KSL at the Games: Park City luger Farquharson stuns with bronze

AT THE GAMES — Silver isn't usually better than gold, but for U.S. Olympic freestyle skier Alex Hall, it might have been on the slopes of Livigno, Italy.

More Utahns added to the United States' Olympic story Tuesday, and we'll highlight a few of them on today's KSL at the Games. But first, let's start at the Cortina Sliding Centre, where a Park City High School alum slid into American luge history.

Utahns at the Games

Here are the 83 athletes with ties to Utah at the 2026 Winter Olympics

Here's the complete list of athletes with Utah ties, courtesy of the Utah Sports Commission.

Farquharson stuns with historic luge medal

Ashley Farquharson was overcome with emotion after sliding into her final run of 52.877 seconds in the women's luge finale Tuesday.

The 26-year-old American luger who grew up in Park City and competes with the Wasatch Luge Club earned a shocking bronze medal for the United States in women's singles luge competition in Cortina. Germany's Julia Taubitz won gold, and Latvia's Elina Bota silver.

Farquharson's bronze is the United States' first since Erin Hamlin finished third in Sochi in 2014 — the country's first-ever medal in the event. The Park City resident is just the third American to medal in singles luge overall, adding to Chris Mazdzer's silver in PyeongChang in 2018.

Want another connection? Hamlin, the former four-time Olympian whose medal was called "perhaps the greatest moment in USA Luge history" by the Associated Press, was on the call broadcasting the event for NBC.

"It feels incredible," Farquharson said after the win, per nbcolympics.com. "I remember watching (Hamlin) win that race in my eighth-grade math class."

Alex Hall claims silver in men's slopestyle

The Alaska-born, Park City-raised U.S. freestyle skier won his second Olympic medal after claiming slopestyle gold in Beijing 2022. But for the 27-year-old Hall, coming in second behind Norway's Birk Ruud (who edged out Hall by 0.53 points with a top score of 85.75) was as much of a cause for celebration.

"It feels like I worked harder for this one in a way," Hall said, per Olympics.com, "although it's not a gold."

Hall's silver medal maintains the United States' slopestyle medal streak that dates back to the sport's debut at Sochi 2014, when Joss Christensen, Gus Kenworthy and Nick Goepper capped a historic sweep of the podium by the Americans.

New Zealand's Luca Harrington finishing with the bronze, bouncing back from a crash on his second run to score 85.15.

But Hall, who had to wait for six skiers and an eventual celebration run of Ruud in the final round, was as nervous as could be for the normally laid-back skier who was born in Alaska, raised in Switzerland, and moved to Park City as a teenager to attend the Winter Sports School.

Pair of Utah skiers qualify for women's moguls finals

Perhaps it's only fitting that a U.S. skier whose surname is a homophone for "ice" in Italian found herself near the top of the leaderboard after Tuesday's women's mogul qualifying round.

Olivia Giaccio was third in the first qualifying round with a score of 80.74, one of three Americans to place in the top 10. The 25-year-old freestyle skier grew up in New York, went to college at Columbia University, and currently lives and works in Salt Lake City at the HEART Lab at the University of Utah.

But on Tuesday, Giaccio was cold as "ghiaccio" as she finished behind only reigning Olympic champion Jakara Anthony of Australia and fellow American Liz Lemley.

U.S. skier Tess Johnson, who finished 12th in PyeongChang at her first Olympic Games in 2018 (at 14 years old), also advanced to the finals with a 73.79 for ninth place. Johnson grew up in Vail, Colorado, but recently relocated to Salt Lake City for 10-plus months out of the year after winning a World Championship in Utah in 2019.

The second round of qualifying starts Wednesday at 3 a.m. MST, with the top-10 finishers advancing to Wednesday's final.

Utah's 'KSG' advances to 500m short track quarterfinals

Kristen Santos-Griswold will represent Team USA and her new home state of Utah in Thursday's 500-meter short track quarterfinals after advancing on Day 4 of the Winter Games.

The first American woman to win a 500-meter short track World Cup title back in 2023, Santos-Griswold — who lives and trains in Salt Lake City with her husband Travis and their dogs Koda and Bear — overtook China's Chutong Zhang with two laps to go to finish first in her heat in 42.767 seconds and keep alive a redemption tour four years in the making.

Santos-Griswold was in bronze-medal position in the 1,000-meter race in Beijing in 2022, but a crash caused by an opponent's fault on the final lap cost her a spot on the podium.

The United States hasn't reached the podium in women's short track since 2010.

Wednesday's medal events

• Alpine Skiing — Men's Super-G (3:30 a.m. MST)
• Nordic Combined — Ind. Gund. NH / 10 km, Cross-Country (5:45 a.m. MST)
• Biathlon — Women's 15km Individual (6:15 a.m. MST)
• Freestyle Skiing — Women's Moguls Final (6:15 a.m. MST)
• Speed Skating — Men's 1000m (10:30 a.m. MST)
• Luge — Women's Doubles Run 2 (10:53 a.m. MST)
• Figure Skating — Ice Dance - Free Dance (11:30 a.m. MST)
• Luge — Men's Double Run 2 (11:44 a.m. MST)

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