PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) - The Latest on the Pyeongchang Olympics (all times local):
11:45 p.m.
American Mikaela Shiffrin finally made her Pyeongchang Olympic debut on Day 6 of the Winter Games, speeding to gold in the women’s giant slalom after several days of weather delays.
Other highlights included 35-year-old Norwegian Aksel Lund Svindal winning the men’s downhill to become the oldest-ever Olympic gold medalist in Alpine skiing. German pairs figure skaters Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot won gold with a flawless free skate.
Canadian Ted-Jan Bloemen won the 10,000 meters in Olympic-record time, beating defending champion Jorrit Bergsma of the Netherlands.
Germany won the luge team relay in a history-making win for Natalie Geisenberger. She now has five Olympic medals, the same number as German legend Georg Hackl. Geisenbeger becomes the first Olympian ever with four luge golds - two of those in relays.
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11:40 p.m.
South Korea men’s hockey team has lost its first-ever Olympic game, 2-1 to the Czech Republic.
Cheering fans saw Minho Cho score the team’s first Olympic goal just over seven minutes in Thursday. The goal came right in front of North Korea’s cheerleaders, who made an unexpected appearance.
On the other side of town, Rene Bourque and Wojtek Wolski each scored twice and Canada opened play with a 5-1 win over Switzerland.
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11:30 p.m.
American freestyle skier Ashley Caldwell loves the risk because she loves the reward, but at the Pyeongchang Olympics, there was no prize for her daring.
The foremost envelope pusher in the dangerous sport of aerials failed to land either of her triple-flipping jumps in qualifying Thursday.
She didn’t crack the top 12 and will watch the final from the sidelines.
It’s a loss for her, but also for the sport, where Caldwell is the only jumper in the field who consistently tries triples, whether in qualifying or the final.
Last year, Caldwell won the World Championships by becoming the first woman to cleanly land a triple-flipping, quadruple-twisting jump in competition.
She’s only 24 - young enough to get another chance on the sport’s biggest stage.
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11:10 p.m.
The International Olympic Committee says it is sending home one of its members who was involved in an altercation with a security guard at the Pyeongchang Games.
The IOC said Thursday that Adam Pengilly has apologized to the security guard and will leave the Olympics immediately.
The IOC has apologized for Pengilly’s behavior. It says Pengilly will be interviewed by the IOC Ethics and Compliance officer and will leave the Olympics and South Korea afterward.
The IOC also noted that Pengilly’s IOC membership will expire Feb. 25, the day of the closing ceremony.
Pengilly competed at the Olympics in skeleton for Britain in 2006 and 2010. He has been an IOC member since 2010.
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11 p.m.
The Russian Paralympic Committee says 30 of its athletes have been approved to compete as neutrals at next month’s Pyeongchang Games.
The RPC says the International Paralympic Committee “provisionally registered” the 30 athletes along with seven guides, who accompany blind athletes during competitions.
The IPC didn’t confirm the Russian statement, telling The Associated Press on Thursday that it would not comment before announcing a final roster Feb. 23.
The IPC has previously said it will allow around 30 to 35 Russians to compete if it’s satisfied they’re clean, as part of measures imposed over doping in Russia. That would be around half the size of the Russian team which competed at home in the 2014 Sochi Paralympics.
The Russians at the Pyeongchang Games will be known as “Neutral Paralympic Athletes.”
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10:35 p.m.
Germany has capped the luge portion of the Pyeongchang Olympics in style, winning gold in the team relay.
And it was a history-making win for Natalie Geisenberger.
The German team of Geisenberger, Johannes Ludwig and the doubles pairing of Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt prevailed in 2 minutes, 24.517 seconds. Canada’s team of Alex Gough, Sam Edney and doubles teammates Tristan Walker and Justin Snith were second. Austria, with Madeleine Egle, David Gleirscher and doubles sliders Peter Penz and Georg Fischler was third.
The U.S. was fourth, missing a medal by about one-tenth of a second.
Geisenberger now has five Olympic medals, the same number as German legend Georg Hackl. Only Italy’s Armin Zoeggeler has more, with six. And Geisenbeger becomes the first Olympian ever with four luge golds - two of those coming in relays.
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10:20 p.m.
There’s no way this Japanese veteran is feeling over the hill. The 45-year-old Noriaki Kasai is hanging with the leaders in training for the ski jumping large hill final at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Defending champion Kamil Stoch of Poland led all jumpers with 139.5 meters in his second practice.
Stoch won both the normal and large hill events at the 2014 Sochi Olympics but missed out on the podium in the normal hill event.
Kasai is competing in a record eighth Olympic games and was a silver medalist on the large hill in Sochi four years ago. He had a strong second jump of 138 meters and was fifth after the first pair of practice jumps.
Germany’s Andreas Wellinger won the normal hill gold last weekend but placed 10th and 11th in the two trial jumps.
Qualifying is Friday for the Saturday final.
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10:10 p.m.
Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Boe has won his first gold medal of the Winter Games after the world’s top biathlete, Frenchman Martin Fourcade, surprisingly missed on his final two shots.
Slovania’s Jakov Fak took home the silver, and Austrian Dominik Landertinger captured the bronze.
Fourcade appeared to have victory easily in his sights in his final shoot. But after hitting his first 18 shots, Fourcade missed his final two targets, resulting in a two-minute penalty. He rolled his eyes after his second miss, then furiously raced to the finish line in an effort to salvage a medal but wound up fifth.
Boe has been Fourcade’s chief rival. He missed only one shot in the race and finally found the podium after two disappointing performances in his first two events in Pyeongchang.
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10 p.m.
Ted-Jan Bloemen of Canada has won the 10,000 meters in Olympic-record time.
The Netherlands-born speedskater finished in 12 minutes, 39.77 seconds.
Defending champion Jorrit Bergsma of the Netherlands took silver in 12:41.99. Nicola Tumolero of Italy earned bronze in 12:54.32.
Dutchman Sven Kramer finished a surprising sixth. He had dominated the grueling race at every competition except the Olympics, where he has never won it. Eight years ago in Vancouver, he skated the fastest time but was disqualified for incorrectly changing lanes.
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9:45 p.m.
South Korea’s men’s hockey team has made history, scoring its first goal in the first period of its first Olympic game.
Canada-born Brock Radunske fired a shot past Czech Republic goaltender Pavel Francouz to give South Korea a 1-0 lead on Thursday.
The goal happened right in front of North Korea’s 200-member cheerleading troupe.
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9:35 p.m.
Speedskater Jorrit Bergsma of the Netherlands has broken his own Olympic record in the 10,000 meters at the Pyeongchang Games.
He was timed in 12 minutes, 41.99 seconds on Thursday, bettering his old mark of 12:44.45 set four years ago in Sochi when he won the gold.
Bergsma increased his speed around the 6,000-meter mark and his lap times dipped under 30 seconds. He kept them there until the finish of the grueling race.
Still to skate are rivals Ted-Jan Bloemen of Canada and Dutch teammate Sven Kramer.
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8:45 p.m.
Two hundred North Korean cheerleaders have arrived to watch South Korea’s opening Pyeongchang Olympic men’s game against the Czech Republic.
The all-female cheerleaders were dressed identically in red, white and blue tracksuits and white hats. They filed into the Gangneung Hockey Centre with male minders and sat down behind one of the goals.
They are waving flags as the South Korean team warms up while “Power” by Kanye West plays over the arena music system. Dozens of South Koreans around their section are taking photos of the cheerleaders and selfies with them as a backdrop.
The hockey team is made up of 18 South Koreans, six Canadians and one American. The seven North Americans are all dual citizens.
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8:25 p.m.
Snowboarder Regino Hernandez made a bet with his skiman that if he won a medal at the Pyeongchang Olympics, they would both tattoo their big-bearded faces on each other.
Well, he won.
Hernandez took home bronze in men’s snowboardcross Thursday, giving Spain only its third Winter Games medal - and first since 1992.
Now he and Luca Trionte, the man in charge of preparing his boards, are getting tattoos.
Hernandez says, “Here, the bets are for life. Nothing like just shaving beards. Beards will grow back.”
Hernandez’s only concern was where exactly to place his friend’s face.
He tells Spanish sports daily Marca: “I will have to find a place that is not too visible. Luckily, I have many tattoos, so I hope it won’t get noticed too much.”
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7:20 p.m.
Sweden has opened the Pyeongchang Olympic men’s hockey tournament with a 4-0 win over neighbor Norway, even without playing highly rated young defenseman Rasmus Dahlin.
Linus Omark finished Thursday with three assists, including a backhand no-look pass to set up Par Lindholm’s opening goal. Anton Lander then made it 2-0 as Sweden dominated the first period.
Early in the third, a Norwegian goal was disallowed on review for interference before Sweden killed off the game with two goals in quick succession.
Sweden left the 17-year-old Dahlin out of its team for the game against Norway even though he’s healthy. He’s widely considered the favorite for the NHL No. 1 draft pick.
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7:05 p.m.
Michelle Karvinen scored two power-play goals and Finland beat the Olympic athletes from Russia 5-1 to finish third in the top group of women’s hockey behind Canada and the United States.
Finland will play Sweden in the quarterfinals Saturday for a slot in the semifinal against Canada, the defending gold medalist. Still winless, the Russians will play Switzerland, with the winner advancing to a semifinal against the U.S.
Riikka Valila and Pera Nieminen each had a goal and an assist for Finland on Thursday, and Minamarri Tuominen added a goal. Goaltender Noora Raty made 24 saves for her eighth career Olympic victory.
Anna Shokhina scored the Russians’ first goal of this tournament in the third period.
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6:50 p.m.
Sweden’s Hanna Oeberg has pulled off a major upset in the women’s 15-kilometer biathlon at the Pyeongchang Olympics, beating out two-time gold medalist Laura Dahlmeier to capture the gold medal.
Oeberg entered the race ranked 42nd in the World Cup standings in the individual event. She was in tears Thursday after winning her first medal in her first Olympic Games by hitting all 20 shots.
Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina took home silver, and Germany’s Dahlmeier captured the bronze.
Dahlmeier won the previous two biathlon events in Pyeongchang and looked almost unbeatable, but she had one costly miss that led to an automatic one-minute penalty.
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6:30 p.m.
U.S. figure skater Nathan Chen is offering condolences to families of the victims of the Florida school shooting that killed 17 people.
Chen skated in the Pyeongchang Olympics team competition where the U.S. won bronze, and he’s due to skate in the men’s individual competition starting Friday.
The two-time U.S. champion was asked about the shooting during a pre-competition press conference.
“Truly my heart goes out to them,” he said. “It’s devastating. It’s terrible that things like this keep happening.”
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5:40 p.m.
Russian fans are proudly waving their country’s flag at the Pyeongchang Olympics, where Team Russia is technically banned and Russian athletes must compete under the Olympic flag.
Many fans say the ban makes them more determined to represent their country.
Hockey star Ilya Kovalchuk has one rule for such fans: Put down the flag if they want to take a photo with him.
The athletes from Russia are banned from using the flag or national symbols. The fans say that makes them even more patriotic and committed to make sure the athletes know that Russians are at these Olympics.
At hockey and figure skating, the Russians have been among the loudest fan bases.
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5 p.m.
French skiers are unhappy that Olympic organizers wouldn’t allow them to wear stickers on their helmets to commemorate David Poisson, a teammate killed in a training crash last November.
The sticker showed a drawing of a fish’s head, a play on Poisson’s name in French, which means fish. The International Olympic Committee has strict rules preventing Olympians from wearing unauthorized labels or stickers on their gear.
“I’m really very disappointed that they didn’t allow us to wear it, given that it’s not commercial advertising for anything,” French skier Adrien Theaux said after placing 26th in the men’s downhill on Thursday.
Poisson, 35, was killed in training at the Canadian resort of Nakiska. The French wore tri-color hearts with “DP” in the center during World Cup races this season.
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4:40 p.m.
Ragnhild Haga of Norway has won her first gold medal in the women’s 10-kilometer freestyle at the Pyeongchang Olympics, dusting the field by more than 20 seconds.
She finished in just over 25 minutes Thursday.
Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla won her second medal of the Olympic Games by finishing in second, while Norway’s Mart Bjoergen and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski finished tied for third with identical times of 25 minutes, 32.4 seconds.
It is the 12th career medal for Bjoergen, leaving the 37-year-old one shy of matching the record of 13 held by Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjoerndalen.
USA’s Jessica Diggins finished in fifth place and now has three top-six finishes at the Olympic Games.
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4:30 p.m.
The Dutch Olympic team has been hit by a 4-year-old match-fixing scandal involving one of its speedskating coaches.
The Dutch Olympic committee says it has officially warned Jillert Anema for an attempt at match-fixing in the Olympic team pursuit four years ago at the Sochi Games. Anema also worked for the French team.
In a 2014 letter to Anema published Thursday, the committee chastised him for asking a Dutch team leader not to be too hard on the French squad in the quarterfinals because a humiliating result might have funding consequences for their team.
Anema is in Pyeongchang and trains Dutch speedskater Jorrit Bergsma and his American wife, Heather. Jorrit Bergsma is a medal favorite in the 10,000-kilometer race later Thursday.
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4 p.m.
A San Francisco Bay area radio station has fired one of its hosts over comments he made about 17-year-old Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim on another station.
Program director Jeremiah Crowe of KNBR-AM said in a statement Wednesday that host Patrick Connor has been fired.
On Tuesday, on the Barstool Sports network on SiriusXM, Connor made vulgar comments about Kim, then said “the countdown is on” until her 18th birthday.
Connor apologized on Twitter, calling his comments “inappropriate.”
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, without referring directly to Connor, said on Twitter that his network sometimes misses the mark with humor, but “cry babies” will not dictate its actions.
Kim, of Torrance, California, won gold in the women’s halfpipe Tuesday at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
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