t know if, when will return to Celtics

​https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/jayson-tatum-says-still-doesnt-184725711.html 

Over the course of 19 days in February, the 2026 Winter Olympic covered more ground than the 11-hour drive from Milan to Cortina to Livigno/Bormio — the three main clusters of these Games. It started with a ski jumping scandal that involved, of all things, the crotch. Ended with an epic hockey game between two bitter rivals. Sandwiched in between was the golden glory of an American who’s more famous in Europe than in his hometown in Wisconsin and the sheer guts and determination of an American icon who simply went for it.

Here is the winding path taken during these Olympic Games:

(Hassan Ahmad/Yahoo Sports illustration)

Ski jumping’s crotch-gate

From Jeff Eisenberg:

MILAN — Male ski jumpers must wear tight-fitting suits that are no more than 4 centimeters larger than their body measurements at any point. Most national teams seek to find every millimeter they can because a bigger, baggier suit catches more wind and provides more lift during flight than a smaller one does.

Fittingly, the most advantageous place to enlarge a ski jumper’s suit is the crotch area.

It’s a story you have to read to believe.

Once the Games began, all eyes quickly turned to Cortina, where Lindsey Vonn was attempting to win a gold medal on a busted ACL she’d torn just a week earlier. She managed both training runs in the downhill without incident, and actually appeared strong. But then …

Lindsey Vonn crashes during the women’s downhill. (Screengrab by IOC via Getty Images)

Lindsey Vonn goes for it

From Dan Wolken:

LIVIGNO, Italy — It was devastating to watch, even more brutal to hear.

For a nation that had become enraptured in Lindsey Vonn’s comeback story and the norm-defying attempt to win an Olympic medal without an ACL in her left knee, the helpless cries of pain as she lay on her back and as the mountain fell silent will be hard to erase from memory.

Downhill skiing is often breathtaking. It is sometimes gruesome. And for the second time in nine days, the images of an American sports heroine being strapped to a board and lifted into a helicopter churned the stomach.

But that’s skiing down a mountain at 80 miles per hour. That’s the risk Vonn signed up for when she decided to compete in an Olympics nine days after an ACL tear during a different competition in Switzerland. That’s what happens sometimes when you go for it.

And that’s exactly what Vonn did.

While Vonn’s daily health updates from surgery after surgery and her eventual return to the United States captured everyone’s attention, so did Jordan Stolz, a celebrity in Europe but a virtual unknown in America until …

Jordan Stolz celebrates after winning the men’s 1000 meters, his first gold of the 2026 Olympics. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

America, meet Jordan Stolz

From Jeff Eisenberg:

MILAN — Since rocketing onto the global speedskating scene three years ago, Jordan Stolz — called the next Eric Heiden by none other than Eric Heiden — has become the rare athlete more famous internationally than in his home country. The 21-year-old is a superstar in speedskating hotspots like the Netherlands, Norway and Germany, but he remains almost completely unknown across America and even in his home state of Wisconsin.

Stolz took a big step toward changing that Wednesday night in Milan when he shined in the first of his four races on the Olympic stage. The kid who learned to skate on his family’s backyard pond in Kewaskum, Wisconsin, outraced a world-class field in the men’s 1,000 meters to win his first Olympic gold medal.

Stolz wasn’t done.

But while Stolz lived up to the pre-Olympics hype, even if claiming silver in the 1500 left him feeling these Olympics were only a “partial success”, Ilia Malinin felt the pressure, and it got to him.

Ilia Malinin reacts after competing in the men’s singles free program. (James Lang-Imagn Images)

‘I blew it’

From Jay Busbee:

MILAN — Something was wrong from the very start. Something about Ilia Malinin’s free skate Friday seemed tentative, uncertain, so very unlike the “Quad God.” This was his gold-medal moment, and it was slipping away from him.

He landed his first element, a quad flip, but it had the feel of an unexpected success, like a half-court heave that went through the net, rather than the start of a triumphal procession. And then he skated toward his planned quad axel, a move literally only he can land, a move that could have put him on a direct path to the top of the podium.

He flinched … and was lost.

In one of the most stunning collapses in Olympic figure skating history, Malinin plummeted from a near-certain gold medal all the way to eighth place.

Malinin wasn’t the only American feeling the pressure. Maybe nobody was under more than Mikaela Shiffrin, the most accomplished World Cup skier of all-time but one who has struggled on the Olympic stage. Early in the Games, she let slip a lead in the women’s team ski event, one staked to her by Breezy Johnson, the gold medalist in the downhill. After going medal-less four years ago in Beijing, the doubts started to creep in. And then …

Mikaela Shiffrin celebrartes winning the women’s slalom. (Fei Maohua/Xinhua via Getty Images)

Mikaela Shiffrin gets her mojo back

From Jay Busbee:

MILAN — One of the cruel ironies about the Olympics is that it’s better to be a one-and-done medalist than a win-a-few, lose-a-bunch multi-time Olympian. Beijing blanked Mikaela Shiffrin; she didn’t even finish three of the events she entered. Milan Cortina was a bit kinder — she at least made it down the mountain in her earlier events, though at underwhelming-for-her speeds.

With every event that passed without hardware, though, the muttering grew louder. Was Shiffrin spooked by the Olympics? Cursed? How could the most decorated World Cup skier in history dominate everywhere else on the calendar except these two weeks every four years?

So that’s why Wednesday’s race was so critical for Shiffrin. Imagine if she’d fallen short yet again. Imagine if her pole had broken, or if she’d caught that first gate, or suffered any of the other hundred woes that would have kept her off the podium. Imagine the questions that would have followed her, the media second-guessing, the social-media garbage, the internal anxieties that would have wracked her for another four years, and maybe for forever.

“There will always be criticism, but I was here to earn the moment and that is going to require some risk,” she said. “Risk of not finishing. It’s also risk of being criticized, and to accept that. (It is) not the easiest thing to do, but in the end today we were able to do that.”

She stared that grim future in the face … and she flat-out skied right through it.

A little more than 24 hours later, these Olympic Games hit maxim overdrive when, simultaneously, the women of USA and Canada squared off on the ice for gold, while Alysa Liu tried to become the first American women to medal in figure skating in 20 years …

Gold medalist Alysa Liu celebrates on the podium during the medal ceremony for the women’s single skating. (Tang Xinyu/VCG via Getty Images)

The happiest Olympian alive

From Jay Busbee:

MILAN — As she skated around the Assago Ice Skating Arena rink, moments before the most important routine of her life, Alysa Liu caught sight of her teammate Amber Glenn near the kiss-and-cry couch. Glenn, devastated after Tuesday night’s program, had skated a spectacular routine of her own nearly two hours before. As Liu drew close, she gave Glenn a congratulatory thumbs-up.

“What are you doing?” an exasperated Glenn replied. “Go skate!”

So Alysa Liu did. And she won herself a gold medal, smiling all the way.

There are no record books to measure such things, but it’s entirely possible that no Olympian has ever smiled as much as Liu did on Thursday night, executing a brilliant, virtually flawless free skate that vaulted her from third place into first. She smiled when she stepped onto the ice, she smiled when she spotted Glenn, she smiled through her lutzes and loops and salchows, she smiled when she pointed her left finger to the sky to close out her routine. And she smiled — and giggled a triumphant laugh — when she skated right up to the rinkside camera and bellowed, “That’s what I’m f***ing talking about!”

That is the entire breadth of the Alysa Liu experience — giddiness, confidence, joy, serenity — and gold-medal-winning talent. At an Olympics where so many others have crumbled under the pressure, she literally laughed in pressure’s face.

And then …

Megan Keller celebrates after scoring the game-winning goal in overtime as Claire Thompson of Team Canada reacts during the women’s gold medal game. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

‘Who’s going to be the hero?’

From Jeff Eisenberg:

MILAN — Hilary Knight felt the responsibility to speak up.

The previously unbeaten, unchallenged  U.S. women’s hockey team was facing real game pressure for the first time at these Olympics, down a goal and running low on time with just one period left in Thursday’s gold-medal match.

“Who’s going to be the hero?” the 36-year-old American captain said. “We need a hero. There’s a hero in this room.”

Turns out Knight was wrong about one thing . There wasn’t one hero in the U.S. locker room. There was two.

The U.S. doesn’t take gold and glory without Knight giving her team new life with a tying goal with just over two minutes left in regulation, nor without Megan Keller juking a Canadian defender out of her skates to set up the winning goal four minutes into overtime. Those are the plays that made possible a 2-1 gold-medal-clinching, come-from-behind U.S. win. Those are the plays that will live on in U.S. women’s hockey lore long after the American victory celebration comes to an end.

Outside of Liu and, no American-born female individual athlete generated more attention than Eileen Gu … who doesn’t compete for the United States. She skis for China, which has many wondering: Why?

Eileen Gu, born in San Francisco, decided as a 15-year-old that she would compete in the Olympics for China, where her mother was born. (Photo by Wang Peng/Xinhua via Getty Images)

Eileen Gu, Inc.

From Dan Wolken:

The answers that many of you seem to want? Sorry, but they’re not coming — certainly not in a press conference room in the Italian Alps after jumping off a 15-story ramp. They’ll probably never come.

Did she cut a deal with the CCP to keep her American passport, in defiance of Chinese law that does not allow for dual citizenship?

Did the $6.6 million she and another American-born athlete earned from the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau last year — an amount that was accidentally disclosed on a fiscal report before it was scrubbed from the Internet, according to the Wall Street Journal — come with unsavory strings attached?

Does she really believe that inspiring Chinese women to participate in winter sports will make women’s lives better under a regime that is embarrassingly far behind most of the modern world in terms of political representation, economic opportunity and rights for domestic abuse victims?

She’s been asked about all these things, many times over many years in many different venues. And as good as she is on the slopes, she’s even better at Never Going There.

… Here’s the truth: Gu may wear the Five-star Red Flag on her ski suit, but the only entity she truly represents is Eileen Gu, Inc. To present her as anything more than that to fuel American political outrage on social media represents something almost as obnoxious as she is.

But if Eileen Gu is, indeed, all about Eileen Gu, the final gold-medal winners of this Olympics were all about team, and in particular, one member of the team that couldn’t be in Milan.

After winning gold, Team USA made sure to honor the late Johnny Gaudreau. (Photo by Peter Kneffel/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Team USA honors the late Johnny Gaudreau

From Jay Busbee:

MILAN — They gathered on the ice, two dozen of the best hockey players the United States has ever produced, all of them with wide smiles on their faces and gold medals around their necks having just beaten Canada 2-1 in an overtime thriller. They carried the American flag with them, but they carried something else, too: a Team USA jersey emblazoned with the No. 13 on the back, the name of Johnny Gaudreau embroidered along the shoulders.

It felt good to have a jersey for Gaudreau, who died in a shocking traffic accident 18 months ago, out there in the team’s finest moment. But it didn’t feel quite right.

And then Matthew Tkachuk and Zach Werenski went to the stands and hoisted up Gaudreau’s two oldest children, Noa and Johnny Jr., and brought them out onto the ice. In that perfect moment, all of American hockey smiled through tears.

“To have Johnny and Noa out there,” Dylan Larkin said afterward, “it just felt right.”

Now, it’s on to Los Angeles.

​https://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/article/winter-olympics-2026-from-crotch-gate-to-honoring-a-fallen-teammate-the-long-and-winding-road-of-the-milan-cortina-games-184232707.html 

✅ Roma v Cremonese line-ups: Zaragoza, Vardy, Kone decisions

With the defeats of Napoli and Juventus, the Sunday evening match against Cremonese is extremely important for Roma.

Watch the entire Serie BKT live on OneFootball for only €9.99 per month. Click here to purchase the LaB Channel Monthly Pass without automatic renewal.

Gian Piero Gasperini’s team can gain a 4-point advantage over Juventus in fifth place and catch up with Antonio Conte in third place by defeating the Grigiorossi at the Olimpico.

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✅ The official lineups

ROMA (3-4-2-1): Svilar; Mancini, N’Dicka, Hermoso; Celik, Cristante (C), Koné, Wesley; Zaragoza, Pellegrini; Malen.

CREMONESE (3-5-2): Audero; Folino, Luperto, Terracciano; Zerbin, Maleh, Payero, Thorsby, Pezzella; Bonazzoli, Sanabria.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.

​https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/roma-v-cremonese-line-ups-184100730.html 

​https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/n-j-gov-mikie-sherrill-172032566.html 

MILAN, ITALY – FEBRUARY 22: Jack Hughes #86 of Team United States celebrates scoring the game-winning goal in overtime during the Men’s Gold Medal match between Canada and the United States on day 16 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena on February 22, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) | Getty Images

Exhale.

The Game

Team USA came out of the gates strong in the Gold Medal Game against Team Canada. Both sides came out playing a hard and heavy game, exchanging hits and going at each other to set the tone. But Team USA would strike first when Matt Boldy decided to do it himself, finding a weak spot in the Canadian blueline on the rush. He chipped the puck up and took it back, slipping behind Devon Toews and Cale Makar before sliding a backhander past Jordan Binnington. The USA took a 1-0 lead six minutes into the game.

The game went back-and-forth until about the halfway point. Connor Hellebuyck and Jordan Binnington looked great in net but Team USA probably could have pressed a little harder for offense after gaining the early lead. With 10:35 left in the second period, Jake Guentzel took a bad penalty while chasing the puck, giving Team Canada a chance to tie the game. This went on for just 25 seconds before Charlie McAvoy took a careless tripping penalty, giving Canada a five-on-three for 1:33.

Thankfully, Dylan Larkin won the initial draw and Brock Faber cleared it. An early shot from Mackinnon went wide and ate up even more time, and Team USA sent out two forwards in Miller and Torcheck to kill more of the penalty. After J.T. Miller cleared the puck, Trocheck hit the jets to get another change for Dylan Larkin, and a quick whistle on a shot from Celebrini gave Canada one more chance to score off a faceoff. They did not thanks to the puck hopping over Brad Marchand’s stick, and Team USA got one last clear with under 20 seconds left to kill.

While Team USA was admirable on the kill, they continued to be far too defensive after the fact. By the end of the period, Canada was outshooting the USA by 10 shots, with Cale Makar sniping one past Connor Hellebuyck’s blocker off a faceoff with under two minutes to play. It was a great shot, as Quinn Hughes gave Hellebuyck the lane to see the shot by boxing Bo Horvat from the net. Still, facing so many shots in a period was a recipe for disaster, and the sheer volume eventually got to Hellebuyck.

The third period was a tough time for Team USA, despite Mike Sullivan trying to shift players around the lineup. Dylan Larkin joined the top line, while Brock Nelson and Matt Tkachuk joined Jack Hughes on the third, while Tage Thompson went down to the fourth. In the second minute of the frame, Devon Toews had the puck in the crease for Team Canada. Had he just slid it the puck, he would have scored. But he lifted it just a little bit, allowing Connor Hellebuyck the inches needed to make a stunning paddle save with a desperate sweep of the hand. Later, Hellebuyck made breakaway saves against Macklin Celebrini, with Canada then outshooting Team USA at about a 2:1 rate across the whole game. Connor Hellebuyck was having the game of his life, though, totally locked into everything thrown his way.

Late in the period, it looked like Team USA was handed a huge gift for victory when Sam Bennett took a wild high stick on Jack Hughes, breaking Jack’s teeth and drawing blood for a four-minute double minor with just 6:34 left to play. Unfortunately for Team USA, Sullivan did not change the first power play unit, which operated very slowly and only generated one scoring chance before changing off for the second wave. Here, Jack Hughes created some scoring opportunities but got caught on the boards, lost his footing, and took a high stick on Bo Horvat. Despite Team USA probably touching the puck, Canada got an extended chance to play with the empty net, taking off close to 30 seconds before the whistle was blown with 3:23 left in the period. The teams played at four-on-four for under a minute before Canada got one last power play opportunity.

Thankfully, despite some bad plays of the puck, Team USA survived to overtime.

In overtime, Team USA got the best chance on the first couple of rushes when Quinn Hughes fired a one-timer that deflected off of Jordan Binnington’s glove and wide of goal. I thought he had it, but Binnington was able to stretch out just enough to stop it. A couple of shifts later, Jack Hughes changed onto the ice with Canada rushing down. Facing Connor McDavid at full speed, Jack Hughes threw his body into McDavid to loosen the puck into the corner, denying a potential game-winning goal. Jack continued his pursuit of the puck as it was knocked around, jumping up to poke Zach Werenski’s pass past Cale Makar high in the zone.

There was blood in the water, and Zach Werenski took notice. Werenski made his judgement that he had to get on his horse to make another play. With Nathan Mackinnon just about to move the puck back up the ice in Canada’s direction, Werenski entered Team USA’s offensive zone and sealed him off the puck with a perfect hit, turning his body and boxing Mackinnon off. This created a passing lane back to Jack Hughes, who picked his spot and beat Jordan Binnington to deliver the gold medal to Team USA!

Here is the full overtime for those who want to relive it. The final shift by Jack Hughes and Zach Werenski, beating three of the five best players in the world in McDavid, Makar, and Mackinnon in all three zones, should go down as one of the greatest shifts of all time.

The Aftermath

Jack Hughes and Connor Hellebuyck deserve all of the love and praise for their games today. Hellebuyck, who has had a rough history in big-time games, put in the biggest game a goalie could possibly have. The New Jersey Devils’ very own Jack Hughes, who was written off after a fluky Four Nations performance in which his linemates could not bury a single puck, had the best minute-for-minute performance of any skater at the Olympics. Full stop. Jack Hughes was the best skater at the Olympics, and he had to be a goalscorer in the Golden Game. It was fated, and he was all smiles after the game.

And he had a hell of an interview, too.

Unbelievable game by Hellebuyck. He was our best player tonight by a mile. Unbelievable game. Unreal game by our team. That’s just a ballsy, gutsy win. That’s American hockey right there. That’s a great Canadian team, but we’re USA.

Jack is right — Hellebuyck deserves his flowers.

Facing that kind of workload and still stopping shot after shot is rockstar stuff.

Of course, the celebration did not end there. As Team USA skated around the ice with their flags, players began to skate Johnny Gaudreau’s jersey around the ice. This is an emotional enough of a sight for us watching the game, but Johnny was like a brother to so many of the players on the ice, whether he played with them on Team USA or on the Calgary Flames or Columbus Blue Jackets.

When Team USA went to take their pictures on the ice, they did not just hold the jersey up. Zach Werenski, Johnny’s teammate in Columbus, skated out with Johnny’s daughter, while Dylan Larkin skated out with Johnny Jr., who celebrates his second birthday today. These kids (adorable, too), joined the team for the photo their father should have been a part of. Gaudreau forever.

This win will go down in history.

Your Thoughts

What did you think of today’s Gold Medal game? Were you thrilled? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.

​https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/gold-usa-jack-hughes-scores-184002281.html