Friday at the Olympic Winter Games in China started without any German medals, but with decent placings and good prospects for more medals.
In the skeleton, the German starters are promising in the race.
In the coming days in Beijing, the sports judges will also be required to deal with an explosive case.
Case for the sports court:
In the doping whirlwind surrounding the Russian figure skater Kamila Valiyeva, the International Olympic Committee is pushing for a quick decision from the sports judges.
"We want to speed this up as much as possible," said IOC spokesman Mark Adams on Friday at the Winter Games in Beijing.
Valiyeva, 15, tested positive for a banned substance at the end of December, but the Russian Anti-Doping Agency had lifted her temporary ban.
At the Olympics in China, Valiyeva won gold with the Russian team in the team competition ahead of the USA and Japan.
On behalf of the IOC, the international test agency Ita is taking action against the lifting of the suspension.
The IOC is hoping for a decision from the International Court of Arbitration for Sports before the start of the women's individual competition on February 15, in which European champion Valiyeva is the top favourite.
German medal chance:
The German female skeleton pilots made a promising start in the fight for medals.
Olympic debutant Hannah Neise from Winterberg is second after two of four runs, 0.21 seconds behind the leading Australian Jaclyn Narracott.
World champion Tina Hermann from WSV Königssee finished third on Friday and is only two hundredths of a second behind Neise.
The Olympic silver medalist from Pyeongchang, Jacqueline Lölling from RSG Hochsauerland, finished fifth before the two decisive races on Saturday and is 0.38 seconds behind Narracott.
Swiss gold:
The Swiss ski racer Lara Gut-Behrami is Olympic champion for the first time.
The world champion and 34-time World Cup winner won the Super-G at the Winter Games in China on Friday.
On Monday, the 30-year-old had already won bronze in the giant slalom.
Second behind Gut-Behrami was the Austrian Mirjam Puchner, third was the Swiss Michelle Gisin.
The only German starter, Kira Weidle, was 15th. In the downhill next Tuesday, however, the Starnberg woman is to be assessed as much better.
After her early exit in giant slalom and slalom, US star Mikaela Shiffrin reached the finish line this time and took ninth place.
Nightmare:
Even in his sleep, ski superstar Mikaela Shiffrin catches up with the disappointments of the first days of the Olympics.
"I had a dream last night," the 26-year-old began her story on Friday.
"The dream kept repeating itself.
I woke up, fell asleep and dreamed the same thing again," reported the American, who had previously retired from the slalom and giant slalom in China after a driving error.
"I dreamed that I would miss the fifth goal - surprise," Shiffrin said self-deprecatingly and spoke of a "terrible" feeling.
In the end, things didn't go so badly in Super-G on Friday and she finished ninth.
Farewell without a medal:
Snowboard star Shaun White just missed out on a medal at the Beijing Winter Olympics in the last competition of his glorious career.
The 35-year-old American came fourth in the halfpipe final on Friday with 85.00 points and, after a total of three Olympic gold medals, remained without any further precious metal.
White fell in the third and final heat, 2.25 points short of Swiss Jan Scherrer in bronze.
Japan's Ayumu Hirano followed White as Olympic champion with 96.00 points thanks to an outstanding performance with the highest difficulty in the last heat.
Australia's Scotty James won silver.
André Höflich from SC Kempten finished eighth with 76.00 points.
A little more corona cases:
The number of corona cases at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing has increased slightly for the second day in a row.
After a low on Tuesday with five cases, eleven infections were found on Thursday, the organizers announced in Beijing on Friday.
It was nine on Wednesday.
Two of the newly infected were identified at the airport on arrival, while daily testing of all participants in the enclosed Olympic bubble uncovered nine cases.
A total of 418 infections have been detected since travel to the Winter Games began on January 23.
A total of almost 1.2 million PCR tests were taken during this period.
Ice sprinter arrived:
After surviving a corona infection, Joel Dufter was the last German speed skater to travel to the Winter Olympics in Beijing.
As the German speed skating and short track community announced on Friday night, the Inzeller has moved into the Olympic village.
The 26-year-old sprinter is scheduled to start over 500 meters this Saturday and over 1000 meters on February 18.
Dufter, who had improved the German record over the 500 meters to 34.32 seconds this season, was infected with the corona virus at the end of January and then went into quarantine.