When it comes to the Winter Olympics, a small subset of sports tend to get most of the attention. But while sports such as hockey and curling are just getting underway, and traditional fan favorite figure skating begins with the less-heralded team event, many other events will start awarding their gold medals on Saturday.
Just about every sport will have something going on this weekend, as the Olympics finally get underway in full force. In some cases, sports like ski jumping and cross-country skiing will run their first medal events, with some of these races featuring intriguing storylines.
Koreans Could Medal on Short Track
For instance, Saturday will see both the qualification heats and the finals for the 1500m men’s short track speed skating competition. While these fast-paced races always make for a good show, they’re also one of the places where hosts South Korea will shine most brightly.
Hwang Dae-heon will be racing in four short track events at the Winter Olympics. But the 1,500m is his specialty, and there’s a good chance that he could walk away with the host country’s first gold medal. Hwang is a +200 favorite to win gold at Bovada, with teammate Lim Hyo-jun (+250) and Canadian Charles Hamelin (+350) just behind him.
For the Koreans, this year’s race will be a shot at redemption. After they won gold in both 2006 and 2010, the country didn’t win a single medal in the 1,500m men’s race at Sochi in 2014. Hwang says he’s not focused on that, and just wants to let the world see what he can do on the ice.
“At every competition, [we all] start on the same line,” Hwang said. “I will show what I have trained without any regret in the race.”
Dutch Still Dominate
While the Koreans are great on the short track, the Dutch have always been royalty when it comes to traditional speed skating. There will be action on the larger oval this weekend as well, and the Netherlands may well begin another dominant run with the help of Ireen Wust, who is the favorite (+200) in the 3000m women’s event.
Wust already has seven Olympic medals, and is just two short of catching German Claudia Pechstein for the most speed skating medals ever. The 31-year-old Wust will suit up for four events, including the team pursuit.
Dutch technical director Arie Koops told Reuters that Wust will be up for performing on the world’s biggest stage.
“Sometimes you have athletes who compete almost the same in a training race or a big competition, but I think Ireen likes the pressure,” Koops said.
Another athlete to watch this weekend is Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier. Germany is hoping to top the medal table, and Dahlmeier, known as the “Queen of the Biathlon,” will look to start them off on the right foot by winning the women’s 7.5km sprint.
Dahlmeier, 24, won five of the six events in last year’s World Championship, and was the No. 1 ranked biathlete for the 2017 season. She’s now the favorite to win gold in Saturday’s sprint event, listed at +350 ahead of Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina (+550), Belarusian Darya Domracheva (+550), and Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen.