Winter Olympics 2022 day five: Shiffrin out of slalom; snowboard cross final –

At this hour …

It’s just a slow day for some reason. The only action right now is in snowboardcross, where half the field is going down the course to see how bad their seeds will be for the knockout rounds.

But we have men’s halfpipe qualification coming up in 10 minutes. That’ll have the stage to itself for 1 1/4 hours until the women’s slalom has its second run with its two stars either out (Shiffrin) or far back (Vlhova).

Over to snowboardcross now, where Team GB’s Charlotte Bankes has set the second-fastest time in qualifying. All four Americans — Stacy Gaskill (fourth), Lindsey Jacobellis (fifth), Faye Gulini (seventh) and Meghan Tierney (16th) — broke into the top 16 and can sit out the second run.

And silver to the USA’s Colby Stevenson.

The ebullient veteran Henrik Harlaut of Sweden nearly bumped ahead of Stevenson. But he seems quite content to share the podium, exulting after seeing his score of 91.00 posted.

Ruud is taking his final run with a Norwegian flag in his hand. And he still lands it. Legend.

And no! Donaggio can’t stick the landing, and Colby Stevenson will finish no worse than third. It’ll get scant attention compared with Shiffrin’s disaster and may even be overshadowed by the “US snowboarders other than Chloe Kim can’t qualify” story, but it’s something for US fans to celebrate in a week that hasn’t been what they’ve hoped.

Can Colby Stevenson get a medal? It’s looking more likely. Sweden’s Oliwer Magnusson has a nice-looking tail grab and gets a 90.75, good but not enough to pass the American.

Norway’s Birk Ruud has clinched a medal and will almost certainly take gold. The next two to go, Italy’s Leonardo Donaggio and Sweden’s Henrik Harlaut, will need to go well over 90 to beat Stevenson …

Alex Hall is up, up, away … and he just never looked like he was in control. He went off-axis and never returned to on-axis. We’re told it was an attempt at a 2160, which is six full rotations.

Four to go.

The last run of the big air competition goes in reverse order of the current standings.

The third man to go, Spain’s Javier Lliso, won’t medal, but he has a happy moment with friends and family back home via the screen setup at the finish.

Next up: the USA’s Colby Stevenson. That looked impressive. Might that get him in…