Day 3 of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics

Canada and the ROC faced off in their women's ice hockey match Monday with both teams wearing face masks underneath their helmets.

The masks didn't appear to hinder the performance of the Canadians, however, who won the game 6-1.

The Group A preliminary round fixture got started after an hour's delay, when the players entered the ice wearing masks due to "safety and security concerns," Reuters reported, citing a communique to the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

In the third period, it appeared the ROC team returned to the ice maskless.

It comes after the ROC women's ice hockey team were put into quarantine due to several players contracting Covid-19, the Russian Ice Hockey Federation said in a news release on Wednesday.

The whole team went into quarantine on Jan. 31 due to positive PCR tests among several players. Those players were subsequently isolated from the rest of the ROC contingent.

The ROC ice hockey team was subsequently cleared to play in the Winter Games.

At this year's Beijing Winter Olympics, the face of China's sporting dreams is undeniably American.

Freestyle skier Eileen Gu's rise to the top has been meteoric — and her popularity in China has exploded in the lead-up to the Games. "Snow princess Gu Ailing set to shine at home Olympics," read one headline in state-run media Xinhua, referring to Gu by her Chinese name.

But Gu, 18, has another home: the United States, where she was born to a Chinese mother and American father, and where she discovered her love for the sport. In 2015, just a few months after she reached her first World Cup podium, the San Francisco native announced she was switching to compete for China instead of the US — a controversial decision that thrust her firmly into the spotlight.

Gu has since become a household name in China. Walk down the street and you'll see her face splashed across billboards and magazine covers. Promotional videos ahead of the Olympics show Gu performing tricks midair and running on the Great Wall. She has nearly 2 million followers on the Chinese social media platforms Weibo, as well as multiple Chinese sponsors, brand deals, and documentary teams following her every movement.

But behind her success is the heavy pressure of being both Chinese and American at a time of intense geopolitical tensions; of representing her mother's homeland, a country under fire in the West for alleged human rights abuses; and of trying to be an athlete and nothing more during one of the most controversial Olympics in recent history.

Gu's not the only one walking this tightrope: The Beijing Olympics feature an unprecedented number of foreign-born athletes competing for China, many hailing from North America. Among them, Gu has become a poster child for an ambitious China, eager to show it has the power to attract foreign talent and mold a new type of Chinese athlete on the world stage.

But these athletes — especially those of Chinese descent — face an impossible balancing act as they straddle two countries and navigate the complexities of a dual identity in the public eye.

Read the full story:

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Team USA ski jumpers are enjoying taking part in the Olympic tradition of collecting pins.

Dean Decker says he has collected more than 20 pins so far, including a CNN pin. His favorite is one of the Zhangjiakou Olympic venue — where the Nordic skiing, freestyle and snowboarding events take place.

Kevin Bickner says he likes a tiger pin that was given out by the Beijing organizing committee, while Casey Larson's favorite is one depicting the Great Wall of China.

History of Olympic pins: Collecting pins is a time-honored tradition of the Olympics that stretches back to the first modern Games in Athens in 1896.

Pin fever boomed in the 1980s, with traders flocking to the Lake Placid and Moscow Games and sponsors like Anheuser-Busch and Coca Cola launching official pin trading centers.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 new designs come to market at every Olympics, with special pins added for individual athletes, sponsors and media organizations, among others.

The pins have also become a way for athletes to forge connections with other teams.

After the United States beat China in the curling mixed doubles round-robin on Saturday, Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi gave Vicky Persinger and Christopher Plys pin badges of Bing Dwen Dwen, the Games mascot.

Pins can fetch big money: The rarest pins can fetch tens of thousands of dollars at auction.

The most sought-after designs include pins from canceled Olympic Games and those created for US presidents, for example. Others that appeal to collectors often have memorable back stories, like Coca-Cola's Beijing 2008 pins, made using leftover steel from the construction of the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium.

Ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, a "heritage" range of pins was introduced celebrating the city's 1964 Olympics, including one made of the gemstone agate on sale for nearly $600.

Canada’s Max Parrot, a cancer survivor who was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2018, took home the gold Monday in the men’s snowboard slopestyle event.

Parrot finished with a best score of 90.96.

It was Canada's first gold of Beijing 2022 and came as two Canadians made the podium, with Parrot's compatriot Mark McMorris taking bronze.

Standing between them was 17-year-old Su Yiming, who won silver to claim China's second medal of the Beijing Games and its first ever in Olympic snowboarding.

The teenager had the place rocking as Team China supporters lined up at the base of the slope. Even Games staff were lining up to cheer.

Su has another chance to medal in front of the home fans later today when he competes in snowboard big air.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misspelled the last name of the bronze medal winner. He is Mark McMorris.

Switzerland's Beat Feuz won gold in the men's downhill skiing final Monday, finishing with a time of 1:42:69. 

It's Switzerland's first gold medal of Beijing 2022.

French skier Johan Clarey, 41, took silver, finishing with a time of 1:42:79 to become the oldest medalist ever in the sport of alpine skiing. 

Matthias Mayer of Austria won bronze, finishing with a time of 1:42:85. Mayer previously won gold in the event at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. 

The Beijing Olympic Committee identified 24 new Covid-19 cases among Games-related personnel on Sunday, it said in a statement Monday.

Of the new cases, 11 were found among airport arrivals and 13 from those already in the “closed loop” system, which separates Olympic athletes, stakeholders, and staff from the public.

Twelve of the new cases involved athletes or team officials, five of which were inside the closed loop bubble.

Some 387 Olympics-related personnel and stakeholders have tested positive for Covid-19, with 154 of the cases involving athletes or team officials, since the official closed loop system began on Jan. 23.

A total of 888,979 Covid-19 tests have been conducted inside the bubble since Jan. 23, and 12,697 people have arrived in Beijing for the Games, the statement added.

Speaking to reporters after qualifying for the final of the big air event Monday, China's teen skiing sensation Eileen Gu said "you’re never too young to make change."

Gu finished fifth in qualifying, earning her a spot in Tuesday's finals, after recovering from a fall on the second of her three jumps to deliver a firm landing on her third.

Hailing from San Francisco, Gu relinquished her US citizenship in 2019 so she could represent China at Beijing 2022.

Gu, 18, said she doesn't believe in the concept of "you have to wait until you’re older to make a global impact."

When asked how she feels about her Olympic debut in China — her mother’s home country — Gu turned around and pulled up her race bib to show a golden dragon on the back of her black jacket.

“This is a piece of clothing I designed, with Chinese elements," she said.

Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai has again denied making sexual assault allegations against a retired senior Communist Party leader and revealed that returning to competition is "practically impossible" in an interview Sunday in Beijing with French sports newspaper L’Equipe.  

The interview —only the second she is known to have given to a foreign media outlet —was conducted on the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Olympics, where Peng is attending some of the events. She was accompanied by Wang Kan, the Chinese Olympic Committee chief of staff.

In the nearly hour-long interview, Peng reiterated:

Zhang has not issued any response to the accusation and has remained outside of public view.

Peng appeared to acknowledge the relationship in the interview, saying that “my love life problems, my personal life must not be mingled with sports and politics.”

When asked why she deleted the post on Chinese platform Weibo, she replied: "Because I wanted to."

Peng also told the French outlet, which published the interview in English, that her professional tennis career may be over.

Following the initial allegations, concern grew over her safety and whereabouts, which led the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) to suspend its tournaments in China.

IOC dinner: Peng told L'Equipe she had dinner with IOC President Thomas Bach in Beijing during the Olympics.

"We had dinner together on Saturday and we had a nice discussion and exchange. He asked me whether I am considering competing again, what my projects are, what I'm planning to do," she said. 

Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) figure skater Kamila Valieva became the first woman to land a quad at the Winter Olympics, securing a gold medal for herself and the ROC in the team event.

Valieva, 15, finished first in the women's free skating team event, giving the ROC figure skating team a maximum 10 points.

That meant the ROC had a winning total of 74 points from the combined events, which included pair skating, ice dance, and the men and women's single skate.

It's the ROC’s second gold of Beijing 2022 and its sixth medal overall.

The United States won silver with 65 points and Japan took bronze. 

What is the ROC? It stands for the Russian Olympic Committee, and it's essentially a loophole that allows Russian athletes to compete in the Olympics while their country is banned from the Games because of a doping scandal.

The team still bears the country's colors of white, blue and red, but instead of Russia's flag, the team's flag features its colors in an Olympic flame placed above the five Olympic rings.