Day 5 of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

Wednesday marked the fifth day of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. If you're just reading in now on the action — most of which happened in overnight US hours — here's what you need to know:

⛷ Mikaela Shiffrin slips up ... again

Mikaela Shiffrin's Olympics nightmare continued Wednesday, as the American skiing sensation failed to finish her second straight event in Beijing.

Shifrin "slipped up" during her first run of the women's slalom — an event she took Gold in in 2014 — lasting less than five seconds, and failing to make it past five gates.

The 26-year-old — who was seeking to become the first American skier to capture three medals in a single Games — admitted to feeling "pretty awful" and "pretty low" after coming up empty in her second straight event.

Shiffrin also failed to finish her giant slalom run on Monday, meaning her top two events yielded nothing more than heartbreak.

A two-time Olympic medalist, Shiffrin has a pair of speed races still on her Olympics agenda, the downhill and super-G.

🥇 Olympic veteran brings home first Team USA gold

Sixteen years ago, American Lindsey Jacobellis opted for pizzaz when she needed poise, trying a flashy maneuver despite having a comfortable lead in the women's snowboard cross competition at the 2006 Olympic Games. The choice cost her: she fell and was forced to settle for silver. It was a mistake she wouldn't make again.

On Wednesday, the 36-year-old finally captured the elusive gold medal she's been seeking since her Turin topple, outperforming the field, and earning the US's first gold in Beijing.

⚖️ "Legal consultation" delays team figure skating medal ceremony

Though the figure skating team competition has been over for more than 48 hours, the medals remain on ice. An International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesperson says the medal ceremony is being held up amid “legal consultation” as a result of what's being described as an "emerging issue."

As it stands right now, the ROC (Russian Olympic Committee) captured gold in the event, with the US and Japan earning silver and bronze respectively.

The goal is to get the issue sorted post haste, though the IOC spokesman noted that "legal issues can sometimes drag on."

🏂 Shaun White hunting for one more gold

Shaun White's Olympics victory lap was nearly done before it started. Competing in his fifth and final Games, the three-time Gold Medalist fell during his first men's halfpipe run, putting his Beijing future in doubt. However, the man once dubbed the "Flying Tomato" rallied in his second attempt, turning in an 86.25, good enough to advance him to Thursday's event final.

At 35 years old, White — who has competed in every Winter Olympics since 2006 — is the oldest-ever Olympic male halfpipe rider. He is seeking one final medal to add to a trophy case already bursting at the seams.

👚 Suited ... then booted: Wardrobe malfunction leads to skiing sadness

Two centimeters. That's what separates Olympic glory from a devastating disqualification.

Sara Takanashi's massive 103-meter effort seemed poised to vault Japan into medal contention in the mixed team ski jumping event. However, Takanashi's suit was ruled to be too wide — by two centimeters — around her thighs, thus resulting in a disqualification.

After the ruling, Takanashi posted on Instagram: "I am very sorry that the chance of winning a medal has been taken away from the Japanese team.”

The Japanese competitor was not alone in her disappointment, as teams from Austria, Norway and Germany also suffered disqualifications resulting from suit violations.

🚑 From a hospital bed to the medal stand

A 2016 car accident nearly cost American Colby Stevenson his life. He underwent a pair of major surgeries, suffered fractures to his skull, ribs, jaw, neck and an eye socket, and doctors feared he might not be able to walk out of the hospital. Nonetheless, he was back on skis five months later, and now he's an Olympic medalist.

Stevenson brought home the silver in the men's freeski big air competition on Wednesday, bringing to conclusion a comeback six years in the making.

"I’ve never been in such a grateful state and just so full of love, I guess, for the sport," Stevenson said following his medal-winning performance.

“I think that was the secret in the end for me, just doing it out of love," he added.

As Day 5 of the Winter Olympics wraps up, take a look back at some of the best photos from Wednesday in Beijing.

See more of the best photos from the Games so far.

Weeks-long isolation, repeat stints in quarantine and sub-par meals: these are the conditions that some Olympic athletes snared in Beijing's stringent system for controlling Covid-19 say they are contending with — and some are pushing back.

Finnish ice hockey head coach Jukka Jalonen on Sunday accused China of "not respecting human rights" for keeping his star player Marko Anttila in isolation for more than two weeks, leaving the athlete who tested positive for the virus out of commission into the first weekend of the Beijing Winter Games, which kicked off on Friday.

Jalonen told reporters Sunday that, according to his team doctor, Anttila was no longer infectious after first testing positive 18 days earlier.

Beijing has pushed back on the characterization, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Monday stressing controls put in place by the organizing committee for the Beijing Games were meant "to reduce the risk of infection as much as possible, and ensure the safe and smooth running of the Games as scheduled," while safeguarding the health of all those involved and in the host city.

The hockey star is one of 159 athletes or team officials who have tested positive for Covid-19 in Beijing as of Tuesday morning local time. Overall, some 393 Olympics-related personnel and other stakeholders have received that result, picked up in arrival screenings and daily tests — a key pillar of Beijing's Olympic's bubble.

The bubble completely cordons off the more than 10,000 athletes, media and other participants joining from around the world in a "closed-loop" system, where they live, eat, work and travel between Olympic venues some 111 miles (180 kilometers) apart, all without coming into contact with people or areas in the capital city outside.

The ambitious scheme, run by thousands of Chinese volunteers and staff, is meant to minimize the spread of Covid-19 inside the Games and prevent it from spilling into the Beijing. Its rigorous testing regimes and isolation requirements for positive cases are also meant to ensure that any infections that do enter the bubble are picked up quickly, before they can cause an outbreak and disrupt the Games.

Pulling off the Games without a major outbreak in the midst of a critical phase in the pandemic is also a high-stakes matter for China. The government has touted as a political win its ability to keep Covid-19 largely under control with its 'zero-Covid' strategy throughout much of the pandemic, even as the virus raged overseas.

But for athletes coming from parts of the world that have begun to shift their approaches to "live with the virus" after large portions of their populations received vaccines, the rules can seem jarring.

And for some, the virus and its controls have meant giving up Olympic dreams.

Read the full story here.

Nathan Chen is on course to win his first Olympic gold medal after setting a new short-program world record in the men's figure skating event on Tuesday.

The 22-year-old's near-flawless performance was rewarded by judges with an unprecedented 113.97 points, sending him over five points clear at the top of the rankings with the deciding free skate final to come on Thursday.

Chen's rise to the top had been predicted ... by Chen himself.

At just 10 years old, he said on national TV that he would make the 2018 US Winter Olympic figure skating team. Four years ago in PyeongChang, that became a reality.

Despite the fulfillment of a dream in 2018, an 18-year-old Chen ultimately left South Korea disappointed following a 5th-place finish in the individual event.

But the experience has only served as motivation and he's in the perfect position to secure Olympic glory this week.

The Games also holds an added personal element for the Yale student with both of Chen's parents born in China.

"Obviously, there are always things you can improve on, there are always things you can do a little bit better, but overall, I'm very happy," Chen said ahead of Thursday's finale.

Read more here.

For the Olympics, China built a winter wonderland like it was in the metaverse.

This mountainous area used to be brown and barren. It’s cold enough, but it’s dry like a frozen desert.

More than 100 snow generators and 300 snow-making guns pulled off an impressive feat — even allowing folks to show off their creative side by building snow sculptures.

At the Genting Snow Park, dragons seem to be the most popular. Some have oranges for eyes while others run along stairways leading to offices. Intricate details head-to-toe bring these snow creatures to life.

There’s even a tiger whose whiskers are wooden sticks.

Despite the lack of precipitation so far at these Games, there’s still room to play. TechnoAlpin, the company providing the snow-making systems, told CNN that it began shipping a full arsenal of snow guns, fan-driven snow generators and cooling towers to Beijing in 2018 to start creating the artificial surfaces on which the snow-sport Olympians are competing.

More than the snow, there are thousands — if not tens of thousands — of trees that weren’t here before. In theory, planting pines amid the massive mounds of artificial snow would be the cherry on top of this winter creation. However, some of the trees are oddly placed and hardly doing the trick.

The slopes have received mix reviews.

Two-time snowboard slopestyle gold medalist Jamie Anderson called the course "gnarly," saying, “It’s not quite ideal, but I would say we’re all making the most of it. You definitely don’t want to fall. It feels like bulletproof ice.”

CNN spoke to gold medalists Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand, Australia's Jakara Anthony and Canadian Max Parrot, and they all spoke highly of the surfaces.

Team USA’s Julia Marino said, “The course was perfect.”

Great Britain's cross-country skier James Clugnet told reporters, "The course is super, super slow… It's so cold, and it's a bit like a desert next to the track. So when it's windy, the sand comes into the track. You have to reach a certain speed and then you're all right, but when you're going slowly, it feels like you're standing still."

Two years ago, Maame Biney almost walked away from speed skating but says she’s arrived at her second Olympics stronger than ever.

The US skater said before the Games that “so many things were not going my way” after PyeongChang 2018 – where she made history as the first Black woman to compete for the United States short track speed skating team at an Olympics – and found the sport less enjoyable.  

Arriving in Beijing, Biney’s expectations are to “race and have fun and be happy and be confident” – goals that are no doubt fueled by her positive attitude and infectious smile.

“The world needs more laughter,” she told CNN before the Games.

Biney placed 13th in the 500m short track speed skating event on Monday and won her 1,000m heat on Wednesday to qualify for the quarterfinals on Friday.

Hear more from Biney here.

Six gold medals were at stake on the fifth day of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Here's a list of who won and how the competition is shaking out so far:

Here is the official Olympic medal count so far.

Germany's Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt made history on Wednesday by becoming the first luge doubles team to win three consecutive Winter Olympic gold medals.

The pair edged out compatriots Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken by just 0.099 seconds to claim the historic gold with Thomas Steu and Lorenz Koller picking up bronze for Austria.

It is the fifth Olympic gold medal for Wendl and Arlt after they were also victorious in the team relay event in Sochi 2014 and four years ago in Pyeongchang.

And the German duo could add yet another gold medal to their haul when they compete in the team relay event at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre on Thursday.

The pair have competed together since they were 13 and are powerhouses in the sport having won countless World and European Championships.

Beijing 2022 has been particularly difficult for Mikaela Shiffrin.

The US ski star has crashed out of two events in the first Olympics since her father, Jeff, died suddenly from an accident in February 2020.

After her second DNF on Wednesday, Shiffrin's thoughts immediately turned to her dad.

It is a given in the skiing world that few families are as tight as the Shiffrins.

During the season, her mother is frequently seen alongside Shiffrin on the race hill and her father is rarely far from her mind.

Read more about Shiffrin at Beijing 2022 below:

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Mikaela Shiffrin aims to bounce back from crash and make Winter Olympics history at Beijing 2022