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One of the final top opportunities for the United States to win a gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics comes on Friday night.
David Wise is the only man to win the freestyle skiing men’s halfpipe competition. He won back-to-back golds in 2014 and 2018.
Wise and three other Americans are entered into the 12-man field scheduled for Friday night. Alex Ferreira, Aaron Blunck and Birk Irving could all be in medal contention.
Ferreira won one of the four skiing halfpipe events on the FIS World Cup circuit, and Blunck took third behind Wise and Australia’s Nico Porteous in the last World Cup event prior to Beijing.
The United States could also be in the mix for a medal in the alpine skiing team event, but that may be harder to come by since the country produced a single medal across the 10 individual competitions in that sport.
Friday Olympics Schedule
Bobsled: Two-woman Run 1 (7 a.m. ET)
Women’s Curling: Japan vs. Switzerland semifinal (7:05 a.m. ET)
Women’s Curling: Sweden vs. Great Britain semifinal (7:05 a.m. ET)
Men’s Hockey: ROC vs. Sweden semifinal (8:10 a.m. ET)
Bobsled: Two-woman Run 2 (8:30 a.m. ET)
Bobsled: Four-man Run 1 (8:30 p.m. ET)
Freestyle Skiing: Men’s Halfpipe final (8:30 p.m. ET, NBC)
Alpine Skiing: Team event (9 p.m. ET, NBC)
Bobsled: Four-man Run 2 (10:05 p.m. ET)
All events can be live-streamed on NBCOlympics.com and Peacock.
David Wise Looking for 3-Peat In Men’s Skiing Halfpipe
David Wise won back-to-back gold medals to kick off the Olympic existence of the men’s skiing halfpipe.
Wise is one of four Americans with a shot at winning a medal in Friday’s competition.
Aaron Ferreira has one FIS World Cup victory and two other second-place finishes on the circuit. He is the reigning silver medalist from the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang.
Birk Irving and Aaron Blunck are scheduled to hit the halfpipe 10th and 12th, respectively, in each of the three final runs after they qualified first and second.
Blunck and Australia’s Nico Porteous were the only athletes to record qualifying run scores over 90 points.
Porteous is the biggest threat to Wise’s three-peat, or another American victory. He won bronze in Pyeongchang and won the most recent stop on the World Cup circuit.
Canada’s Brendan Mackay also poses a threat to the top of the medal stand. He has two World Cup victories this season, but he must improve on the 87.25 score he earned in the qualifying round.
Wise won the 2018 event by laying down a run that produced a 97.20 score. All three medalists from Pyeongchang recorded scores above 94 points.
The competition is expected to be some of the best in a single event in Beijing. If the Americans ski at their best, they should at minimum contend for the gold.
Prediction: Americans win two medals.
Alpine Skiing Team Event Takes Place Friday Night
The United States alpine skiing team disappointed across the board in the individual events.
Ryan Cochran-Siegle’s silver medal from the men’s Super-G was the only podium finish by an American athlete in the 10 individual events.
The disappointment was headlined by Mikaela Shiffrin’s failure to finish in the top three in any of her five events. She crashed out of three races.
The team event is held on a parallel slalom course, and the field will be narrowed down from 16 to two across a series of races.
The Americans would seem to have a decent shot of winning a medal because the slalom is Shiffrin’s best event, but she crashed out of the slalom event and the slalom portion of the women’s combined.
Switzerland is the reigning world champion in the team event, and it will defend its gold medal from the Pyeongchang Games on Friday.
The team event features four skiers from each team, two men and two women, and whichever country wins the most races in those heats advances. A tie is broken by the best cumulative time in the head-to-head matchup.
Switzerland, Austria and Norway medaled in that order in South Korea four years ago. Switzerland and Austria combined for 15 medals in the individual alpine skiing events.
Prediction: Switzerland repeats in team event.
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