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Nick Goepper, Gus Kenworthy walk away with a different type of win

By Nick ZaccardiFeb 18, 2018, 9:00 AM EST
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PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – Four years ago, Nick Goepper and Gus Kenworthy shared a podium as part of the third U.S. sweep in Winter Olympic history. Bronze medalist Goepper, silver medalist Kenworthy and gold medalist Joss Christensen left Sochi early for a parade of media appearances.

NBCOlympics.com: Watch: Goepper’s silver medal run

They visited Rolling Stone. They went on David Letterman. Then they went their separate ways.

Goepper and Kenworthy, after a life-changing Olympic cycle for very different reasons, qualified for a second Olympics and competed here Sunday morning and afternoon. Christensen, in a failed comeback bid from a May torn ACL, was unable to join them.

NBCOlympics.com USA’s Nick Goepper wins silver medal in freeski slopestyle

Goepper, the gold-medal favorite four years ago, nailed his third and last run in the ski slopestyle final to grab a silver medal behind Norwegian Oystein Braaten and in front of Canadian Alex Beaulieu-Marchand. Goepper had been in ninth place.

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Federica Brignone passes Mikaela Shiffrin for World Cup overall lead

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By OlympicTalkFeb 23, 2020, 8:20 AM EST
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More: Olympics

Jade Carey on brink of becoming first gymnast to qualify for U.S. Olympic team Justin Schoenefeld Justin Schoenefeld gets U.S.’ first men’s aerials World Cup win in 4 years Kaillie Humphries wins bobsled world title in first season for U.S.

Italian Federica Brignone passed an absent Mikaela Shiffrin for the World Cup overall standings lead by winning a combined in Switzerland on Sunday.

Brignone prevailed by .92 of a second adding times from super-G and slalom runs in Crans-Montana. Full results are here.

Brignone moved 73 points ahead of Shiffrin in the overall through 29 of 40 scheduled races. A race winner receives 100 points on a descending scale through the 30th-place finisher. The season runs through March 22.

Shiffrin, the three-time reigning World Cup overall champion, has not competed since the unexpected death of her father on Feb. 2. She has not announced if or when she will return this season.

Brignone, 29, is having a career season with five wins and 10 podiums across four disciplines.

Brignone’s best previous World Cup overall standings finish was fifth. She earned giant slalom medals at the 2018 Olympics (bronze) and 2011 World Championships (silver).

She could become Italy’s first female World Cup overall champion. The last Italian male winner was Alberto Tomba in 1995.

The women’s Alpine skiing World Cup moves to La Thuile, Italy, for a super-G and a combined next Saturday and Sunday.

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Jade Carey on brink of becoming first gymnast to qualify for U.S. Olympic team

By OlympicTalkFeb 23, 2020, 7:49 AM EST
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More: Olympics

Federica Brignone passes Mikaela Shiffrin for World Cup overall lead Justin Schoenefeld Justin Schoenefeld gets U.S.’ first men’s aerials World Cup win in 4 years Kaillie Humphries wins bobsled world title in first season for U.S.

The U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials aren’t until late June, but Jade Carey is in position to qualify for the Tokyo Games in March.

Carey, seeking an individual Olympic gymnastics spot outside of the team competition, earned the maximum points in a World Cup series that is one path to Olympic qualification.

Carey has three wins each on floor exercise and vault with two World Cups left in March. Carey will mathematically clinch an Olympic spot if no other gymnasts win three times on one of the apparatuses to force a tiebreaker.

So far, no other gymnast has two wins on floor. One gymnast has two wins on vault. A gymnast’s top three finishes across the eight-stop series count in Olympic qualifying. If Carey finishes atop the floor or vault standings, she goes to the Olympics.

Carey picked up those third wins on floor and vault at the sixth World Cup in Melbourne, Australia, this weekend.

The one downside to qualifying this route: Carey would not be able to compete in the team competition at the Olympics. Those four spots will be determined at and after June’s trials in St. Louis, with Simone Biles likely grabbing one of them.

“I knew I would be giving up being on the team,” Carey said in October of going the World Cup route, “but I think, for me, it made sense to just go for it.”

Carey is a world medalist on vault and floor, but she doesn’t have the all-around credentials of Biles and some other U.S. gymnasts.

Olympic team event roster sizes were cut from five to four for Tokyo, putting a greater onus on all-around prowess given a team must put three gymnasts on each apparatus in the Olympic final.

The U.S. is the deepest country in women’s gymnastics, so the only truly safe pick to make the four-woman Olympic team event roster is Biles.

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