Mikaela Shiffrin takes lead into World Cup Finals; winter sports TV, live stream schedule

By OlympicTalkMar 14, 2022, 10:25 AM EDT

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Mikaela Shiffrin duels with rival Petra Vlhova for the biggest annual prize in ski racing, live on on Peacock this week.

Alpine skiing’s World Cup Finals headline the winter sports schedule as seasons wind down.

At the Finals in France, the men and women race once in each of the four disciplines — downhill, super-G, giant slalom and slalom — to close out the campaign.

Crystal globes are awarded to the top skier over the course of the season in each discipline, plus a larger crystal globe for the overall champions combining results from all 37 races dating to October.

Most of the crystal globes are already clinched — men’s super-G (Aleksander Aamodt Kilde) and giant slalom (Marco Odermatt), women’s super-G (Federica Brignone) and slalom (Petra Vlhova) — or nearly clinched — men’s overall (Odermatt) and women’s downhill (Sofia Goggia).

The women’s overall is the most compelling storyline of the five-day finals. Shiffrin has a 56-point lead over Vlhova with four races left, meaning it could come down to the final race of the season on Sunday.

Race winners receive 100 points, with second place getting 80 and third getting 60 on a descending scale through 15th place at the Finals. Shiffrin will look to pad that cushion in the downhill and super-G, eyeing a fourth overall title to match Lindsey Vonn for second in women’s history.

The best route for Vlhova, who last year became the first Slovakian to win the overall, is to win the slalom on Saturday and giant slalom on Sunday and hope Shiffrin misses a podium or two in those technical events.

Elsewhere, the world women’s curling championship begins in Canada.

Both Scotland and the U.S. entered their reigning national champion teams, which means the field does not include Olympic champion Eve Muirhead‘s foursome, since the Scottish Championships began without Muirhead the day after the Olympics.

Nor does it include the U.S. Olympic team skipped by Tabitha Peterson, which last year won the nation’s first women’s world medal (bronze) in 15 years. Cory Christensen‘s team, runner-up at the Olympic Trials, won the most recent national championship in May 2021.

Alpine Skiing World Cup Finals — Courchevel/Meribel, France

Day	Time (ET)	Event	Platform
Wednesday	5 a.m.	Men’s Downhill	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	6:30 a.m.	Women’s Downhill	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Thursday	5 a.m.	Women’s Super-G	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	6:30 a.m.	Men’s Super-G	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Friday	7 a.m.	Mixed Team Parallel	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Saturday	4 a.m.	Men’s Giant Slalom Run 1	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	5:30 a.m.	Women’s Slalom Run 1	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	7 a.m.	Men’s Giant Slalom Run 2	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	8:30 a.m.	Women’s Slalom Run 2	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Sunday	4 a.m.	Women’s Giant Slalom Run 1	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	5:30 a.m.	Men’s Slalom Run 1	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	7 a.m.	Women’s Giant Slalom Run 2	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	8:30 a.m.	Men’s Slalom Run 2	Peacock \| STREAM LINK

Women’s Curling World Championship — Prince George, British Columbia, Canada

Day	Time (ET)	Event	Platform
Saturday	5 p.m.	USA vs. Czech Republic	Olympic Channel \| STREAM LINK
Sunday	10 p.m.	USA vs. Japan	Olympic Channel \| STREAM LINK

Biathlon World Cup — Oslo, Norway

Day	Time (ET)	Event	Platform
Thursday	10:35 a.m.	Women’s Sprint	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Friday	10:35 a.m.	Men’s Sprint	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Saturday	7:42 a.m.	Women’s Pursuit	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	9:50 a.m.	Men’s Pursuit	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Sunday	7:40 a.m.	Women’s Mass Start	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	9:50 a.m.	Men’s Mass Start	Peacock \| STREAM LINK

Ski Jumping World Cup — Oberstdorf, Germany

Day	Time (ET)	Event	Platform
Friday	12:15 p.m.	Men Qualifying	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Saturday	11 a.m.	Men	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Sunday	11 a.m.	Men	Peacock \| STREAM LINK

Freestyle Skiing World Cup — Megeve, France (Moguls) and Veysonnaz, Switzerland (Ski Cross)

Day	Time (ET)	Event	Platform
Friday	1 p.m.	Moguls	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Saturday	5 a.m.	Ski Cross	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	10:40 a.m.	Dual Moguls	Peacock \| STREAM LINK

Snowboarding World Cup — Rogla, Slovenia and Berchtesgaden, Germany (Alpine), Spindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic (Slopestyle) and Veysonnaz, Switzerland (Snowboard Cross)

Day	Time (ET)	Event	Platform
Wednesday	8 a.m.	Parallel Giant Slalom	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Saturday	7 a.m.	Slopestyle	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	7:45 a.m.	Parallel Slalom	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
Sunday	6 a.m.	Team Parallel Slalom	Peacock \| STREAM LINK
	9:30 a.m.	Snowboard Cross	Peacock \| STREAM LINK

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French Open: Iga Swiatek rolls toward possible Coco Gauff rematch

By OlympicTalkJun 1, 2023, 11:06 AM EDT

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Iga Swiatek reached the French Open third round without dropping a set, eyeing a third Roland Garros title in four years. Not that she needed the help, but Swiatek’s immediate draw is wide open after the rest of the seeds in her section lost.

Swiatek dispatched 102nd-ranked American Claire Liu 6-4, 6-0 on Thursday, the same score as her first-round win. She gets 80th-ranked Wang Xinyu of China in the round of 32.

The other three seeds in Swiatek’s section all lost in the first round, so the earliest that the world No. 1 could play another seed is the quarterfinals. And that would be No. 6 Coco Gauff, who was runner-up to Swiatek last year.

Gauff plays her second-round match later Thursday against 61st-ranked Austrian Julia Grabher. Gauff also doesn’t have any seeds in her way before a possible Swiatek showdown.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

Swiatek, who turned 22 on Wednesday, came into this year’s French Open without the invincibility of a year ago, when she was 16-0 in the spring clay season during an overall 37-match win streak.

She retired from her last pre-French Open match with a right thigh injury, but said it wasn’t serious. That diagnosis appears to have been spot-on through two matches this week, though her serve was broken twice in the first set of each match.

While the men’s draw has been upended by 14-time champion Rafael Nadal‘s pre-event withdrawal and No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev‘s loss in the first round, the top women have taken care of business.

Nos. 2, 3 and 4 seeds Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, American Jessica Pegula and Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan also reached the third round without dropping a set.

Though all of them have beaten Swiatek in 2023, the Pole remains the favorite to lift the trophy a week from Saturday. She can join Serena Williams and Justine Henin as the lone women to win three or more French Opens since 2000.

She can also become the youngest woman to win three French Opens since Monica Seles in 1992 and the youngest woman to win four Slams overall since Williams in 2002.

Swiatek doesn’t dwell on it.

“I never even played Serena or Monica Seles,” she said. “I’m kind of living my own life and having my own journey.”

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Penny Oleksiak to miss world swimming championships

By OlympicTalkJun 1, 2023, 10:11 AM EDT

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Seven-time Olympic medalist Penny Oleksiak of Canada will miss July’s world swimming championships because she does not expect to be recovered enough from knee and shoulder injuries.

“The bar that we set was, can she be as good as she’s ever been at these world championships?” coach Ryan Mallette said in a press release. “We just don’t feel like we’re going to be ready to be 100 percent yet this summer. Our focus is to get her back to 100 percent as soon as possible to get ready for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.”

Oleksiak, who owns the Canadian record of seven Olympic medals (across all sports), missed Canada’s trials meet for worlds two months ago due to the injuries. She was still named to the team at the time in hope that she would be ready in time for worlds.

The 22-year-old returned to competition last month at a Mare Nostrum meet in Barcelona, after which she chose to focus on continued rehab rather than compete at worlds in Fukuoka, Japan.

“Swimming at Mare Nostrum was a checkpoint for worlds, and I gave it my best shot,” Oleksiak said in the release. “We reviewed my swims there, and it showed me the level I want to get back to. Now I need to focus on my rehab to get back to where I want to be and put myself in position to be at my best next season.”

Oleksiak had knee surgery last year to repair a meniscus. After that, she developed a left shoulder injury.

In 2016, Oleksiak tied for Olympic 100m freestyle gold with American Simone Manuel. She also earned 100m butterfly silver in Rio and 200m free bronze in Tokyo, along with four relay medals between those two Games.

At last year’s worlds, she earned four relay medals and placed fourth in the 100m free.

She anchored the Canadian 4x100m free relay to silver behind Australia at the most recent Olympics and worlds.

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