Editor's note: Each and every day of the 2022 Winter Games, NBCOlympics.com will break down the biggest overnight stories from across the competition landscape that you might have missed. A separate daily article will also detail what not to miss over the next day of competition.
Saturday action at the 2022 Winter Olympics featured medals doled out in Moguls, Cross-Country Skiing, Short Track, Speed Skating, Ski Jumping, and Biathlon, including competitions within the sports of Snowboarding, Luge, Curling, and Hockey. Here's a look at what you may have missed...
Snowboarding
The stage is set for a compelling showdown in the women's slopestyle final after all the event's heavy hitters successfully advanced out of the qualifying round.
Jamie Anderson, the two-time reigning gold medalist, is chasing history as she attempts to become the first snowboarder to win three consecutive Olympic titles in the same event. But in recent years, her slopestyle dominance has come under attack from New Zealand's young star Zoi Sadowski-Synnott. The two women have been trading victories at major contests and the next chapter of this rivalry will come at the Winter Games.
Sadowski-Synnott enters as a slight favorite after beating Anderson for X Games gold just a few weeks ago. The 20-year-old Kiwi backed that status up by posting the top score in qualifying after landing a strong second run that included a pair of 900s, one of which was spun switch backside for added difficulty.
Anderson also advanced to the final after her first run of the day held up for fifth place. She upped the ante during her second run but fell on a cab double cork 900 attempt off the final kicker and couldn't improve her score. Joining her in the final will be two other Americans, Hailey Langland and Julia Marino, who both came up clutch with their second runs and finished inside the top 12.
Other notable names in the final are Japan's Kokomo Murase, Finland's Enni Rukajarvi, Austria's Anna Gasser and Canada's Laurie Blouin. The final is set for Sunday morning local time and can be seen Saturday evening at 8:30 p.m. ET in the United States.
SEE MORE: Jamie Anderson through to slopestyle final as 5th-best qualifier
Moguls
Sweden's Walter Wallberg spoiled the title defense bid of Canadian moguls legend Mikael Kingsbury in a stunning result.
Wallberg beat Kingsbury in the second round, then produced the top score (83.23) in the super-final, earning Sweden its first medal in moguls. Kingsbury claimed his second Olympic silver, while Japan's Ikuma Horishima hung on for bronze.
American Nick Page, 19, finished an impressive fifth.
Results: Men's Moguls
🥇 Walter Wallberg (SWE)
🥈 Mikael Kingsbury (CAN)
🥉 Ikuma Horishima (JPN)
Cross-Country Skiing
Norway's Therese Johaug secured the first gold medal of the 2022 Winter Olympics when she outlasted the field in the women's 15km skiathlon. Johaug took the lead early and never looked back, separating herself from the pack late and finishing the nearly 10-mile race in 44 minutes and 13 seconds -- over 30 seconds ahead of ROC's Natalia Nepryaeva and Austria's Teresa Stadlober, who took silver and bronze, respectively.
American hopeful Jessie Diggins finished in sixth place, 50 seconds off Johaug. Diggins found herself in 11th while utilizing the classical style for the first 7.5km. After the switch to freestyle -- her specialty -- Diggins was able to climb through the field over the second 7.5km.
Also for Team USA, Rosie Brennanfinished 14th, Hailey Swirbulplaced 40th, and Julia Kern crossed the finish line 53rd.
The United States is still searching for its first individual cross-country medal.
Results: Women's Skiathlon
🥇 Therese Johaug (NOR)
🥈 Natalia Nepryaeva (ROC)
🥉 Teresa Stadlober (AUS)
Short Track
China, after nearly missing the final altogether, captured the gold medal in the first short track mixed team relay in Winter Olympics history, while Italy claimed the silver and Hungary took home the bronze.
The U.S. finished second in the semifinal to advance, but was penalized upon review for blocking an infield skater. Third-place China carried on to the final instead and took advantage of the opportunity, as Pietro Sighel snatched the victory away from Dajing Wu.
Italian skater Arianna Fontana won her ninth Olympic medal, the most all-time for short track. Canada came in fourth after a penalty for a push, which caused a crash with Hungary during the final.
Results: Mixed Relay
🥇 China (CHN)
🥈 Italy (ITA)
🥉 Hungary (HUN)
During other short track action on Saturday, Kristen Santos and Maame Bineyof the U.S. advanced to the women's 500m quarterfinal. Santos won her heat by pulling ahead on the final lap to earn an automatic bid, and while Biney finished third in her heat, she had one of the top third-place times and was able to advance.
Speed Skating
No one dominates speed skating like the Dutch, and this season, no one has dominated women's distance races like Irene Schouten.
Schouten is unbeaten this season in distance races, and she added another victory to her tally by claiming gold in the 3000m event with an Olympic-record time of 3:56.93.
The Netherlands was considered a contender to sweep the podium, but in a bit of a surprise, Schouten's teammates, Carlijn Achtereekte and Antoinette de Jong, both posted times above four minutes and finished seventh and eighth respectively.
Taking advantage of that, Italy's Francesca Lollobrigida and Canada's Isabelle Weidemann skated sub-four times to earn silver and bronze medals.
Results: Women's 3000m
🥇 Irene Schouten (NED)
🥈 Francesca Lollobrigida (ITA)
🥉 Isabelle Weidemann (CAN)
Ski Jumping
In the women's normal hill event, it was nearly an all-Slovenian podium, as Ursa Bogataj and Nika Kriznar finished in first and third respectively to take home the gold and bronze medals for their home country.
Katharina Althaus of Germany split the two Slovenians to claim the silver after a first round score of 121.1 and a final round score of 115.7 for a event total of 236.8
Bogataj and Kriznar finished the competition with scores of 239 and 232 respectively.
Results: Women's Normal Hill
🥇 Ursa Bogataj (SLO)
🥈 Katharina Althaus (GER)
🥉 Nika Kriznar (SLO)
Biathlon
The Norwegian quartet of Marte Olsbu Roeiseland, Tiril Eckhoff, Tarjei Boe and Johannes Thingnes Boe braved negative temperatures and windy conditions at the National Biathlon Center to add another gold medal to their 2014 Sochi win in the mixed 4x6km relay. With each athlete in the relay racing three 2km laps around the course and shooting twice, it was a shorter race than four years ago in PyeongChang.
Thingnes Boe anchored the Norwegians and passed France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet and ROC’s Eduard Latypov on final curve of the course. Boe crossed the finish line with a time of 1:06:45.6, while Fance came across the line nearly a second off the pace and ROC was 1.5 seconds back.
Results: Mixed Relay
🥇 Norway (NOR)
🥈 France (FRA)
🥉 Russian Olympic Committee (ROC)
Luge
Austria’s Wolfgang Kindl started the luge men’s singles competition in style with a track record 57.110 seconds, only to be bested by Germany’s Johannes Ludwig, who laid down a time of 57.063 in the first heat.
Kindl's second heat was a touch faster than Ludwig's, but the German maintained an overall lead at the halfway mark.
Chris Mazdzer of the U.S. is in 9th, but doesn't figure to factor into the singles medals.
Tucker West held on during his first run for 14th then scraped a few hundredths of a second off during run two to wind up 11th.
Teammate Jonny Gustafson almost hit the wall during his first heat but managed to straighten out and finish 12th after his first run. His slightly slower second heat kept him inside the top 20.
Curling
The United States duo of Vicky Persinger and Chris Plys defeated China and lost to Canada in a pair of mixed doubles curling games and now have a 3-3 record in round-robin play. Next up for the U.S. is a pair of must-win games against the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
Hockey
The U.S. cruised to a 2-0 record in Group A play during the preliminary round of the women's hockey tournament after shutting out ROC, 5-0.Savannah Harmonscored the opening goal and added two assists, while veteran Hilary Knightnetted her first goal of the Games. The Americans had a heavy advantage against the ROC in shots on goal, outshooting their opponent 62-12. Grace Zumwinkle and Jesse Compher tallied their first career Olympic goals, and Alex Carpenter closed out the strong showing with her third score in two games.
Meanwhile, the Canadian women continued to dominate their opposition. Two days after a 12-1 demolition of Switzerland, Canada routed a strong Finland team by a score of 11-1 thanks to hat tricks from Sarah Nurse and Brianne Jenner.
