Winter Olympics: Mikaela Shiffrin returns for super-G as Lara Gut-Behrami wins gold

Mikaela Shiffrin's smile at the finish was as big as if she had won the race.

The American, who skied out of her past two races and at one point cast doubt on whether she would compete any more at Beijing 2022, had made it to the bottom of the women's super-G.

It did not matter that she finished ninth, this was about much more than that for the pre-Games favourite.

Switzerland's Lara Gut-Behrami won the race, becoming the first super-G world champion to also win the Olympic title.

Austrian Mirjam Puchner took silver and Swiss Michelle Gisin got the bronze.

Czech defending champion Ester Ledecka, who was going for a historic multi-sport double-double after retaining her snowboard parallel giant slalom title, finished fifth.

Shiffrin was racing to have 'fun'

When double Olympic champion Shiffrin sat on the side of the course for a long time after her early slalom exit two days ago and then asked "what's the point" in racing again if she would crash out at the fifth gate, it had looked like her Games might be over.

But she re-set, issuing a social media post thanking people for their support and saying she was grateful for the opportunity to focus on another race, describing super-G as "fun".

And she attacked the Yanqing course from the start, looking confident throughout as she crossed the line 0.79 seconds behind champion Gut-Behrami.

The American has said she will not be speaking to media "for the foreseeable future", having spent a long time answering questions following the slalom and having fought back tears in some of her television interviews.

She arrived in Beijing aiming to compete in all five individual events, with the downhill and alpine combined still to come.

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Van der Poel's double gold delight

After setting a new Olympic record on the way to the men's 5,000m speed skating gold on Sunday, Nils van der Poel went one better in the 10,000m.

The Swede lived up to his tag as pre-race favourite by shattering his own world record by more than 2.2 seconds to claim his second gold of the Games.

His finishing time was almost 14 seconds ahead of the Netherlands' Patrick Roest, who also won silver over the shorter distance.

Italy's Davide Ghiotto won the bronze and Canada's defending champion Ted-Jan Bloemen finished in eighth.

Suzanne Schulting retained her Olympic 1,000m short track speed skating title as she held off South Korea's Choi Min-jeong and Belgium's Hanne Desmet, who claimed the silver and bronze.

The Dutch skater, who won silver in the 500m, has now won four Olympics medals in total, while Desmet's bronze represented Belgium's first ever short track Olympic medal and first at the Beijing Games.

Italy's 500m champion Arianna Fontana was penalised for a crash with American Kristen Santos that took both athletes out of the race.

Norway's Marte Olsbu Roeiseland also picked up her second gold of the Games as she added the 7.5km sprint biathlon title to her success in the mixed relay.

The 31-year-old, who won silver in the event at Pyeongchang 2018, was followed home by Sweden's Elvira Oeberg and Italy's Dorothea Wierer.

Finland's Iivo Niskanen took gold in the 15km classic cross-country skiing, finishing more than 23 seconds clear of highly fancied Russian Alexander Bolshunov. Norway's Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, who won gold in the sprint free on Tuesday, took bronze.

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