Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018: Previewing What to Watch for on Day 9

The middle Sunday in South Korea is oddly subdued, particularly from a U.S. perspective.

The daily program has only six medal events. Two are in freestyle skiing, and those might be the best shots for the USA to snag a medal. No U.S. men qualified for the biathlon mass start, and the U.S. men won't be a factor in the cross-country relay, though each of those is a fun event to watch. 

We'll also see if Ted Ligety, fresh off a decent performance in the combined, can turn back time in the giant slalom. And maybe Heather Bergsma can shake off her puzzling performances so far in the Games—or will it be Brittany Bowe who ends the U.S. speedskating drought? 

The U.S. hockey teams are idle, as is the U.S. women's curling team. But we will see the men's curling team and the U.S. bobsledders, competing nine months after the unexpected death of longtime leader and multiple Olympic medalist Steven Holcomb.

To watch live Olympics coverage in real time, including the highlighted events detailed below, you can visit NBC's Olympics site. Reminder: South Korea is 14 hours ahead of Eastern time, so an event that takes place Sunday morning in Pyeongchang will be on Saturday night in the U.S.

In 2014, slopestyle skiing debuted as a new Olympic event. As with a lot of events that wandered into the Olympics from the world of extreme sports, Americans dominated. The medalists for the men's events were Joss Christensen, Gus Kenworthy and Nick Goepper. 

What has changed since then? Christensen had some knee issues and didn't make the team this time around. Kenworthy has attracted a considerable amount of attention as one of two openly gay athletes on the U.S. team, along with figure skater Adam Rippon. (When he competed in 2014, Kenworthy had not yet told his family, much less the public.)

Aside from that, it's another year and another loaded U.S. roster. Kenworthy placed third in the 2017 World Cup and earned a silver medal in the 2017 World Championships. Goepper won the X Games in 2015 and took silver in 2017. Alex Hall is only 19 but has a silver from the 2016 Youth Olympic Games. And McRae Williams is merely the reigning world champion.

Not that it'll be easy. The first five in this year's X Games were Henrik Harlaut (Sweden), Oystein Braaten (Norway), Andri Ragettli (Switzerland), James Woods (Britain) and Alex Beaulieu-Marchand (Canada). Then Kenworthy, who had a solid 90-point run, followed by Goepper.

Just getting through qualifying, which begins at 8 p.m. ET, will be difficult. The final, scheduled for 11:15 p.m. ET, should be epic.

For years, Ted Ligety was the king of the giant slalom. He was the World Cup champion in the discipline five times and the back-to-back-to-back world champion from 2011 to 2015. 

He also won the gold medal in 2014, adding to the gold he won in the combined in 2006.

Ligety has had the usual wear and tear of an Alpine skier in his 30s, particularly in the last couple of seasons. But he has been working his way into form for another medal run. He was third in his last World Cup giant slalom before the Games, and he was fifth in the combined in South Korea. 

He'll have to beat the usual favorites like Marcel Hirscher and Alexis Pinturault over the two-run competition, scheduled for 8:15 p.m. ET and 11:45 p.m. ET.

The USA doesn't dominate all the flipping, twisting extreme sports. In men's aerials skiing, introduced to the Olympics in 1994, the leading country in the medal count is Belarus. China is also a perennial power, especially in recent years.

But U.S. men have had some success, with Eric Bergoust's 1998 gold followed by silvers for Joe Pack and the late Jeret "Speedy" Peterson.

And they have hope this year. Jonathon Lillis is the reigning world champion, and he led the way in qualifying for the final, which will take place 6 a.m. ET on Sunday.

Steven Holcomb had three Olympic medals and a lot of hardware from World Championship and World Cup competition. He was the heart and soul of the U.S. bobsled program for nearly two decades, and he wrote a book—But Now I See: My Journey from Blindness to Olympic Gold—about overcoming an eye condition that left him nearly blind and battling depression.

Holcomb died May 6 in Lake Placid. 

So the bobsled team went through the World Cup season with a heavy heart. Then Justin Olsen was rushed into surgery for appendicitis earlier this month, but he has completed training runs and plans to compete.

The favorites are mostly German, though Canada has had some success in the two-man, which starts with its first two runs Sunday at 6:05 a.m. ET.

Typically in Olympic biathlon, someone gets on a roll and wins multiple medals. In most years, that's Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, but the 44-year-old with 13 Olympic medals failed to make the Norwegian team this time. France's Martin Fourcade also proved he can rack up a bunch of medals in one trip to the Games, taking two gold and one silver in Sochi.

The women's events have seen a few repeat medalists. Germany's Laura Dahlmeier won the sprint and the pursuit, then took bronze in the individual. Slovakia's Anastasiya Kuzmina also has three medals.

The men? The sprint medalists were Arnd Peiffer (Germany), Michal Krcmar (Czech Republic) and Dominik Windisch (Italy). Despite their head start in the pursuit, three different medalists emerged: Fourcade, Sebastian Samuelsson (Sweden) and Benedikt Doll (Germany). Then three more in the individual: Johannes Thingnes Boe (Norway), Jakov Fak (Slovenia) and Dominik Landertinger (Austria). 

Those nine biathletes will start in the front rows of the 30-person mass start at 6:15 a.m. ET on Sunday. Can anyone win a second medal here?

No Americans qualified for the race. But it's one of the most exciting events on the Olympic program, usually coming down to a head-to-head test of nerves on the last shooting stage.

The good news for U.S. speedskating: John-Henry Krueger took a solid silver medal in the 1,000 meters.

The bad news: The puzzling struggles on the traditional long track continue. The events that produced a long list of stars, from Shani Davis and Jennifer Rodriguez back to Bonnie Blair and Eric Heiden, yielded no U.S. medals in Sochi despite the presence of Davis and two women who had torn up World Cup and World Championships competition, Heather Bergsma and Brittany Bowe.

This year, Bergsma in particular seemed poised to end the drought. She's the world champion at 1,000 meters and 1,500 meters. But she placed eighth in each event. 

She'll have a chance in the 500 meters, which begin at 6:56 a.m. ET on Sunday. But the better American hope may be Bowe, who has dealt with concussion issues and hasn't been in top form recently. She placed fourth in the 1,000 meters and fifth in the 1,500 meters, and she has a good record in this shorter distance. 

Also watch Erin Jackson, the first African-American woman to compete as a long-track speedskater for the U.S. in the Olympics. She made the team after only four months after switching from inline skating to the ice.