Winter Olympics schedule: Day-by-day guide to key events and British medal hopes

The Winter Olympics is under way and here's your day-by-day guide to all the action in Beijing.

Team GB, consisting of 50 athletes, are participating in 11 of the disciplines.

All times are GMT and events are subject to change.

• Who are Team GB's medal hopes?
• BBC Sport's coverage details: times and platforms
• Quiz: How well do you know the Winter Olympics?
• Who is representing Great Britain?

Thursday, 17 February - day 13

Medal events: 6

Alpine skiing (women's combined), freestyle skiing (women's ski cross), figure skating (women's), ice hockey (women's), Nordic combined (team), speed skating (women's 1,000m)

Highlights

The Olympic women's figure skating is one of the most viewed moments of any Games. Whose career-defining moments will come on Thursday? All eyes are on 15-year-old Kamila Valieva after her failed drugs test and though she's the favourite, after being cleared to compete, she isn't even the only Russian with an opportunity to win. Alexandra Trusova, 17, could pounce if Valieva slips up, as could Anna Shcherbakova - the reigning world champion. The women's free skate starts at 10:00 with Valieva expected after 13:45. You will be able to watch this live on the BBC iPlayer and red button.

Snowboard cross has been and gone by this point in the Games. Step forward ski cross, which is every bit as exciting, just with added limb-flail. Thursday is women's ski cross day with head-to-head racing from 06:00, culminating just after 07:10. Canada recorded a one-two in Pyeongchang and while Olympic champion Kelsey Serwa has retired, Canada easily has the talent to record the same result again. Sweden's Sandra Naeslund is a leading contender too, as is Switzerland's Fanny Smith.

Brit watch

The GB men's curling team could guarantee the first British medal of the Games in their semi-final match against the USA at 12:05 which will be live on BBC One, before switching to BBC Two at 13:00.

World watch

OK, so we've established that the women's hockey gold-medal game ordinarily involves the same two teams - Canada and the US. That doesn't stop the final being an exciting watch. Whenever these two have met in an Olympic final, the winning margin has always been two goals or fewer. In the past two Games, we needed overtime (and, in 2018, a shootout) to separate them. So strap yourself in at 04:10 for another great match-up between the North American rivals.

Speed skating's women's 1000m (08:30) will mark one more opportunity for the Netherlands' Ireen Wust to add to a tally that stood at five gold medals at the start of Beijing 2022. The 35-year-old, a champion at every Winter Olympics since 2006, has never won the 1000m event at the Games. The closest she came was silver at Sochi 2014.

Expert knowledge

Qualification begins in the freeski halfpipe (from 01:30 for the women and 04:30 for the men). GB are represented by Zoe Atkin and Gus Kenworthy. Kenworthy's CV is, to put it mildly, varied. He won slopestyle silver as a US athlete in 2014, staying behind to help adopt stray puppies after the Sochi Games. He came out in 2015, becoming one of winter sport's most prominent openly gay athletes. In 2019, he switched his competitive allegiance to Britain. He has also appeared as a guest judge on RuPaul's Drag Race and starred as Chet Clancy in TV show American Horror Story: 1984. Asked about his decision to compete for GB instead of the US, he said: "I guess I've always looked good in red, white and blue."

How to watch

Full details here.

BBC live TV coverage

All times listed are GMT (Beijing is eight hours ahead). Event start times are subject to change and the BBC is not responsible for any that may be made. Also, coverage can be subject to late schedule changes, so details may differ from this page.

00:00-06:00 - BBC One

06:00-09:15 - BBC Two

09:15-13:00 - BBC One

13:00-18:00 - BBC Two

Plus additional stream of live action here:

01:00-16:00 - BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button, BBC Sport website and mobile app

BBC highlights

15:00-01:00 - BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button, BBC Sport website and mobile app

19:00-20:00 - Today at the Games - BBC Two

20:00-20:55 - Winter Olympics Extra - BBC Three

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Radio 5 Live will be on hand to bring you all the key moments, stories and reaction through the Breakfast, Nicky Campbell and Adrian Chiles shows.

Other TV coverage:

Discovery is also a rights holder for Beijing 2022 in the UK. You need a subscription to watch, and have a choice of live action on TV channels including Eurosport 1 or Eurosport 2, or in-depth live coverage by event on streaming service Discovery+. Live coverage starts at 01:00 GMT each day until around 16:00, followed by highlights of the action. For the full schedule visit the Discovery+ website.

Friday, 18 February - day 14

Medal events: 4

Biathlon (men's mass start), freestyle skiing (women's halfpipe, men's ski cross), speed skating (men's 1,000m)

Highlights

Zoe Atkin, younger sister of Izzy, is Britain's hope in women's ski halfpipe (01:30-02:49). The 19-year-old has two World Cup podium finishes to her name, including a gold medal when she was just 16. She took bronze in last year's World Championship too. US freeskier Eileen Gu, Estonia's Kelly Sildaru and Russian Valeriya Demidova are among the other contenders.

Curling medals start to be handed out, beginning with the men's bronze-medal play-off at 06:05. At Pyeongchang 2018, Britain's men lost a tie-breaker that would otherwise have seen them advance to the bronze play-off, and eventually finished fifth.

Brit watch

Ollie Davies became the first Briton to reach the ski cross big final at a World Championship last year, finishing fourth. Friday marks his Olympic debut with the knockout runs beginning at 06:45 and the finals starting just before 08:00.

Cornelius Kersten returns in speed skating's 1000m event. He's ranked 11th in the world over this distance in the 2021-22 season. The field includes Dutch skaters like Thomas Krol and Kjeld Nuis against Norway's Havard Holmefjord Lorentzen and Canada's Laurent Dubreuil.

Mica McNeill and Montell Douglas go in the first two runs of the two-woman bobsleigh (12:00 and 13:30).

World watch

Biathlon's mass start does what it says on the tin: everyone starts at the same time. At Pyeongchang 2018 the top two biathletes even managed to finish at the same time: Martin Fourcade and Simon Schempp each crossed the line in a time of 35 minutes 47.3 seconds, requiring close scrutiny of the finish camera before Fourcade was handed the gold medal.

The men's ice hockey semi-finals take place at 04:10 and 13:10.

Expert knowledge

Figure skating has two Olympic events that feature a man and a woman competing together: ice dance and pairs. To understand the difference, watch the pairs event's opening day (10:38-13:43). Pairs involves more acrobatic moves like jumps and overhead lifts, while ice dance places more emphasis on choreographic elements like twizzles and step sequences. Pairs is also easily recognisable for elements like throw jumps - jumps where the man throws the woman into the air and she must then land without assistance - and death spirals, where the woman spins around the man while virtually parallel with the ice.

Saturday, 19 February - day 15

Medal events: 9

Alpine skiing (mixed team parallel), bobsleigh (two-woman), biathlon (women's mass start), cross-country skiing (men's mass start), curling (men's), freestyle skiing (men's halfpipe), figure skating (pairs), speed skating (women's and men's mass start)

Highlights

The men's halfpipe (01:30-02:49) will be the last event of Gus Kenworthy's career, he says. The Sochi 2014 silver medallist, then representing the US but now competing for GB, has reached Beijing 2022 despite having barely competed for the past year following a range of setbacks like head injuries and Covid-19. Even so, when he competes, he's invariably a medal contender. New Zealand's Nico Porteous, Canada's Brendan Mackay and American Alex Ferreira are the form athletes heading into this event.

The last time Britain won a men's curling gold medal was in 1924. By now we'll know if there's a chance of a repeat performance almost a century later. The battle for men's curling gold begins at 06:05 and while Canada and Sweden are the most likely contenders on paper at the Games' outset, Bruce Mouat led Scotland to last year's world final so has demonstrated he can reach this stage. The women's bronze-medal play-off follows at 12:05.

Brit watch

Two-woman bobsleigh concludes with run three (12:00) and run four (13:30). The selection of Montell Douglas, competing for GB alongside Mica McNeill, makes her the first British woman to compete at both a summer and winter Games - she ran in the 100m at Beijing 2008, meaning both of her Olympic appearances will have come in the same city. McNeill is looking to improve on eighth at Pyeongchang 2018, which was the best performance by a British women's bobsleigh team at an Olympics.

Four-man bobsleigh also begins on Saturday. Brad Hall's team will be in action from 01:30 (run one) and 03:05 (run two).

World watch

Figure skating's pairs event concludes from 11:05. Russian athletes could dominate, with two duos - Anastasia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov, and Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov - equally capable of winning gold. The Chinese team of Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, world and Olympic silver medallists, will try to go one better on home ice.

Ice hockey's men's bronze-medal play-off takes place at 13:10.

Cross-country skiing's longest slog - a 50-kilometre race expected to take two hours or more - begins at 06:00. Finland's Iivo Niskanen and Russian Alexander Bolshunov, the top two in 2018, remain two of the biggest medal threats. Of the British contingent, Andrew Musgrave is most likely to have a shot over this distance.

Speed skating's mass start, described as 'Nascar on ice' after its introduction at the Pyeongchang Olympics, begins at 07:00. Up to 24 skaters line up at the start, then it's a mad dash - or as much of a dash as skating more than six kilometres can be - to finish the 16 laps first.

Expert knowledge

Alpine skiing wraps up with the mixed team parallel event from 03:00 (final 04:46). In each round, nations select two men and two women. In four races, athletes from two teams ski head-to-head down identical courses at the same time. Whoever wins each race scores a point. At the end, whichever nation has the most points advances to the next round. If it's a 2-2 tie, the team with the aggregate fastest time goes through.

Sunday, 20 February - day 16

Medal events: 4

Bobsleigh (four-man), cross-country skiing (women's mass start), curling (women's), ice hockey (men's)

Highlights

On the Olympics' final day, the two team events that have been the backbone of the schedule finally conclude.

Curling's women's gold-medal game takes place early in the day at 01:05. Unlike the men, who can't buy an Olympic gold, Sweden's women have won three of the past four Olympic titles. Britain's women haven't reached the final since 2002, when Rhona Martin's team won gold.

Ice hockey's finale, the men's gold-medal game, begins at 04:10. The absence of NHL players makes this the second successive wide-open Olympics, although the strength of Russia's KHL means the ROC are hotly tipped to successfully defend their gold from 2018.

Brit watch

Brad Hall's British four-man bobsleigh team competes in runs three (01:30) and four (03:20) to round off the event. Hall, Greg Cackett, Nick Gleeson and Taylor Lawrence have been racking up World Cup podium finishes this season so there's hope for a significant improvement on Hall's 17th-place finish at Pyeongchang 2018.

World watch

Cross-country skiing concludes with the women's 30km mass start. This was the scene of Norwegian Marit Bjorgen's stunning swansong at Pyeongchang 2018, when she won gold and her record 15th medal at a Winter Olympics. Bjorgen's retirement means Norway will look to Therese Johaug but Sweden's Frida Karlsson may see an opening.

Expert knowledge

Beijing 2022's closing ceremony (12:00-14:10) will see organisers formally hand the torch to Milan-Cortina 2026. The Italian city of Milan and Alpine community of Cortina d'Ampezzo will be the next hosts of the Winter Olympics, the fourth time Italy has staged the Olympic Games and the second to visit Cortina d'Ampezzo, which also hosted in 1956. There are shades of London 2012's logo in the stylised 26 that represents the next Winter Games.