Super Sunday? More like Golden Sunday. From the sunlit snowboard slopes to the floodlit ice track, Great Britain delivered a one-two punch that will live long in Winter Olympic folklore. In the space of a few hours, two British duos – Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale, then Tabitha Stoecker and Matt Weston – turned near-misses and nerves into history-making golds.
Bankes and Nightingale stunned the field to win the mixed team snowboard cross, capturing the first gold medal on snow in the nation’s 102-year history at the Winter Games. In the wild, elbows-out chaos of the event, the British duo seized a title few predicted was coming.
Seeded 13th out of 16 teams entering the final rounds, Bankes and Nightingale had shown little indication in their individual events that a golden turnaround was brewing. But Sunday was different.
Under a clear sky, Nightingale delivered a composed first leg to keep Britain in contention. They were second after the men’s run in the four-team final – close, but not yet in control. Then Bankes dropped in and overtook France’s Léa Casta in a decisive move that flipped silver into gold. She was outwardly cool, calm and collected after she crossed the finish line. Nightingale launched straight into the crowd of GB fans to celebrate victory. “It’s hard to describe in words,” he said. “We both put in so much hard work. The singles were tough but now there are tears of joy.”
If the Sunday already felt golden under the alpine sun, it only glittered brighter after dark. Just hours after Bankes and Nightingale’s victory, Stoecker and Weston climbed to the top of the podium – this time head first. Great Britain became the first Olympic champions in the skeleton mixed team event. Stoecker went first and when she crossed the line, the scoreboard flashed a worrying four. She had lost time in the bottom section and GB trailed by three-tenths of a second. In skeleton, that can feel like a canyon. Enter Weston.
Already crowned individual Olympic champion earlier in the Games, he exploded from the start. Drawing on the composure that has brought him three successive World Cup titles, Weston clawed back the deficit almost immediately. By the finish, Britain were ahead, winning by 0.17sec. “I knew what I needed to do,” Weston said. “I took a load of confidence from the individual event and I almost had to say to myself, ‘Be boring and just get the job done.’”
So as the sun set on Super Sunday, the story wrote itself. Gold in the day. Gold in the night.
Heated Rivalries: instant replay in curling
What began as a murmur on Friday has grown into gripping drama: a controversy over double-touching that has swept through curling and left players and officials bracing for every release of the stone.
The issue? A split-second moment at the hog line – the point where curlers must release the stone. The controversy ignited when Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson accused Canada’s Marc Kennedy of breaking the rule during a men’s match before Kennedy fired back with an expletive-laden outburst. Video footage circulating on social media showed a double-touch. Kennedy maintained his innocence. Canada won the match 8-6.
A day later, in the women’s competition, the Canadian skip Rachel Homan was accused of the same infraction against Switzerland. The stone was removed. Again, video spread online that appeared to show a double-touch. This time, Canada lost. Suddenly the sport known for quiet handshakes and measured strategy was shaken.
In the ninth end of a round-robin game against Germany, officials ruled that Great Britain’s Bobby Lammie had double-touched a stone. Like the Canadians before him, his stone was removed from play. GB won 9-4, but the call confirmed this was no isolated incident.
World Curling responded by increasing oversight only to go back on the decision to ramp up officiating a day later, saying officials would now actively monitor for violations only at the request of teams. Some curlers said they had never seen the double-touch rule enforced with this level of scrutiny. Should the sport introduce video review?
Hammy McMillan Jr, Lammie’s teammate, sees a chance. “You bring in VAR or Hawk-Eye, and each team gets a challenge or two,” he said. “It would maybe make curling more modernised.”
Luc Violette of the United States men’s team agreed officials may not be enough. “It’s hard to officiate because we always say at the release, the hand’s quicker than the eye. The officials are trying to do what they can with the rules in place right now, but I would like to see them be allowed to use video review.”
But not everyone is convinced. Sweden’s Johanna Heldin said: “It probably disrupts the speed of play,” while Sophie Jackson of Great Britain echoed the concern: “We’ve spoken about in curling, for viewers, that we need to keep that pace up,” she said. “VAR isn’t the way to go, in my opinion.”
As it stands
1 🇳🇴 Norway 🥇 12 🥈 7 🥉 7 – Total: 26
2 🇮🇹 Italy 🥇 8 🥈 4 🥉 10 – Total: 22
3 🇺🇸 United States 🥇 5 🥈 8 🥉 4 – Total: 17
4 🇳🇱 The Netherlands 🥇 5 🥈 5 🥉 1 – Total: 11
4 🇸🇪 Sweden 🥇 5 🥈 5 🥉 1 – Total: 11
– – –
11 🇦🇺 Australia 🥇 3 🥈 1 🥉 1 – Total: 5
12 🇬🇧 Great Britain 🥇 3 🥈 0 🥉 0 – Total: 3
Picture of the day
Further reading from the Guardian
What to look out for today
Times are all in local time in Milan and Cortina. For Sydney it is +10 hours, for London it is -1 hour, for New York it is -6 hours and San Francisco it is -9 hours.
Short track speed skating – 12.47am🥇: women’s 1,000m
Alpine skiing – 1.30pm🥇: France’s Clément Noël hopes to defend his men’s slalom title.
Freestyle skiing – 7.30pm🥇: Kirsty Muir will attempt to put her disappointment from earlier in the Games behind her in the women’s freeski big air final.
Figure skating – 8pm🥇: figure skating pairs event comes to an end.
Ski jumping – 8.20pm🥇: the men’s super team event makes its Olympic debut.
Bobsleigh – 9.06pm🥇: Kaillie Humphries is the defending champion of the women’s monobob.
The last word
It was good to share the top with them for a couple of days, but it feels even better to be on the top. It’s a big achievement and will take some time to sink in – Johannes Høsflot Klæbo after winning an astonishing ninth Olympic cross-country gold medal, becoming the Winter Olympics’ all-time gold-medal leader, moving past Marit Bjørgen and Bjørn Dæhlie and Ole Einar Bjørndalen.
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