The men’s team is the twelfth nation to reach the team sprint final
The Swedish men’s cross-country skiers have had a tough Olympics and are looking for their first medal.
On Wednesday morning, Johan Häggström and Edvin Anger took the first step when they moved from qualifying to the final as the twelfth team in the team sprint.
Anger won bronze in the team sprint at the World Championships last year alongside Oskar Svensson, but has shown poor form at the current Olympics. Before the first distance he did say that he thought his form was on the rise.
– What would I say then? After the men’s relay, in which Sweden finished as the tenth and last team, he commented that everything was going to hell before the Olympic Games.
The 23-year-old has had a winter of ups and downs, in which lows were accompanied by completely good results. The big problem was that he couldn’t reach a heart rate high enough to perform at peak performance.
– The handbrake was constantly on, he said.
However, sprints worked better than distance races, so he had some hopes for the team sprint.
Häggström had bad skis in the men’s relay and couldn’t show what shape he was in.
When Häggström and Anger competed together at the World Cup in Davos at the beginning of winter, they took third place.
The former ice dancer is the first ever ice skating photographer in the Olympic figure skating scene
Previously, American Jordan Cowan competed in ice dancing. Today he works as a cameraman at the figure skating competitions at the Olympic Games in Italy. Cowan is the first cameraman ever to film Olympic figure skating on ice skates, AP writes.
He’s not on the ice during the actual show, but after each show he comes out in his white tuxedo to capture the emotions of the skaters up close for the television viewers and everyone in the arena watching the big screens.
“Being the first person on the ice at the end of your performance is a privilege and I really want them to feel their emotions,” Cowan told the AP.
In 2011, he stopped competing and began ballroom dancing. The dance inspired Cowan. He saw how the television shows encouraged amateurs to try new dances. Wanting to apply the same to skating, he founded his own company in 2018 and started filming.
During the games, he works for Olympic Broadcasting Services, which manages the broadcasts to the various rights holders.
“I trained to follow the skaters without knowing the choreography,” Cowan tells AP, continuing:
– They know they don’t have to watch over me and I do my best to stay out of their way because safety is my top priority. The biggest compliment I get is when the skaters say they didn’t even notice I was out there.
The last figure skating competition of these Olympic Games awaits you tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. Then it’s time for the women’s singles free program.
The Norwegian could become the last individual Olympic champion in his sport
Nordic combined is a unique sport in the Olympic Games. It is the only Olympic sport in which women are not allowed to participate. This sparked protests among World Cup racers, but the IOC stuck to its decision.
It is not certain whether anyone will be allowed to compete in Nordic combined at the 2030 Winter Olympics. The sport is being evaluated together with the parallel slalom on the snowboard.
This means that 25-year-old Norwegian Jens Lurås Oftebro, who won Olympic gold on the large hill on Tuesday, could become the last individual Olympic champion in this sport.
– Hopefully I’m not the last one. “I think today’s competition and the one before it were exciting to watch, which was very positive,” Oftebro told the official Olympic information channel.
He mentions that he has heard that there have been good crowds at these Olympics and hopes that will also be the case for the team competition on Thursday.
– Women are also developing rapidly, more and more countries are competing for medals, so there are many arguments for including us in the Olympic program. “I only see advantages and hope that the IOC thinks the same,” concludes Oftebro.
Fake OS websites deceive online retailers
Cybersecurity company Bitdefender has discovered a wave of online fraud related to the Olympics, writes Reuters. These are websites almost identical to the official website where Milano Cortina 2026 sells its merchandise.
According to Bitdefender, the scam sites are distributed via advertisements on Meta’s platforms. The ads offer up to 80 percent discounts on Olympic products.
Those who shop on the fake websites may receive counterfeit goods or simply receive nothing at all, writes Reuters.
Bitdefender also says that many of the sites disappear quickly, making it impossible to get the money back.
According to the cybersecurity company, be on the lookout for extreme discounts. The official online store offers a 15 percent discount for those who register an account, while the fake websites offer much higher discounts.
