2026 Winter Olympics Freestyle Skiing: Eileen Gu takes final shot as Stolz and U.S. curling headline Saturday
The 2026 Winter Olympics Freestyle Skiing program features Eileen Gu in the women's halfpipe final on Saturday, with the Milan Cortina Games wrapping up in Italy and a string of medal-deciding events — including Jordan Stolz's mass start and the U. S. women's curling bronze game — set to determine the weekend's hardware.
2026 Winter Olympics Freestyle Skiing: Gu’s last chance in the halfpipe
Eileen Gu, 22, will take part in the women's freestyle skiing halfpipe final on Saturday as her third and final event of these Games, representing China despite being American-born and having a mother born in China; she is already a five-time Olympic medalist and has earned silvers in the big air and slopestyle at these Games but is yet to win gold here in Italy.
Gu will face 11 other freestyle skiers in the halfpipe final, including Team USA’s Svea Irving and Kate Gray, who placed eighth and 12th respectively in qualifying on Thursday, and Irving — the granddaughter of author John Irving — who was fifth at the 2025 World Championships; Great Britain's Zoe Atkin led all unclear in the provided context.
Stolz aims to cap sprint run in the mass start
Jordan Stolz, 21, who won gold in the 500 meters and 1, 000 meters, took silver on Thursday in the 1, 500 — an event he has mostly dominated — after China’s Ning Zhongyan set the Olympic record with a time of 1: 41. 98 and Stolz finished 0. 77 seconds behind that mark despite beating Norway's Peder Kongshaug.
Stolz's final event at these Games is the mass start on Saturday; he has said earlier in the Olympics that winning that chaotic race would be just "a bonus. " The mass start, which made its Olympic debut in 2018, is the only long-track race where every skater starts together, and the first three racers to cross the finish line of the 16-lap final win gold, silver and bronze as skaters jockey for positioning on the full track in often unpredictable, wire-to-wire finishes. Belgium's Bart Swings, who won the event in Beijing four years ago and took silver in PyeongChang, is once again a gold-medal contender.
U. S. women's curling faces Canada for bronze
After making the Olympic playoffs for the first time since 2002, the U. S. women's curling team fell short in semifinal action against Switzerland on Friday, a 7-4 result fueled by Alina Pätz, who was described as practically perfect and whose play produced a victory that was closer than the score suggests.
Switzerland will face Sweden in the gold-medal game on Sunday, while the Americans will square off against Canada on Saturday with the bronze medal on the line; the U. S. has never medaled in women's curling, which was added to the Olympics in 1998, and in Salt Lake City 24 years ago they lost to Canada in a bronze-medal game. In round-robin play at these Games, the American women notched their first-ever Olympic win over a Canadian team that had previously had their number.
What to watch next
On Saturday, Eileen Gu competes in the women's halfpipe final as her final event of the Milan Cortina Olympics; Jordan Stolz races the mass start in the final long-track event; and the U. S. women's curling team meets Canada for the bronze-medal game. On Sunday, Switzerland and Sweden are scheduled to contest the gold-medal curling match.
