Driver Frank Del Duca, Carlo Valdes, Jimmy Reed and Hakeem Abdul-Saboor complete their final run in the 4-man bobsled Sunday at the Winter Olympics. Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press
ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Norwegian great Therese Johaug won her third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics on Sunday and Jessie Diggins took silver for the best result by an American in an individual cross-country skiing event since 1976.
Fighting fierce winds and brutal temperatures, Johaug went out front early in the 30-kilometer mass start race and held on to win in 1 hour, 24 minutes, 54 seconds. Johaug also won the skiathlon – the first gold medal of the Olympics – and the 10-kilometer classic race.
Diggins, also skiing alone for much of the race, kept a steady pace behind the Norwegian as gusts whipped across the tracks and battered the skiers, many with tape on their faces to protect from the cold. She dropped to the ground after crossing the finish line, 1:43.3 behind Johaug.
Kerttu Niskanen of Finland led a chase group to the line for bronze, 2:33.3 behind.
Yarmouth’s Sophia Laukli, 21, made her Olympic debut and placed 15th in a field of 65 skiers.
Diggins made cross-country skiing history for the United States at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics when she and Kikkan Randall won the team sprint – the country’s first gold medal in the sport. Here in China, she became the first U.S. woman to win an individual cross-country skiing medal when she took bronze in the freestyle sprint.
Her silver medal on the final day of the Games matched the best result ever by an American in an individual cross-country skiing event. Bill Koch won silver in the men’s 30-kilometer race at the 1976 Innsbruck Olympics.
BOBSLEDDING: Double gold in Pyeongchang, double gold in Beijing.
Francesco Friedrich won everything the Olympics had to offer once again.
The world’s best bobsledder finished off a dominating Olympics by the world’s sliding superpower, winning the four-man race at the Beijing Games on Sunday. He won the two- and four-man events at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, then repeated the feat in Beijing – the first double-double in Olympic bobsled history.
Friedrich and his team of Thorsten Margis, Candy Bauer and Alexander Schueller finished their four runs in 3 minutes, 54.30 seconds. Germany also grabbed second, with Johannes Lochner – the first-run leader – and his team of Florian Bauer, Christopher Weber and Christian Rasp crossing the line in 3:54.67.
The bronze went to Canada, driver Justin Kripps and his team of Ryan Sommer, Cam Stones and Benjamin Coakwell finishing in 3:55.09. It was Kripps’ second Olympic medal, after tying Friedrich for the two-man gold at the Pyeongchang Games.
Bethel’s Frank Del Duca tied for 13th place in 3:57.65, matching his finish in the 2-man event. Del Duca’s team included a former UMaine track and field teammate, Jimmy Reed.
MEN’S HOCKEY: Finland ended the Olympic hockey tournament with a historic upset, as its men’s team won gold for the first time on the strength of a fiercely contested 2-1 victory over the Russian Olympic Committee at National Indoor Stadium.
Hannes Bjorninen’s tip of a shot by Marko Anttila 31 seconds into the third period proved the difference as the Finns outplayed the favored Russians, who were able to build a roster around players in their domestic Kontinental Hockey League after the NHL decided not to allow its players to represent their homelands here. Finland, considered a hockey power for the last three decades, had won Olympic silver medals in 1988 and 2006 and won bronze medals in 1994, 1998, 2010 and 2014.
Four years ago at Pyeongchang the Russian team – then known as Olympic Athletes from Russia – prevailed over Germany in the gold medal game. Coached in Beijing by former NHL standouts Alexei Zhamnov and Sergei Fedorov, the renamed Russian team was favored to repeat, but Finland was the better team all-around. Finland goaltender Harri Sateri made 29 saves on Sunday against a formidable Russian offense.
The Finns’ victory in the final competition of the Beijing Games ended a successful hockey tournament for its teams. The women’s hockey team won a bronze medal, behind Canada and the United States.
Slovakia, coached by former NHL player and coach Craig Ramsay, won the bronze medal on Saturday with a 4-0 victory over Sweden.
ALPINE SKIING: The top-ranked Austrians won gold in the Winter Games’ second iteration of the mixed team parallel event, holding off Germany in the final.
Mikaela Shiffrin and the American mixed ski team missed out on a medal by 0.42 seconds, losing in the bronze matchup in the final Alpine ski event of the Beijing Olympics. Norway won the bronze.
The U.S. primarily used Shiffrin on the slower of the parallel courses, and she lost three of her four heats. Teammate River Radamus delivered the win the U.S. needed in the last heat to force a 2-2 tie, but he wasn’t fast enough to tilt the tiebreaker – combined times of the fastest man and woman – to the Americans’ favor.
Austria also tied in the final against the Germans, but Stefan Brennsteiner and Katharina Liensberger took their heats in a faster combined time than Lena Duerr and Alexander Schmid.
CURLING: Eve Muirhead led Britain to the women’s curling gold medal – the first for the sport’s homeland since 2002 – pulling away with a four-ender in the seventh for a record-setting 10-3 victory over Japan.
One day after the British men took silver, losing to Sweden in the final, the women picked up two points in the first end and controlled the scoreboard from there. They essentially clinched it in the seventh after Japanese skip Satsuki Fujisawa failed to keep her last stone in the scoring area.
That left just one red Japanese rock and three yellow British ones in the house. Muirhead easily picked off the Japan’s lone stone and scored four to take an 8-2 lead, bringing the biggest cheer yet from the British fans in the crowd.
Japan could only manage one point in the eighth. When Muirhead tallied two in the ninth, Fujisawa slid over to bump fists and concede. Another roar arose from the crowd, which included the men’s silver medalists.
It was the most lopsided women’s final in Olympic history.
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