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Will Day 9 bring Canada’s long-awaited first gold medal of the Milano-Cortina Games? Moguls skiing icon Mikaël Kingsbury is favoured to do it in his last Olympic appearance, and Canada has some other podium hopes on the slopes.
We’ll start our daily viewing guide with those medal chances, then look at other key things coming up on Sunday, including the Canadian men’s hockey team’s group-stage finale.
Canadian medal chances on Sunday
Here’s what to look for, in chronological order:
Freestyle skiing: Mikaël Kingsbury in the men’s dual moguls at 4:30 a.m. ET
Kingsbury came painfully close to winning his second career Olympic gold on Thursday in the traditional moguls event, losing out to surprising Australian Cooper Woods on an arcane tiebreaker after the judges awarded them the exact same total score. That left the GOAT with his third Olympic silver.
In the past, that would have been it for Kingsbury. But this time, he gets another shot at gold in the dual moguls, which is making its Olympic debut. The big difference from the regular moguls is that two athletes ski side-by-side, and whoever gets the highest score advances to the next round.
Kingsbury has won five world titles in the dual (one more than he has in traditional moguls), including the last four in a row. So he has a great chance to give Canada its first gold medal of these Games in what is likely the final Olympic performance of his unparalleled career.
Looking to spoil Kingsbury’s swan song is his Japanese rival Ikuma Horishima. He won the dual world title in 2017 and took silver at last year’s world championships, where he upset Kingsbury for the regular moguls gold. Horishima picked up his second consecutive Olympic bronze in the traditional event on Thursday.
Canada’s Julien Viel has a shot at a medal too. He placed sixth on Thursday and won a World Cup dual gold last month at Quebec’s Val St-Côme.
Competition begins at 4:30 a.m. ET and leads up to the semifinals at 5:35 a.m. ET, then the “small” final for the bronze medal at 5:46 a.m. ET and the “big” final for the gold at 5:48 a.m. ET.
In the women’s dual moguls today, Canada’s Maïa Schwinghammer was eliminated in the second round after finishing fifth in the traditional moguls.
In other freestyle action today, Canadian Megan Oldham earned the top score in women’s big air qualifying while Naomi Urness was seventh, also advancing to Monday’s final. Oldham won bronze in the slopestyle on Monday.
Alpine skiing: Val Grenier in the women’s giant slalom (final run at 7:30 a.m. ET)
Currently ranked eighth in the World Cup giant slalom standings, Grenier has won four medals in this discipline over the last four seasons on the tour, including golds in 2023 and ’24 and a bronze this past December at Quebec’s Mont-Tremblant, where she skied as a kid.
There’s no clear favourite, with World Cup GS leader Julia Scheib of Austria, defending Olympic champ Sara Hector of Sweden, super-G gold medallist Federica Brignone of Italy and American slalom queen Mikaela Shiffrin among those in the mix for gold.
The giant slalom consists of two runs, which are added together to determine each skier’s time. The first run goes at 4 a.m. ET.
Canada’s Éliot Grondin, right, crosses the finish line in snowboard cross action on Thursday. (Getty Images)
Snowboard cross: Éliot Grondin and Audrey McManiman in the mixed team event at 7:45 a.m. ET
Grondin came within inches of winning the men’s gold on Thursday, losing a photo finish with defending champion Alessandro Hämmerle of Austria to walk away with the silver for the second straight Olympics.
Grondin also earned a bronze four years ago in the mixed team event with Mereyta O’Dine, and they were expected to contend for another podium in Italy. But the 2022 women’s bronze medallist is out with an ankle injury suffered during practice last week, so Grondin will race with Audrey McManiman, who was eliminated in the first round of her solo event on Friday.
In the mixed team, four riders go down the course at the same time, just like in the individual events. The men go first, and whatever time advantage (or disadvantage) they clock over the other riders in their heat gets transferred to their teammate. The women then begin their run in a staggered format so that whoever crosses the line first wins the race. The top two in each heat advance to the next round.
The bracket-style tournament begins with the quarterfinals at 7:45 a.m. ET, followed by the semis at 8:15 a.m. ET and the final at 8:40 a.m. ET.
Ski jumping: Abi Strate in the women’s large hill (final round at 1:57 p.m. ET)
In 2022, Strate was part of the squad that won bronze in the mixed team event for Canada’s first-ever Olympic medal in ski jumping. Now, in the midst of a breakthrough season, she has a chance to become the country’s first individual medallist.
Strate’s ascent began this season on the synthetic surfaces of the Summer Grand Prix circuit in Europe, where the 24-year-old scored her first two wins and a total of five medals. Her success carried over to the snow on the World Cup tour, where she’s won six medals this season, including three in a row heading into the Olympics to rise to sixth in the women’s overall standings. Five of those medals — including her first career gold last month — came in the large hill discipline, which is her strongest. She finished 11th in the Olympic normal hill event last weekend.
The only drag for Strate this season has been the absence of her friend Alex Loutitt due to a season-ending knee injury in September. Loutitt was part of the team that won the mixed bronze at the 2022 Olympics, and the following year she won gold in the large hill to become Canada’s first-ever ski jumping world champion.
The competition starts at 11:35 a.m. ET with a trial round to determine the starting order. The first round is at 12:45 p.m. ET, and the top 30 jumpers advance to the final at 1:57 p.m. ET. The final results are determined by adding the scores from both jumps.
The Canadian men play their final preliminary game against France on Sunday. (Getty Images)
Other stuff to watch on Sunday
In no particular order:
Men’s hockey: Canada vs. France at 10:40 a.m. ET
Canada (2-0) has already clinched first place in Group A and a bye to the quarterfinals after beating Czechia and Switzerland by a combined score of 10-1. But there’s still something to play for in its preliminary-round finale against the last-place French (0-2). Canada is vying for the No. 1 playoff seed with the United States, which survived a bit of a scare against Denmark today to win 6-3 and improve to 2-0. The U.S. will take Group C as long as it doesn’t lose in regulation to Germany on Sunday at 3:10 p.m. ET.
The top seed could come down to goal differential, and Canada has a two-goal edge over the Americans at the moment. But as long as they end up as the top two seeds, the rival powers will be put on course to meet in the gold-medal game.
Group B came to a chaotic conclusion today as Slovakia, Finland and Sweden finished with identical 2-1 records. The tiebreaker went to the surprising Slovaks, while Finland should get a bye to the quarterfinals as the top second-place team in the tournament. Sweden, considered the third-best team behind Canada and the U.S. coming in, will have to play in the qualification playoff round.
In addition to the Canada-France and U.S-Germany games, Sunday’s men’s hockey slate includes Switzerland vs. Czechia at 6:10 a.m. ET and Denmark vs. Latvia at 1:10 p.m. ET.
Curling: Canadian men vs. China at 1:05 p.m. ET
Mercifully, after all the drama of the last two days, this is Canada’s only game on Sunday in both the men’s and women’s events. Brad Jacobs’ men’s team (3-1) heads into the day tied for second place with Great Britain and trailing Switzerland (4-0), which handed the Canadians their first loss today. The Chinese are 0-4.
Meanwhile, Rachel Homan’s Canadian women’s team gets a much-needed day off after suffering its third straight loss to fall into a tie for eighth place in the 10-team tournament at 1-3. The top four make the playoffs.
Homan was visibly upset during and after today’s 8-7 extra-end loss to Swiss rival Silvana Tirinzoni, who won four straight world championships before losing to Homan’s team in the last two finals. Homan blasted the officials for calling her on the so-called “double touch” foul that has suddenly become all the rage. “I don’t understand the call,” Homan said. “I’ll never understand it. We’ve never done that.”
Rachel Homan’s rink has lost three straight matches. (Associated Press)
Figure skating: Pairs short program at 1:45 p.m. ET
Canada’s Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps are back after missing the team event due to a mishap during practice in Montreal two weeks ago that resulted in Stellato-Dudek hitting her head. She told reporters yesterday that she didn’t suffer a concussion but refused to divulge the exact nature of the head injury or reveal how it happened.
At any rate, the 42-year-old has been cleared to compete and will become the Olympics’ oldest female figure skater in nearly a century. Two years ago, she became the oldest woman ever to win a figure skating world title when she and Deschamps captured the pairs gold in Montreal. But since then they have not delivered in the biggest events. Last season, they withdrew from the prestigious Grand Prix Final due to an illness and placed fifth at the world championships in Boston, and this season they finished sixth out of six teams at the Grand Prix Final.
The favourites are Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara. They’ve captured two of the last three world titles and won the Grand Prix Final in December.
Speed skating: Women’s 500m at 11 a.m. ET
Canada’s Béatrice Lamarche is a longshot for a medal here. She finished fifth in the 1,000m on Saturday and topped out at sixth in her nine 500m races on the World Cup tour this season.
Lamarche will skate in the ninth of 15 pairings. Dutch star Jutta Leerdam, the 1,000m winner who is engaged to the boxer/YouTuber Jake Paul, is in the 12th. The last pairing features overwhelming gold-favourite Femke Kok of the Netherlands and American Erin Jackson, who won this event in 2022 to become the first Black woman to capture an individual Winter Olympic gold.
In women’s action today on the oval, Canada’s Olympic-champion team pursuit trio of Ivanie Blondin, Valérie Maltais and Isabelle Weidemann clocked the fastest time in the quarterfinals to advance to the semis on Tuesday.
Snowboarding: Men’s and women’s slopestyle qualifying
The men’s qualifying was moved up from Monday to Sunday at 4:15 a.m. ET due to weather concerns. Canadian star Mark McMorris, who has won the Olympic bronze three straight times, received clearance to compete after suffering a concussion when he fell during a big air practice run, causing him to miss that event.
Canada’s Cam Spalding won the men’s World Cup title last season on the strength of two gold medals but has competed in just one slopestyle event this season, finishing 20th. He did not make the final in the big air last week. Frank Jobin was the top Canadian in seventh.
The women’s qualifying at 8:15 a.m. ET features Canada’s Laurie Blouin, who won the slopestyle world title in 2017 and took silver at the 2018 Olympics. She won a slopestyle event in Aspen last month for her first World Cup gold in four years but did not advance to the big air final last weekend.
