While you were sleeping: How Canada performed at the Beijing Olympics Wednesday, Thursday

Canadian athletes earned two more medals at the Beijing Olympics on day six of competition, with more action still to come including the debut of the men’s hockey team.

Here’s what you may have missed.

Canada’s Eliot Grondin won the silver medal in a thrilling photo finish in men’s snowboard cross.

Grondin crossed the finish line just 0.02 seconds behind Austria’s Alessandro Haemmerle, throwing himself across in the hopes of claiming the gold and prompting a delay in the final results as the judges reviewed the tape.

The 20-year-old native of Saint-Marie, Que., led the pack in every elimination round, setting himself up in a strong position for a medal.

He was once again leading the final four during the difficult first half of the course, only for Haemmerle to overtake him, forcing Grondin to play catch-up to the very end.

Italy’s Omar Visintin took the bronze.

Liam Moffatt and Kevin Hill, also of Canada, finished third and fourth respectively in their 1/8 final heats and failed to move on to further rounds.

In the women’s halfpipe final, Elizabeth Hosking did her best to crack the top three, managing a score of 73.0 in her first run and 79.25 in the second with some impressive tricks. But a fall in her third run kept her in sixth place overall.

Fellow Canadian Brooke Dhondt scored 66.75 in her first run but fell in the next two, putting her in 10th place.

Defending champion Chloe Kim of the U.S. proved to be untouchable, cruising her way to another gold medal.

Canada’s James Crawford won the bronze medal in the men’s alpine combined skiing event.

Crawford had the second-fastest time in the downhill section, barely behind Austria’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, setting the Toronto native up for success in the slalom section.

The Canadian was still just a fraction of a second behind Kilde, who took the silver after Austria’s Johannes Strolz stormed into the gold medal position. The three managed to hang on to their spots as the rest of the pack made their way down the mountain.

Fellow Canadians Broderick Thompson and Brodie Seger finished eighth and ninth, respectively, while Trevor Philp skied out on the slalom course after a 19th-place finish in the downhill.

Keegan Messing scored a 172.37 in the men’s single free skate, putting him in 11th place in the single program after his well-received short program performance on Tuesday.

Nathan Chen of the United States won the gold medal with a near-perfect free skate and a record-setting short program.

The ranking Canadian champion, Messing was the favourite to earn a figure skating medal for Canada, but was kept from participating in the team skate after testing positive for COVID-19 before he was set to fly to Beijing last week.

The men’s curling team narrowly won its round robin session against Norway 6-5. The team will face Switzerland next on Friday.

The men’s team is now 2-0 in round robin play at the Olympics.

On the women’s side, skip Jennifer Jones will lead Canada into its round robin opener against South Korea’s EunJung Kim starting 7:05 a.m. ET. Thursday.

Blake Enzie finished 19th in his first heat of the men’s competition and stayed there after his second run, with a combined time of 2:03:41 — just over three seconds behind the fastest time.

He’ll have to make up ground in the third run on Friday if he hopes to make it to the fourth and final heat, which will determine the medal rankings.

Dahria Beatty was the fastest of four Canadians racing in the women’s 10-kilometre classic, placing 18th overall.

Katherine Stewart-Jones finished in 36th place, followed by Cendrine Browne in 48th and Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt in 61st.

Norway’s Therese Johaug, who won the first gold medal of the 2022 Games, claimed her second gold in Beijing.

by Global News