THE torch has been lit and the Games are underway in PyeongChang. Freakishly cold temperatures greet the athletes with the weather tipped to break Winter Olympic records.

Aussie flag-bearer and snowboarding gun Scotty James, a medal favourite for Australia, has been pulled up for his comments regarding unfair referees as the 23-year-old chases his maiden Winter Olympic gold.

The first gold medals will be on the table today as the biathlon, short track speed skating and ski jumping events take place.

8.23pm

Super Mario lookalike in curling

An Olympic curler has gone viral after even his US team-mates mocked his resemblance to video game icon Super Mario.

The American squad tweeted a side-by-side shot of the duo after TV viewers and social media users were riveted by moustachioed Matt Hamilton and his red hat.

Competing with his sister Rebecca in the mixed curling event at the Games in PyeongChang was unusual enough.

But also looking like the Nintendo legend was enough to send Twitter users into over-drive.

“My new favourite sport even has Mario,” one joked.

“Just watching the Olympics during my night class and we have Mario on our curling team!!” another added.

— Ian Tuckey, The Sun

6.57pm

First gold medal of the games

The very first gold medal of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics has been awarded on the opening day of competition.

Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla claimed the first gold up for grabs as she dominated the field in the

women’s skiathlon.

After claiming silver in the event during the 2014 Sochi games, Kalla got the better of defending champion, Norway’s Marit Bjorgen who finished second this time around.

Australia’s competitors weren’t able to contend with the lead pack as Barbara Jezersek finished 39th while Jessica Yeaton crossed 50th.

5.12pm

Name catches presenter out

With around 92 nations taking part in the 2018 Winter Olympics and a little over 2900 athletes, learning the proper pronunciation for each and every one is a painstaking task.

Unfortunately when working on live television, trying to pronounce some of the names can catch even seasoned veterans out, as Edwina Bartholomew showed.

Doing a round up of the day’s biggest news stories, Bartholomew tried to share with viewers a story relating to Swiss snowboarder Iouri Podladtchikov.

For those who don’t know, Podladtchikov was the 2014 gold medallist and sadly had to withdraw from the games after a nasty fall during the latest X Games competition.

Bartholomew tried on two occasions to get through his name before throwing in the towel and opting instead for his nickname “iPod”.

The moment was reminiscent of The Simpsons news presenter Kent Brockman.

4.20pm

Course continues to claim athletes

The brutal slopestyle course has proved harder to crack than a playfair cipher for the men’s snowboard athletes.

With wind playing a major factor and blowing into the riders faces as they come over the final three big air jumps, many were caught out and came up short of a clean landing as they hit the knuckle.

None of the crashers may have been harder than that of Swedish snowboarder Mans Hedberg who unfortunately had to be helped from the course by medics before eventually being loaded onto a sled and taken away.

2pm

Tumbles aplenty in slopestyle

While you’re sitting on the beach this Saturday, take a moment to think about these poor guys tumbling through the freezing snow in PyeongCheng. The slopestyle event pits the world’s top snowboarders against each other to impress the judges on a smorgasbord of obstacles and slopes — and it can get ugly sometimes.

1pm

19-year-old makes history

Young American skier Casey Larson became the 100,000th man to compete in an Olympic event on Saturday (AEDT) when he made his debut in the ski jump at PyeongChang.

“It’s pretty cool,” Larson, who qualified 46th, told CBS News. “I can add that to my Olympic checklist. I hope I can get some publicity about it. For my goals here, it is to make my best jump.”

11:36pm

Heartbreak as Aussie cops injury

Aussie skier Brodie Summers looked distraught as he slowly left the athlete area after being seen treated by team doctors.

The 24-year-old World Cup Medallist was doing a warm-up before his event and looked to have damaged his knee.

Injury concerns for Summers0:26

Winter Olympics: Injury concerns for Brodie Summers who has knee pain and a previous ACL injury

  • February 10th 2018
  • 12 hours ago
  • /display/newscorpaustralia.com/Web/NewsNetwork/Sport news and galleries/More Sports/

8:30am

Scotty James “made a goose of himself”

Flag bearer Scotty James is dividing commentators.

Flag bearer Scotty James is dividing commentators.Source:Getty Images

Aussie snowboard ace Scotty James has been scolded for his outburst at judges which saw the 23-year-old claim he was being treated unfairly leading up to the 2018 Winter Olympics.

“I work so hard and some silly people behind the desk dictate some score which is really frustrating for me sometimes,” he said.

Former Aussie aerial skier Jacqui Cooper said he should have been more careful in deciding to slam officials before competing before the world.

“It will either harm him, and he’ll regret the day he ever said anything or it will put the judges on notice that the rest of the world knows there’s some favouritism there,” she said on 3AW’s Drive with Tom Elliott.

“Scotty feels like he’s able to say it. He’s a young guy, I’m hoping he’s not going to have to live and learn through that one.”

Host Elliott said the Aussie medal contender “made a goose of himself” with his comments.

Sunrise star Mark Beretta, on the other hand, said the young gun was “one of the most impressive athlete I have ever met”.

“He very well-known internationally, and not well-known in Australia, which is often the case” Beretta said on Sunrise Saturday morning.

“In the world of snowboard, when he comes up against American Shaun White, is a Titanic struggle. Like too heavy weight boxers — it’s renowned as one of the big showdowns in the world. Scotty James virtually blasted the judges around the world.

“He doesn’t want that (unfairness) at these games, he’s worked at it all his career, he is equal number one in the world — and he wants to be marked fairly and evenly and take reputations away from it.”

8am

The future looks bright

Life after Torah Bright is about to officially begin. Australia’s most successful Winter Olympian — with gold in 2010 and silver in Sochi four years ago — had been hoping for a swan song in South Korea. But with little competition in the years between Sochi and PyeongChang that was always going to be a stretch and her last-ditch bid fell through when she was injured in a final qualifying event.

Bright’s appearance and an unlikely tilt at a third Games medal would have overshadowed what promises to be a superb insight into the future of competitive women’s riding in Australia.

In teenagers Tess Coady and Emily Arthur that future appears to be in good hands.

Coady, 17, is a world junior champion in both slopestyle and big air and at her last senior World Cup event in the latter she picked up her first podium finish. “It was really unexpected but it was a great confidence boost,” Coady said. She starts competition at the Winter Olympics in slopestyle on Sunday. Arthur, 18, is a half-pipe Youth Olympic Games silver medallist. While a podium spot for either would be pushing it at these Games, the pair appear to have what it takes to be future Olympic medallists. “Me and Emily have been travelling together for a while now doing similar comps, living together and both really feed off each other’s energy going into competitions,” said Coady, a Year 12 student at St Michael’s Grammar School in Melbourne.

The youngest member of Australia’s team is also one of the most fearless, soaring and spinning off rails and jumps for the slopestyle and boosting off an almost 50-metre ramp for the new Games event of big air.

Bright was and is more drawn to half-pipe but remains a great influence. “Torah was always someone I looked up to as a kid,” Coady said. “I only really have gotten to become friends with her over the past season or so but she has been paving the way for women’s snowboard in Australia.”

— AAP

7:30am

Smartphone fracas erupts

PyeongChang Olympic organisers said they had apologised to Iran on Friday after a diplomatic furore over its athletes being denied special Samsung phones issued for the Games.

The head of the PyeongChang organising committee, Lee Hee-boom, confirmed he had written to the Iranian team “to apologise for the misunderstanding”.

The problem started on Wednesday, when Games organisers said Iranian and North Korean athletes would be refused the Galaxy Note 8 devices from sponsor Samsung, loaded with essential logistic and competition information.

Although the organisers later backtracked, it sparked anger in Iran, where Samsung has a major commercial presence, and its athletes refused to accept the phones until there was a full apology.

The source of the misunderstanding was not explained.

The committee had initially claimed the phones were denied “because of existing UN sanctions”, even though all UN sanctions on Iran were lifted in 2015 apart from those linked to arms and nuclear technology.

Samsung billboards and flagship stores are seen all over Iran, and the South Korean company has sponsored many large-scale cultural events, including the current exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

Samsung sought to distance itself from the spat, saying in a statement that it was “not responsible for the distribution of the phones” and referring questions to Olympics organisers.

Prior to the apology, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported that Telecoms Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi was looking into the issue, and was considering whether to block imports of Samsung phones.

IRNA reported Thursday that “an informed source” had said Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif would stop using his Samsung mobile if there was no apology.

Although this was not confirmed, the report appeared to trigger a series of “No to Samsung” protests on Twitter.

“If I were a famous person, in response to Samsung’s big insult, I would have thrown my Samsung mobile away on camera, and would have asked other famous people to join me,” wrote one Twitter user.

Others had a more lighthearted response, with one saying he had slammed the door of his Samsung fridge particularly hard after hearing the news.

“The fact that our revolutionary friends haven’t climbed the walls of the South Korean embassy is a big improvement in itself,” joked another Twitter user.