Latest news with #PyeongChangGames
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Gus Kenworthy eyes comeback for fourth Olympics
Gus Kenworthy eyes a fourth Olympics in freeskiing, planning to return to competition next season for the first time since the 2022 Beijing Games, his agent confirmed. "After taking a step away, I realized I miss skiing and I really want to compete again," the 33-year-old Kenworthy said, according to "I didn't know if I would be able to come back after three-and-a-half years, but I knew I wouldn't be able to after seven and a half. So, it's this Olympics or nothing. I'm never going to have this opportunity again." Advertisement Kenworthy was part of a U.S. podium sweep in the Olympic debut of men's ski slopestyle in 2014, taking silver. After coming out in 2015, he placed 12th at the 2018 PyeongChang Games. He then switched representation to Great Britain (he was born in England) for the 2022 Olympics, where he was eighth in the halfpipe in what he said would be his last competition. Kenworthy dealt with a concussion and COVID-19 in the lead-up to the Beijing Games. "My whole goal in China was to land the run I had been training as best as I could, and I didn't do that," Kenworthy said, according to ESPN. "I had already announced that it was going to be my last contest. I was ready to be done, and I walked away with my head held high. But it wasn't what I wanted. It was hard to walk away on a sour note." Advertisement Last week, video of Kenworthy taking a ski halfpipe run was posted on his social media. "Took 3.5 years off. This is 3.5 days back. What do you think? Shall we go for it?! ," the caption read. The world's current top men's halfpipe skiers include Americans Alex Ferreira, a silver and bronze medalist at the last two Olympics, and Nick Goepper, who shared the 2014 Olympic slopestyle podium with Kenworthy. "I want to medal (in Italy). I don't know how else to say it," Kenworthy said, according to ESPN. "I don't want to say that's what success looks like because then I'm setting myself up for the possibility of this experience not to feel successful. But that is my dream. If I qualify for the Games and make it back to the Olympics and land my run, that will feel like success. That's what I didn't get in Beijing." Chloe Kim Who is qualified for Team USA for 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics? Chloe Kim was the first athlete to clinch an Olympic spot. Three more have since joined her.
NBC Sports
12-05-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Gus Kenworthy eyes comeback for fourth Olympics
Gus Kenworthy eyes a fourth Olympics in freeskiing, planning to return to competition next season for the first time since the 2022 Beijing Games, his agent confirmed. 'After taking a step away, I realized I miss skiing and I really want to compete again,' the 33-year-old Kenworthy said, according to 'I didn't know if I would be able to come back after three-and-a-half years, but I knew I wouldn't be able to after seven and a half. So, it's this Olympics or nothing. I'm never going to have this opportunity again.' Kenworthy was part of a U.S. podium sweep in the Olympic debut of men's ski slopestyle in 2014, taking silver. After coming out in 2015, he placed 12th at the 2018 PyeongChang Games. He then switched representation to Great Britain (he was born in England) for the 2022 Olympics, where he was eighth in the halfpipe in what he said would be his last competition. Kenworthy dealt with a concussion and COVID-19 in the lead-up to the Beijing Games. 'My whole goal in China was to land the run I had been training as best as I could, and I didn't do that,' Kenworthy said, according to ESPN. 'I had already announced that it was going to be my last contest. I was ready to be done, and I walked away with my head held high. But it wasn't what I wanted. It was hard to walk away on a sour note.' Last week, video of Kenworthy taking a ski halfpipe run was posted on his social media. 'Took 3.5 years off. This is 3.5 days back. What do you think? Shall we go for it?! 😏,' the caption read. The world's current top men's halfpipe skiers include Americans Alex Ferreira, a silver and bronze medalist at the last two Olympics, and Nick Goepper, who shared the 2014 Olympic slopestyle podium with Kenworthy. 'I want to medal (in Italy). I don't know how else to say it,' Kenworthy said, according to ESPN. 'I don't want to say that's what success looks like because then I'm setting myself up for the possibility of this experience not to feel successful. But that is my dream. If I qualify for the Games and make it back to the Olympics and land my run, that will feel like success. That's what I didn't get in Beijing.' Nick Zaccardi,
NBC Sports
01-05-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Maia Shibutani, Alex Shibutani announce ice dance comeback after 7 years away
Maia Shibutani and Alex Shibutani, the 2018 Olympic bronze medalists in ice dance and figure skating's team event, plan to return to competition for the first time in seven years for the 2025-26 Olympic season. They made the announcement in a social media post and video. 'Our experiences and the new skills we've developed during our time away from competition have brought us different perspectives and created some exciting new possibilities,' Alex said in a press release. 'We don't take any of this for granted. We're really enjoying the process and look forward to performing and competing together again.' Siblings Maia, 30, and Alex, 34, last competed at the 2018 PyeongChang Games. The Shibutanis won their first world medal (bronze) in their senior debut season in 2010-11 as the youngest medalists in the event in nearly 50 years. They later won both national titles and world championships medals in 2016 (silver) and 2017 (bronze). In 2018, they became the second set of siblings to earn Olympic ice dance medals after France's Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay in 1992. They were also the first ice dancers of Asian descent to earn Olympic ice dance medals. In December 2019, Maia announced that she had a cancerous kidney tumor removed and that she had SDH-deficient renal cell carcinoma. It was detected early, and no further treatment was required at the time. 'These past seven years have challenged and inspired us in ways we never expected,' Maia said in Thursday's release. 'I'm so happy and grateful to be healthy and in a position to make the decision to return to the sport I love in this way.' In their time away from competition, the Shibutanis wrote four children's books. In their return, they will be coached by Marina Zoueva and Massimo Scali. Zoueva coached them from 2007 through the 2018 Olympics. They worked with Scali as a choreographer in the 2018 Olympic cycle. For the 2026 Olympics, a U.S. Figure Skating committee will select the three ice dance couples after next January's U.S. Championships, taking into account results over the previous year. At this past March's World Championships, Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates won their third consecutive world ice dance title. Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, the 2024 and 2025 U.S. silver medalists, were a career-best fifth at worlds, plus made the podium in both of their fall Grand Prix starts for the first time. Carreira, who was born in Canada, is pursuing citizenship to become eligible to represent the U.S. at the Olympics. U.S. bronze medalists Caroline Green and Michael Parsons placed ninth at worlds. The 2025-26 figure skating season begins in earnest in September. The top-level Grand Prix Series starts in October. Nick Zaccardi,
NBC Sports
19-02-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Cory Thiesse, Korey Dropkin almost won Olympic curling trials apart. Can they win it together?
In April 2022, Korey Dropkin asked good friend Cory Thiesse to share a drink at Pickwick Restaurant & Pub overlooking the southwest corner of Lake Superior. The setting in Duluth, Minnesota, was fitting for the occasion. Pickwick is owned by retired national champion curlers. Over beverages, Dropkin asked Thiesse: Will you be my mixed doubles curling partner? 'Not to be overly confident by any means, but I thought I had a pretty darn good chance that it was a slam dunk (yes answer),' Dropkin says now. 'Our styles of play match each other very well.' Thiesse was a little bit surprised by his offer. But it quickly made a lot of sense. Thiesse and Dropkin came up through the sport together, albeit playing in separate women's and men's tournaments. Each won their first junior national title in 2012. They got to know each other at the 2012 World Junior Championships in Östersund, Sweden. When Thiesse's women's team played Canada, Dropkin's men's team of five attended with their bodies painted to spell out 'U-S-E-H-?' to lighten the mood. They each won their first senior national title in 2021. Each skipped a runner-up team at the trials for the 2022 Olympics. 'It just seems like we're the perfect fit to be playing mixed doubles together,' Thiesse said. 'We've been friends forever. We get along super well. I guess I'd never really thought about it (playing together), honestly, and after he brought it up, I was kind of like, oh yeah, I think this would actually be really good. Like, let's give it a try.' A year after Pickwick, Thiesse and Dropkin became the first U.S. mixed doubles team to win a world championship. They were the first U.S. curlers in 20 years to win a world title in any event that's on the Olympic program. Olympic men's and women's curling tournaments have been held continuously since 1998. A mixed doubles event was added starting with the 2018 PyeongChang Games. This week's Olympic Mixed Doubles Trials are the first U.S. trials for any sport for the 2026 Milan Cortina Games. The team that wins the tournament in Lafayette, Colorado, on Sunday can later this year clinch their Olympic spot through international competition. Nick Zaccardi, Thiesse and Dropkin, born six months apart in 1994 and 1995, each trace their Olympic curling ambitions to the 2006 Torino Games. Dropkin watched from his family's Massachusetts basement as a group skipped by Pete Fenson became the first American team to win Olympic curling medals (bronze). Thiesse held one of those unique 2006 medals when team member John Shuster came home to Duluth. 'This is somebody from our club, from Minnesota, that went to the Olympics and did this, that's really cool,' Thiesse said. 'Then it started to kind of be more of, I guess, an achievable type dream.' Thiesse later partnered with Shuster in mixed doubles. They were runners-up at the first U.S. Olympic Trials in the event for the 2018 PyeongChang Games. Shuster later skipped the U.S. men's team in South Korea, winning the program's first Olympic title. Thiesse also made it to the 2018 Olympics as an alternate for the women's team. Though alternates are sometimes called up to compete during the Games, an opportunity never arose for Thiesse over that week. 'It just gave me a little bit of a taste of what it could be like,' she said, 'and definitely motivated me to want to go back and actually be playing and be on the ice.' Dropkin was part of men's teams that were runners-up at the Olympic Trials for 2018 and 2022. In fact, his team won the first game of each best-of-three championship series, but each time Shuster's team rallied to take the last two. 'It's gut-wrenching for the most part,' Dropkin said in 2018 of his first Olympic Trials runner-up. 'The most common thing that people say to me is, 'You're still young. You'll have plenty of years.' As true as it is, it's still frustrating because you're given the opportunity just there and then. I don't want to be the future. I want to be the present.' In April 2022, five months after each lost in Olympic Trials finals, Dropkin asked Thiesse to be his mixed doubles partner. Thiesse was technically still partnered with Shuster (a former Pickwick manager) at the time, but it was the offseason and the start of a new Olympic cycle. 'I called John shortly after that, and was kind of like, Korey asked me, I think I want to give it a try,' Thiesse said. "(Shuster) was like, 'You have to. You should do it. All good.'' Team Cory and Korey was born. Thiesse, also a lab technician in mercury analysis, and Dropkin, also a realtor, have since trained together at the Duluth Curling Club. Dropkin has been there since moving from Massachusetts in 2013. For Thiesse, it has long been a second home. 'People have told me stories about me being in my car seat down at the curling club, watching my mom practice,' she said. Now Thiesse and Dropkin practice under a red banner commemorating their title from the 2023 Worlds (where Dropkin's mom also competed in the senior 50-and-older women's division). Dropkin will sometimes pass by Thiesse's backyard — 2.75 miles away — on runs by Lake Superior. 'Our whole goal when we formed this team, three years ago now, was to go to the Olympics in 2026,' Thiesse said.
