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

And just like that, the Americans lose the medal lead and, trailing the Russians by two, pretty much cannot possibly get it back. There are only three medal events left; one of those is a pipe dream, the Russians are poised to also medal in another, and the third... well, the third is hockey, so forget that now.

Upshot: Russia is going to win the medal count on their home field, but they're just barely going to do it. The question now for Team USA is whether they can hold onto second with Norway lurking just one medal behind them. The top five:

COUNTRY	G	S	B	TOTAL
Russia	11	10	8	29
United States	9	7	11	27
Norway	11	5	10	26
Canada	9	10	5	24
Netherlands	8	7	9	24

Results:

Alpine Skiing:

MEN'S SLALOM
GOLD	Mario Matt	Austria	1:41.84
SILVER	Marcel Hirscher	Austria	1:42.12
BRONZE	Henrik Kristofferson	Norway	1:42.67

Over a third of the entrants didn't even complete the first run. Ted Ligety was in sixth after the first run, but wiped on the second and goes down as a DNF, along with fellow American David Chodounsky. Nolan Kasper was thus the only USA finisher, coming in 13th.

Biathlon:

MEN'S 4x7.5k RELAY
GOLD	Alexey Volkov Evgeny Ustyugov Dmitry Malyshko Anton Shipulin	Russia	1:12:15.9
SILVER	Erik Lesser Daniel Boehm Amd Peiffer Simon Schempp	Germany	1:12:19.4
BRONZE	Christoph Sumann Daniel Mesotitsch Simon Eder Dominik Landertinger	Austria	1:12:45.7

Team USA's Lowell Bailey finished the first leg in fourth place, just five seconds off the podium, having hit all 10 shooting targets without a miss. Russell Currier then set up at the prone targets... and only cleared two of the five, taking eight shots to even get that far. That cost Team USA three 150m penalty laps, and two minutes of time. Sean Doherty and Lief Nordgren weren't able to make up any of that lost ground, and the three biathletes combined gave up over five minutes to the Russians by the time the race was over. Team USA finished in 16th, the last team to record a time (three other teams were lapped and eliminated).

As bad as that was for the Americans, a career ended in the sporting version of tragedy. The legendary Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, holder of 13 Olympic medals, 8 of them gold, a man who has been a medal-winning fixture in the winter games for five Olympiads, ended his winter games career as crossed the finish line of the third leg and handed off a two-second lead over the Germans to Emil Hegle Svendsen. The Norwegians had taken out all 30 targets on 31 shots to that point, and it looked like Bjoerndalen's career was going to end with a fourteenth medal, and possibly even a ninth gold.

Svendsen needed six shots to clear the prone station, and the lead shrunk to a half second. Then on the way to the next range, Svendsen gave up that lead to the Germans, pulling into the blocks trailing by a second... and only took out four of his five targets on eight shots, forcing him to take a penalty loop. That cost Norway 42 seconds... and a medal, as the Russians and Austrians passed Svendsen while he was skiing the extra 150 meters.

Bobsled:

MEN'S FOUR-MAN (heats 1-2)
1	Alexander Zubkov Alexey Negodaylo Dmitry Trunenkov Alexey Voevoda	Russia 1	1:50.19
2	Oskars Melbardis Daumants Dreiskins Arvis Vilkaste Janis Strenga	Latvia 1	1:50.23
3	Maximillian Arndt Marko Huebenbecker Alexander Roediger Martin Putze	Germany	1:50.35
4	Steven Holcomb Curtis Tomasevicz Steven Langton Chris Fogt	USA 1	1:50.36

Tight, tight, tight. USA 2 (Nick Cunningham, Justin Olsen, Johnny Quinn, and Dallas Robinson) currently sit 11th.

Cross-Country:

LADIES' 30k MASS START
GOLD	Marit Bjoergen	Norway	1:11:06.2
SILVER	Therese Johaug	Norway	1:11:07.8
BRONZE	Kristin Stoerner Steria	Norway	1:11:28.8

Norway throws themselves back into the thick of the race for the top with a sweep. Elizabeth Stephen led the USA contingent, finishing 24th; Holly Brooks and Kikkan Randall were 27th and 28th, and Jessica Diggins came in 40th.

Curling:

All events completed.

Figure Skating:

All events completed.

Freestyle Skiing:

All events completed.

Ice Hockey:

MEN'S BRONZE MEDAL GAME
Finland	5-0	USA

A scoreless first period gave way to goals 11 seconds apart from Teemu Selanne and Jussi Jokinen just a minute and a half into the second. Patrick Kane had not one but two chances to score on penalty shots and missed; he also blew it on two separate breakaways. Those failures made the third period all the more awful, as Selanne scored again along with Jusso Hietanen and Olli Maatta. Mikael Granlund, Jori Lehtera, and Lauri Korpikoski each had a pair of assists for the Finns, and for the seventh time since Lake Placid, Team USA goes home without even medaling.

Luge:

All events completed.

Nordic Combined:

All events completed.

Short Track:

All events completed.

Skeleton:

All events completed.

Ski Jumping:

All events completed.

Snowboard:

LADIES' PARALLEL SLALOM
GOLD	Julia Dujmovits	Austria
SILVER	Anne Karstens	Germany
BRONZE	Amelie Kober	Germany

There were no Americans in the Olympics in this event.

MEN'S PARALLEL SLALOM
GOLD	Vic Wild	Russia
SILVER	Zan Kosir	Slovenia
BRONZE	Benjamin Karl	Austria

American Vic Wild wins his second gold medal this week... for the Russians. Real American Justin Reiter was disqualified during the qualification run.

Speed Skating:

MEN'S TEAM PURSUIT
GOLD	Jan Blokhuijsen Sven Kramer Keon Verweij	Netherlands	3:37.71 (OR)
SILVER	Hyong Jun Joo Cheol Min Kim Seung Hoon Lee	Korea	3:40.85
BRONZE	Zbigniew Brodka Konrad Niedzwiedzki Jan Szymanski	Poland	3:41.94

Poland defeated Canada for the bronze. Norway topped Russia for fifth, and Team USA (Brian Hansen, Jonathan Kuck, Joey Mantia) beat France for seventh.

LADIES' TEAM PURSUIT
GOLD	Marrit Leenstra Jorien Ter Mors Ireen Wust	Netherlands	2:58.05
SILVER	Katarzyna Bachleda-Curus Katarzyna Wozniak Luiza Zlotkowska	Poland	3:05.55
BRONZE	Olga Graf Yekaterina Lobysheva Yuliya Skokova	Russia	2:59.73

In their semifinal win over Japan, the Dutch finished in 2:58.43, which was a new Olympic record. They then broke it again in their win over Poland in the gold medal race. Russia actually posted a better time than Poland as they knocked off Japan for the bronze, Canada defeated Team USA (Brittany Bowe, Heather Richardson, and Jilleanne Rookard) in the fifth-place race, and Norway beat Korea for seventh.

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:

We are down to only three events remaining:

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

Note that Daytime is again extended, but Primetime is shortened and Latenight is gone. Farewell, half-hour snippet.

Bobsled:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	USA Participants
MEN'S FOUR-MAN (heat 3)	3:30am	NBCSN	NBC Daytime	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 4)	5:00am	NBCSN	NBC Daytime	USA 1: Steven Holcomb Curtis Tomasevicz Steven Langton Chris Fogt USA 2: Nick Cunningham Justin Olsen Johnny Quinn Dallas RobinsonX

Cross-Country:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	USA Participants
MEN'S 50k MASS START FREESTYLE	1:00am	none	NBC Daytime	Noah Hoffman - Torin Koos Kris Freeman - Brian Gregg

Ice Hockey:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	Match
MEN'S GOLD MEDAL GAME	6:00am	NBC PROPER	4:00pm, NBCSN	Canada-Sweden

Closing Ceremonies:

Event	Time (CT)	Live TV	Delayed TV	USA Participants
SOCHI 2014 CLOSING CEREMONIES	10:00am	none in the USA	NBC Primetime	Everyone, duh. Flagbearer: Julie Chu (women's hockey)

Very little detail regarding the content of the closing ceremonies has been leaked so far. The Korean contingent will be providing violins as part of the cultural hand-off, but details regarding which (if any) popular entertainers familiar to an American audience may appear are still under lock and key. It's safe to say that these ceremonies will probably resemble Turin and Beijing much more closely than Salt Lake City, Vancouver, or London.

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