US ski star wins slalom gold, Su Yiming delivers China’s breakthrough title

US ski star Mikaela Shiffrin ended her Olympic medal drought in style with gold in the slalom on Wednesday as snowboarder Su Yiming won Chinas first title of the MilanCortina GamesShiffrin is one of skiings alltime greats but she has had to wait eight years since the 2018 Pyeongchang Games for the third gold of her glittering careerIn the final alpine skiing event in Italy her emotional victory brought some solace to a US ski team still reeling from Lindsey Vonns horrific crash in the downhillThe 30yearold led after the first run in glorious conditions in Cortina dAmpezzo and cruised to victory in a combined time of 1min 3910sec an impressive 15sec ahead of Switzerlands world champion Camille RastSwedens Anna Swenn Larsson rounded out the podium to claim the first Olympic medal of her careerShiffrin shed a tear after a victory that will help banish the bitter memories of both her last Olympics in Beijing where she failed to pick up a single medal from six races and her disappointing displays in the team combined and giant slalom in northern ItalyI wanted to be free I wanted to unleash said the American Its not easy to do that but Ive been so focused every single dayThrough a lot of discussions with my psychologist and my mum and my team everything we said was that despite pressure or nerves I want to feel this skiingIn the end today showing up that was the thing I wanted most More than the medal Now to also get to have a medal is unbelievableChinas gold at lastTeam China amassed nine gold medals on home soil at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics but until Wednesday they were yet to win a single title at the MilanCortina GamesSu changed that winning the snowboard slopestyle gold after losing his big air crown earlier in these Games and for good measure it came on his 22nd birthday and as China celebrates Lunar New YearHe scored 8241 points on his first run of three at a sunsoaked Livigno Snow Park and was never caught upgrading the silver he won four years agoJapans Taiga Hasegawa took silver and Jake Canter of the USA won bronzeTheres no better way you know this is like the best ever said Su I was actually thinking theres no better gift for myself for my 22nd birthday so I really appreciate itTwo hours later China had another gold as freestyle skier Xu Mengtao won the womens aerials finalThe USA and pretournament favourites Canada stayed on track to meet in the Olympic mens ice hockey final as they reached the semifinals although both needed overtime to do itMitch Marner scored the crucial overtime goal as Canada saw off the Czech Republic 43 in their quarterfinalThe Americans were also made to fight till the end against Sweden before Quinn Hughes netted 3min 27 sec into overtime for a 21 victory in front of thousands of US supporters in Milans Santagiulia ArenaCanada go on to face reigning champions Finland and the USA will play Slovakia with both semifinals on FridayKlaebo in class of ownNorwegian crosscountry skier Johannes Klaebo won the 10th Olympic gold medal of his career extending the alltime record he set earlier in the GamesThe only athlete in Winter or Summer Games history with more Olympic titles is American swimmer Michael Phelps who won 23 goldsKlaebo and his Norwegian teammate Einar Hedegart comfortably won the team sprint free event with Klaebo slowing before the finish line to soak up the applause of the crowdIt was 29yearold Klaebos fifth gold medal of these Games alone meaning he has won every event he has entered and he has one more to goNorway have a huge lead atop of the medals table with 15 golds and 33 overall Hosts Italy are in second spot with nine golds and a total of 26 medals while the USA are third with seven golds and 24 medalsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever