Winter Olympics live: Curling updates as Team GB go for gold in men’s final

Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo has won the 50km cross-country race to become first athlete to win six golds at a single Winter Games.

Martin Loewstroem Nyenget won silver and the bronze went to Emil Iversen in a sweep for Norway.

Team GB have been in four-man bobsleigh action this morning and pilot Brad Hall had put them in medal contention after the first run.

However, his second heat did not go to plan with GB losing a lot of time, dropping from third place to seventh.

The British coaches looked dejected as the sleigh crossed the line, with GB clocking in a sub-optimal time of 55.04.

They’ll need to pick themselves up going into day two if they want to salvage this.

Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo has hit the front in the men’s 50km cross country with just three kilometres to ski.

Klæbo won his tenth career Olympic gold medal and is now on course to win his sixth gold medal at a single Winter Olympics, sweeping the cross country events in an unprecedented feat.

However, he’s being challenged by compatriot Martin Loewstroem Nyenget, with the pair going cat and mouse at the front.

Andrew Musgrave of Great Britain is out of medal contention but is skiing an impressive race, finding himself in sixth.

Four years on from a frustrating debut Winter Olympics, and nearly two weeks from the start of Milano-Cortina, Britain’s Zoe Atkin arrives in Livigno as the hot favourite.

The 23-year-old was the top qualifier in the freeski halfpipe, with longtime rival and defending champion Eileen Gu of China down in fifth.

Atkin finished ninth in Beijing but is a very different prospect now: the Stanford student is reigning world champion and the X Games gold medallist, claiming the title only a couple of weeks before the Olympics began.

She is expecting a very different experience to the 2022 Games, held under the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic when she was just 19.

After what feels like a thousand days of curling, here we are. Team GB’s men are in the final. A medal, either gold or silver, awaits. For Bruce Mouat’s rink – the dominant force in curling, the reigning world champions, the four-time European champions, and Olympic silver medallists four years ago – it has to be gold.

It could so easily have been no medal at all. Mouat has been the busiest man in Cortina, having played for 16 days in a row, beginning even before the opening ceremony. A loss in the mixed doubles bronze-medal match meant everything was riding on the men’s event.

But Team Mouat distinctly underperformed, to the bafflement of all concerned, and ended up reliant on other results going their way in order to make the semi-finals.

Hosts Italy obliged by losing to the top two qualifiers, Switzerland and Canada, in their final two matches. Having made a narrow escape, the sleeping giant awoke: GB sent the heartbroken Swiss, who had been so dominant in the round-robin, packing.

Team GB take on Canada at 6.05pm GMT (7.05pm local time) on Saturday 21 February.

The final will be broadast live on TNT Sports and subscribers can stream the action online via the Discovery+ app and website.

It will also be shown on BBC iPlayer and on the BBC Sport website.

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of the Winter Olympics.

Team GB are going for gold on multiple fronts tonight – Bruce Mouat’s rink are looking to deliver curling glory in the men’s final while Zoe Atkin chases history in the freeski halfpipe.

We’ll bring you all the build-up and action throughout the day!