Sochi Olympics 2014: Day 15 Recap, Day 16 Schedule and How to Watch

A pair of medals keep the USA atop the medal table, ahead of the charging Russians who picked up three and Canada earned four (actually five, but one doesn't count until Sunday). Norway grabbed a single medal to catch the Dutch, who swung and missed today. After all was said and done, the distance between Norway and Germany, as well as bunching between Germany and 10th-place Switzerland, leads us to the inescapable conclusion that we should return to simply noting the top five:

COUNTRY	G	S	B	TOTAL
United States	9	7	11	27
Russia	9	10	7	26
Canada	9	10	5	24
Netherlands	6	7	9	22
Norway	10	4	8	22

Results:

Alpine Skiing:

LADIES' SLALOM
GOLD	Mikaela Shiffrin	USA	1:44.54
SILVER	Marlies Schild	Austria	1:45.07
BRONZE	Kathrin Zettel	Austria	1:45.35

Shiffrin was only sixth in the second run, but the combination of the large lead she had after the first run and even worse second runs by the skiiers closest to her after that run propelled her to a half-second win. Julia Ford finished 24th; Resi Stiegler did not finish the second run, and Megan McJames failed to complete the first.

Biathlon:

WOMEN'S 4x5k RELAY
GOLD	Vita Semerenko Juliya Dzhyma Valj Semerenko Olena Pidhrushna	Ukraine	1:10:02.5
SILVER	Yana Romanova Olga Zaitseva Ekaterina Shumilova Olga Vilukhina	Russia	1:10:28.9
BRONZE	Fanny Wellestrand Horn Tiril Eckhoff Ann Kristin Aafedt Flatland Tora Berger	Norway	1:10:40.1

Sara Dunklee had Team USA in fourth place after the first leg, but they tailed off under Hannah Driessengacker, Sara Studebaker, and Annelies Cook; shooting was a major issue, as the Americans had to use 13 extra rounds to clear their targets over the course of the event. (They did not, however, have to take any penalty laps, which was nice.) They finished in seventh place, the best USA finish ever in the event.

Bobsled:

No events today.

Cross-Country:

No events today.

Curling:

Sweden trailed 4-3 going into the tenth, and they had to bring out the calipers to measure to see who got one in the tenth (Sweden could have gotten two, but chose to throw their last rock away rather than risk knocking the one they had in the 4-foot out of scoring position). Sweden scored by about an eighth of an inch, and the game went to an extra end. China had the hammer, but three awful mistakes in eight rocks by the Chinese not only allowed Sweden to steal, but to score TWO.

The gold medal match was as anti-climactic as the bronze was exciting; Canada had a 5-1 lead after just three ends, and when they took a point in the eighth end, the British conceded defeat.

MEN'S CURLING
GOLD	Canada
SILVER	Great Britain
BRONZE	Sweden
4th	China

Figure Skating:

All events completed.

Freestyle Skiing:

LADIES' SKI CROSS
GOLD	Marielle Thompson	Canada
SILVER	Kelsey Serwa	Canada
BRONZE	Anna Holmlund	Sweden

Team USA didn't qualify anyone for the Olympics in this event.

Ice Hockey:

MEN'S SEMIFINALS
Sweden	2-1	Finland
Canada	1-0	USA

Olli Jokinen struck first for the Finns midway through the second period, aided by Sami Vatanen's tournament-leading 5th assist, but the Swedes struck right back. Loui Eriksson and Erik Karlsson both scored within the next nine minutes, and Daniel Alfredsson kept the Swedish net clean the rest of the way to lift Sweden to the gold-medal game. Jonathan Ericsson, Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Steen, and Daniel Sedin had assists for the yellow and blue. Tuukka Rask, the hero in goal for the Finns against Russia, missed the game due to the flu, and that may well have been the difference in this one.

As one would expect, Canada and Team USA hooked up in a tight defensive battle. The stalemate was broken only by Jamie Benn's early-second period goal, assisted by Jay Bouwmeester. Team USA plays Finland tomorrow for bronze; Canada meets the Swedes Sunday for the gold to close out the Olympics.

Luge:

All events completed.

Nordic Combined:

All events completed.

Short Track:

MEN'S 500m
GOLD	Viktor An	Russia	41.312
SILVER	Dajing Wu	China	41.516
BRONZE	Charlie Cournoyer	Canada	41.617

An wins his second gold of the games. J.R. Celski finished second in his quarterfinal heat, advancing to the semis, where he was eliminated; he came in second in the sub-final, thus finishing sixth.

LADIES' 1000m
GOLD	Seung-Hi Park	Korea	1:30.761
SILVER	Kexin Fan	China	1:30.811
BRONZE	Suk Hee Sim	Korea	1:31.027

American Jessica Smith was 4th. Emily Scott was eliminated in the quarterfinals.

MEN'S 5000m RELAY
GOLD	Viktor An Semen Elistratov Vladimir Grigorev Ruslan Zakharov	Russia	6:42.100 (OR)
SILVER	Eduardo Alvarez J.R. Celski Chris Clevenger Jordan Malone	USA	6:42.371
BRONZE	Dequan Chen Tianyu Han Jingnan Shi Dajing Wu	China	6:48.341

A crash on the opening corner of the race allowed Team USA to win its first -- and, it is offically assured since they're not in either long-track medal event tomorrow, only -- speed skating medal of the Olympics. Just a short time after winning his second gold of the games, Viktor An claimed his third.

Skeleton:

All events completed.

Ski Jumping:

All events completed.

Snowboard:

No events today.

Speed Skating:

In the Men's Team Pursuit quarterfinal, Team USA (Shani Davis, Jonathan Kuck, Brian Hansen, and Joey Mantia) lost their race against Canada; worse, they posted the second-worst time, so they'll be competing for seventh place tomorrow. In the semifinals, Korea and the Dutch will meet tomorrow for the gold after prevailing over Canada and Poland, who'll skate for bronze.

The ladies (Brittany Bowe, Heather Richardson, Kelly Gunther, and Jilleanne Rookard) lost before they ever stepped onto the track, since they were up against the Netherlands. The Dutch set an Olympic record, but the Americans at least performed well enough to race for fifth tomorrow.

Looking ahead:

Here's today's schedule. ALL events are available live via streaming at NBCOlympics.com, so long as you're a customer of a participating cable, satellite or FIOS provider. All times Central. Medal events listed in BOLD.

DELAYED BROADCAST INFO: The following tags apply to the listed time windows on your local NBC station:

NBC Daytime	1:30pm-5:00pm
NBC Primetime	7pm-10:00pm (replayed 12:00am-3:00am)
NBC Latenight	11:00pm-midnight

It's Saturday, so there's an extra 1.5 hours of NBC Daytime. Also note different times for Primetime and Latenight. Be aware that NBC proper IS NOT SHOWING ANY LIVE COVERAGE OF THESE OLYMPICS.

Also today, NBCSN will be airing something from 11:30am-1:30pm, but no decision has been made as to exactly what that will be yet.

Alpine Skiing:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	USA Participants
MEN'S SLALOM (run 1)	6:45pm	none	NBC Primetime	Ted Ligety - Nolan Kasper David Chodounsky
MEN'S SLALOM (run 2)	10:15am	none	NBC Primetime	Ted Ligety - Nolan Kasper David Chodounsky

Biathlon:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	USA Participants
MEN'S 4x7.5k RELAY	8:30am	none	NBC Daytime	Lowell Bailey - Russell Currier Sean Doherty - Leif Nordgren

Bobsled:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	USA Participants
MEN'S FOUR-MAN (heat 1)	10:30am	none	NBC Primetime	USA 1: Steven Holcomb Curtis Tomasevicz Steven Langton Chris Fogt USA 2: Nick Cunningham Justin Olsen Johnny Quinn Dallas Robinson
MEN'S FOUR-MAN (heat 2)	noon	none	NBC Primetime	USA 1: Steven Holcomb Curtis Tomasevicz Steven Langton Chris Fogt USA 2: Nick Cunningham Justin Olsen Johnny Quinn Dallas Robinson

Cross-Country:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	USA Participants
LADIES' 30k MASS START	3:30am	NBCSN	NBC Daytime	Kikkan Randall - Jessica Diggins Elizabeth Stephens - Holly Brooks

Curling:

All events completed.

Figure Skating:

All events completed, but the figure skating gala exhibition is tonight, and will be part of the coverage on both NBC Primetime and NBC Latenight, because showing replayed meaningless crap is more important than showing replayed actual sporting events.

Freestyle Skiing:

All events completed.

Ice Hockey:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	Match
MEN'S BRONZE MEDAL GAME	9:00am	NBCSN	5:00pm, NBCSN	USA-Finland

Luge:

All events completed.

Nordic Combined:

All events completed.

Short Track:

All events completed.

Skeleton:

All events completed.

Ski Jumping:

All events completed.

Snowboard:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	USA Participants
LADIES' PARALLEL SLALOM (qualification)	11:15pm	none	2:00am, NBCSN	none
MEN'S PARALLEL SLALOM (qualification)	11:42pm	none	2:00am, NBCSN	Justin Reiter
LADIES' PARALLEL SLALOM (1/8)	3:15am	NBCSN	NBC Daytime	none
MEN'S PARALLEL SLALOM (1/8)	3:27am	NBCSN	NBC Primetime	Justin Reiter
LADIES' PARALLEL SLALOM (quarterfinals)	4:03am	NBCSN	NBC Daytime	none
MEN'S PARALLEL SLALOM (quarterfinals)	4:09am	NBCSN	NBC Primetime	TBD
LADIES' PARALLEL SLALOM (semifinals)	4:30am	NBCSN	NBC Daytime	none
MEN'S PARALLEL SLALOM (semifinals)	4:33am	NBCSN	NBC Primetime	TBD
LADIES' PARALLEL SLALOM (finals)	4:46am	NBCSN	NBC Daytime	none
MEN'S PARALLEL SLALOM (finals)	4:50am	NBCSN	NBC Primetime	TBD

Speed Skating:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	USA Participants
LADIES' TEAM PURSUIT (semifinals)	7:30am	none	NBC Primetime	none
MEN'S TEAM PURSUIT (finals)	7:51am	none	NBC Primetime	Shani Davis - Jonathan Kuck Brian Hansen - Joey Mantia (seventh place race)
LADIES' TEAM PURSUIT (finals)	8:14am	none	NBC Primetime	Brittany Bowe - Jilliane Rookard Kelly Gunther - Heather Richardson (fifth place race)

IF YOU INTEND TO WATCH TAPE-DELAYED COVERAGE, DON'T LOOK AT THE COMMENTS AFTER 11pm. YOU HAVE BEEN DULY WARNED.