Winter Olympics: How to watch as Madison Chock and Evan Bates go for ice dance gold

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Province of Belluno — The Winter Olympics are in full swing, with several medal events lined up on Day 5 of the Games. 

Ice dance will crown a new gold medalist on Wednesday, while the U.S. faces the strong Swiss team in the men’s skiing Super-G. The men’s hockey tournament will also get underway on Wednesday, as Slovakia faces defending champion Finland.

The U.S., which will have NHL players for the first time in 12 years at the Winter Games, will face Canada on the ice Thursday.

Here’s what to watch for Day 5: 

Ice dance pair Madison Chock and Evan Bates are headed for the ice dance finale, with some stiff competition from the French ice dancers. Chock and Bates, three-time world champions, entered the competition trailing behind the French dancers Launrence Fournier Beaudry and Guilliaume Cizeron after making a small mistake on their pattern step in the rhythm dance on Monday.

The competition for free dance will get underway at 1:30 p.m. ET. Viewers around the world can watch on official broadcasters, including NBC and streaming on Peacock and NBC Olympics platforms.

The Americans have spent the past four years targeting individual gold at the Olympics, ever since finishing just off the podium in fourth place at the Beijing Games. Chock and Bates have been nearly unbeatable, too, losing four times over that entire span, while capturing three consecutive world titles and dominating the Grand Prix Final.

If it wasn’t for getting leveled down on their pattern step Monday night, they would be the ones in the lead heading into the free skate.

France’s Cizeron is bidding for a second straight gold in the ice dance, after winning in 2022 with Gabriella Papadakis. 

Alpine skiing continues with the Men’s Super-G on Wednesday. 

The competition is too close to call as the Swiss continue to dominate. 

First, it was Franjo von Allmen in the downhill. Then it was von Allmen partnering with Tanguy Nef in the team combined. It’s two golds from two races for the Swiss in men’s skiing program and they have a great chance of a third win in the super-G.

The event takes place on the Stelvio course at 5:30 a.m. ET.

Marco Odermatt, the world champion in super-G, will be among the favorites as he goes for his second Olympic gold after the giant slalom in Beijing. Another Swiss contender is Alexis Monney.

Vincent Kriechmayr of Austria, Italian pair Giovanni Franzoni and Dominik Paris, and Ryan Cochran-Siegle of the U.S. — the silver medalist in Beijing — are other candidates for medals.

Twelve years, in fact, since NHL players featured in the Winter Games. After Sochi in 2014, the league chose not to participate in PyeongChang in 2018, and a late change of plans because of pandemic-related scheduling issues meant the NHL wasn’t represented in Beijing in 2022.

It means hockey superstars like Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon — the list is endless — are getting their first taste of Olympic action, and fellow Canadian teammate Sidney Crosby is back seeking another gold medal.

First up Wednesday, though, is Slovakia vs. defending champion Finland at 4:40 p.m. local time (1540 GMT, 10:40 a.m. ET) and Sweden vs. Italy at 9:10 p.m. (2010 GMT, 3:10 p.m. ET).

Canada and the United States are in action on Thursday.

Snowboard prodigy Alessandro Barbieri will make his Olympic debut on Wednesday. 

The 17-year-old, nicknamed “The Chef,” will compete alongside his idols Hirano Ayumu and Scotty James.

Barbieri, whose parents have Italian roots, has a specific halfpipe style that has gained many fans over the last two seasons. 

“The French people are going to hate me, but Italy is the king of style. And I feel like I take the Italian flair from my parents and put it into snowboarding,” Barbieri told Olympics.com in an interview.  “I try to add more flavour into my tricks with different grabs, different combos.”

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