Day 0: Unbeaten Streaks Collide in Curling and Hockey Drama Unfolds in Milano Cortina

The Milano Cortina Games are officially underway. While the world’s attention turns to the San Siro for tonight’s Opening Ceremony, the ice has already seen heavy traffic. Following yesterday's opening puck drops in women’s hockey, Day 0 saw the momentum build across three major disciplines. The mixed doubles curling field is already beginning to split, the women's hockey group stage intensified with its second day of play, and the figure skating team event launched with high-stakes short programs.

Curling

The mixed doubles curling continued today with the leaderboard finally taking shape as the tournament heavyweights began to separate themselves from the pack.

Sweden 4-7 Great Britain: A big game between two of the tournament favourites who had both had good starts, with GB at 3-0 and Sweden at 2-1, after a cagy first end where GB's Dodds had to make a draw with the last stone into the green ring to stop Sweden taking four. The game swiftly got away from Sweden in end two as GB took three against the hammer, a scoreline which Sweden never recovered from. This result moved GB to 4-0 for the tournament, with Jennifer Dodds in particular playing really well so far in the clutch moments. As for Sweden them dropping to 2-2 after starting 2-0 is certainly a blip, and they didn't play well in this one, particularly in the first four ends.

Italy 12-4 Switzerland: A great bounce back from the Italians after losing to Canada yesterday, despite starting slow and being down 4-3 after three ends, they began to dominate from end 4 onwards, scoring nine points in three ends to ultimately force an early handshake and move to 2-1 on the tournament and look back on track for a place in the top four. As for the Swiss, they fall to 2-2 and will need to start upsetting the likes of Canada and Great Britain if they're to sneak into the top four.

USA 7-5 Canada: The traditional rivalry between Canada and the USA lived up to the hype. The Americans pulled off a major upset against a Canadian squad that had looked nearly invincible through the first two days of play. With this win, the USA moves to a perfect 3-0 and is firmly on track for a top-four finish. While losing to a talented American duo is no disgrace, the manner of the defeat will sting for Canada. Tied at 4-4 after six ends, the game swung on a brilliant double takeout by Korey Dropkin in the seventh. That shot left the house wide open for Cory Thiesse to capitalise, scoring three points and effectively putting the game out of reach.

Czechia 1-8 USA: The USA continued their unbeaten start brutally, putting the hapless Czechs to the sword to improve to 4-0. This game was never close as the USA was up by 5 after 3 ends, with Cory Thiesee being amazing with a game shot success rate of 98%, making a slight error on only one of her shots. This leaves the Czechs at 0-4 and having to win every game they have left to have any chance of qualification.

Italy 7-4 Estonia: A game that the score makes look closer than it was, with Italy racing into a 4-0 lead and never really being in danger of losing it at any point. This result moves the hosts to 3-1 and puts them in a great position to make the semi-finals on home turf. As for Estonia, they fall to 1-3 despite probably playing better than their record shows and can't really afford anymore slipups. The good news for them is they have already played two of the current top three in Italy and GB

South Korea 2-8 Great Britain: Another dominant win by the brits moving them to 5-0 and meaning they only need to win two out of four remaining games, and probably only one more win gets it done for them to advance to the semi-finals. The Koreans are playing poorly and seem to disagree on a lot of shot selections, leading to poor decision-making and ultimately why they remain winless, and their chance of a medal is all but gone.

Sweden 0-9 Norway: The surprise result of the day, not just that Norway, who were winless coming into this, won but in such dominant fashion for the first shutout of these Olympics to round out a terrible day for the Wranå siblings and Sweden who lost both games convincingly to move from favourites for a top 4 position to on the outside looking in at 2-3. As for the Norweigians they will be hoping this gives them life in these Olympics despite the top four looking unlikely at 1-3. They have the skill and experience necessary to make a top-four run possible, especially given they have already played Canada, Great Britain and the USA and have mostly weaker duos remaining.

Nation	Wins	Losses
Great Britain	5	0
USA	4	0
Canada	3	1
Italy	3	1
Sweden	2	3
Switzerland	2	2
Estonia	1	3
Norway	1	3
Czechia	0	4
South Korea	0	4

Figure skating 

The start of the Figure skating at these Olympics saw the first three rounds of the Team event with the Ice dance: Rhythm dance, Pairs: short program, and Women: Short program, making up today's action. Each event had all 10 nations compete, apart from pairs, where South Korea failed to qualify an entrant. The scoring is fairly simple: 10 points for 1st and 1 point for 10th in each discipline, with an aggregate ranking, the nations with only the top five nations making it past round 4 and into the longer program events.

Ice dance: A great start for the favourite USA with the duo of Evan Block and Madison Chock beating France in 2nd, and a Great performance from Great Britain's Fear and Gibson who finished this section in 3rd. Second favourites for Gold, Japan down in 8th and losing 7 points to the USA immediately in the presumed battle for Gold.

Pairs: after a disappointing Ice dance, the Japanese came roaring back by winning the pairs, and with the USA down in 5th, they clawed back 4 points to only trail by 3 after two events. The rest of the top 3 saw Georgia and Italy in 2nd and 3rd respectively, gain points on France and Canada in the 4 way battle for bronze. Great britain after its great Ice dance performance, finished 9th in this event only ahead of Korea, which failed to field an entrant and all but ended their slim chance at progression to events five to eight.

Women's singles: Japan and the USA finished 1st and 2nd in this to extend their gap at the top to create separation between them and the battle for bronze, but Italy in 3rd stuck with them and crucially for them put more points into Georgia, Canada and France.

The standings after 3 rounds are as follows:

Rank	Nation	Points	Key Day 1 Highlight
1	USA	25	Chock/Bates won the Rhythm Dance with a season-high 91.06.
2	Japan	23	Kaori Sakamoto took 1st in the Women's Short (78.88).
3	Italy	22	Lara Naki Gutmann secured 3rd in Women's to keep the hosts on the podium.
4	Georgia	20	Metelkina/Berulava surged to 2nd in the Pairs Short.
5	Canada	19	Gilles/Poirier placed 4th in a competitive Rhythm Dance field.
6	France	17	Fournier Beaudry/Cizeron took 2nd in Rhythm Dance in their Olympic debut.
7	South Korea	11	Shin Jia placed a strong 4th in the Women's Short Program.
7	Great Britain	11	Fear/Gibson delivered a "Spice Girls" inspired dance for 3rd place.
9	China	10	Legendary pair Sui/Han returned to place 6th in the Pairs Short.
10	Poland	6	Ekaterina Kurakova fought through a tough Women's Short for the team.

Barring a collapse, the USA, Japan and Italy should be safely through to the top 5, with Georgia, Canada and France in a tussle for 5th.

Ice Hockey

The women’s hockey tournament ramped up today as Group B debutantes faced seasoned veterans, and a Group A heavyweight battle ended in dramatic fashion.

France 2-3 Japan: A game of late-period heroics as Japan opened their Olympic campaign with a hard-fought win over the tournament debutantes, France. Japan controlled the early pace, but French goaltender Alice Philbert kept her side in it with a series of spectacular saves. The deadlock finally broke late in the second through Rui Ukita, only for France to answer back immediately via Lore Baudrit. The third period remained tense until Makoto Ito sniped a wrister top-shelf with less than four minutes to play, followed by a Suzuka Maeda empty-netter. A late power-play goal by France’s Gabrielle De Serres with 13 seconds left set up a frantic finish, but Japan held on. For France, it’s a second straight narrow loss after their defeat to Italy, meaning they have to beat Sweden and Germany if they want to make the quarterfinals, while Japan looks well-positioned to challenge for the top of Group B.

Czechia 3-3(P) Switzerland: In a thriller that went all the way to a shootout, Switzerland pulled off a massive comeback to secure their first points of the Games. Czechia looked to be in total control early, building a 3-1 lead and appearing the more clinical side through two periods. However, the Swiss took over in the third. They clawed back to level the score at 3-3, then forced a scoreless overtime period. In the shootout, the Swiss goaltender stood tall as the equaliser, stopping the Czech shooters to seal the victory. It’s a great result for Switzerland to open their campaign, while the Czechs will feel they let a crucial two points slip away after such a dominant start. and now likely finish last in group A, assuming they lose to the Finns and Canadians as expected.