Winter Olympics 2014 TV schedule: What to watch Wednesday
Speed skating, women's halfpipe, ice hockey, and pairs figure skating headline today's events at the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia complete their routine in the pairs short program figure skating competition at the Iceberg Skating Palace during the 2014 Winter Olympics, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014. They will skate for gold tonight.
Bernat Armangue/AP
Americans Shani Davis and Kelly Clark attempt to defend their Olympic titles today as action continues at the 22nd Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
US athletes will look to match powerful performances from Norwegian, Canadian, and Dutch athletes, who lead the medal count.
Medals will be awarded in women’s downhill, women’s halfpipe, men’s 1,000-meter speedskating, Nordic combined, men’s luge, and pairs figure skating. The US and Canadian women’s hockey teams also play a highly anticipated match.
NBC will air a tape-delayed afternoon broadcast from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. EST and a prime-time broadcast at 8 p.m. EST. Its affiliate networks, including NBC Sports, MSNBC, and CNBC, will broadcast events throughout the day, and all events can be live streamed by cable subscribers at nbcolympics.com.
Don’t miss these events:
Women’s downhill
The world’s top skiers will test their speed on the longest and fastest alpine ski event. Keep an eye on American Julia Mancuso, who won her fourth Olympic medal in the super-combined this weekend and posted the fastest time in the downhill portion of that event. Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany, the winner of the super-combined, is a perennial threat.
The event was live-streamed at 2 a.m. EST this morning and will be replayed on NBC primetime. Find results here.
Women’s ice hockey USA vs. Canada
The US and Canadian hockey teams are so dominant that they’ve met in 18 of the last 19 Olympic or World Championship matches, breaking the streak only when Sweden beat the US for play in the gold medal match in the 2006 Turin Games. They meet today in a preliminary face-off that is expected to be a preview of the gold medal final on Feb. 20.
Canada has won the past three Olympics, but the US has won the final four of seven pre-Olympic games.
The game aired at 7 a.m. EST on NBC Sports Network. Find results here.
Men’s 1,000-meter speedskating
Shani Davis is skating for the history books today, as he tries to become the first Olympian to win three consecutive gold medals in the men’s 1,000-meter skate. He’ll need to face down the dominant Dutch, who have won every speed skating gold medal of these Games so far. Mr. Davis trains on his own, is his own coach, and negotiates his own sponsorship deals, as Mark Sappenfield, The Christian Science Monitor's Sochi correspondent reported. Davis took to Twitter to proclaim his readiness for the big day:
The event streamed live at 9 a.m. EST and will be replayed on the NBC primetime broadcast. Find results here.
Women’s snowboarding halfpipe
Kelly Clark seeks to take home a gold for the US in the high-flying halfpipe today, a day after teammate Shaun White came up short in the men’s event. Ms. Clark, in her fourth Olympics, last won gold in the event in the 2002 Salt Lake Games. She’s been dominant in the event since 2010 and comes in as the favorite – although that designation has proven a tough one to live up to in these Games so far. Teammate Arielle Gold was expected to be in the medal hunt, but pulled out after an injury in a training run yesterday. Clark faces the strongest competition from the 2010 Olympic champion, Australian Torah Bright, and China’s Li Shuang is also in the running.
The event will stream live at 12:30 p.m. EST and will be replayed on NBC primetime.
Figure skating pairs free skate
Defending World Champions Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia took a huge lead in the short program yesterday and are well placed to win gold, barring any major mistakes in their free skate today. Russia – which failed to medal in a single figure skating event in Vancouver for the first time since 1960 – could take home two medals today, with fellow Russians Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov sitting in third after the short program. Germany’s Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy are in second and American pair Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir are in ninth.
The event will be live streamed at 10:45 a.m. and replayed on NBC primetime.
What else is on:
NBC 3 - 5 p.m. EST: Nordic Combined (individual normal hill)
NBC 8 p.m, EST: Alpine skiing (women’s downhill), speed skating (men’s 1000m), snowboarding (women’s halfpipe), figure skating (pairs free)
NBC 12:30 am EST: luge (men’s doubles)