Logan Gray
BBC Sport commentator and former elite curler

Emma Bowman, in Cheltenham, is wondering how do you get / keep the hammer in curling?

Well, Emma, in the round-robin stages, you get the hammer by winning the Last Stone draw (as we explained here). And you keep it by not scoring in an end. That's why teams sometimes choose to 'blank' an end.

In the semis and final, the team that finished highest in the round-robin standings starts with the hammer.

Steve Cram
Curling commentator on BBC Two

Image source, Getty Images

GB's Grant Hardie's had a perfect match so far this morning, and it continues.

Image source, Getty Images

A bit of a shock in the first heat of the last 16 as Canada's Julien Viel goes down midway through his run!

Viel was among the favourites for a medal but those hopes are over and Japan's Takuya Shimakawa going through.

Sweden's Walter Wallberg and South Korea's Daeyoon Jung are also into the quarters. Now it's time for Canadian legend Mikael Kingsbury...

Katie Falkingham
BBC Sport in Livigno

Tzema Mazet-Brown’s opening run doesn’t go to plan, with a fall on the penultimate jump. He’s shaking his head at that one.

The GB rider scores 22.26 and he’s got his work cut out on his second run if he’s to make his first Olympic final.

Italy’s Federica Brignone is still out in front in the women's giant slalom.

Will the 35-year-old keep herself in front to clam a second gold medal of the Games after her Super-G victory a couple of days ago?

It would be a remarkable achievement given she multiple leg fractures and a torn anterior cruciate ligament last April - just getting back to competing is pretty remarkable.

Brignone leads by 0.34 seconds from Germany's Lena Duerr with another Italian, Sofia Goggia, in third.

The biathlon isn't always the easiest sport to understand, with staggered starts meaning it's difficult to know who is winning during the race.

But in the pursuit it's simple. The first athlete across the finish line wins the gold medal.

There is a staggered start, with the sprint champion - in this case, Quentin Fillon Maillet of France - going out first. He finished 14 seconds clear to win sprint gold earlier, so he'll have a 14 second handicap over second-placed Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen, and so on.

Five laps, four visits to the shooting range with five targets to hit on each visit. For every missed target, biathletes must ski a 150m penalty loop which usually takes between 20 and 30 seconds.

It's about to get going...

Image source, Getty Images

Steve Cram
Curling commentator on BBC iPlayer

This German team are so talented but since the half-way point, they've just been missing too many of their shots.

The 1/16 heats are done and we'll soon be on to the 1/8s where Canada's Julien Viel, Japan's Ikuma Horishima and Cooper Woods of Australia will join the competition.

Wins for Jackson Harvey, Matt Graham and George Murphy makes it four Aussies in the last 16.

Mikael Kingsbury is up against Pavel Kolmakev of Kazakhstan in this round.

Richard Winton
BBC Sport Scotland in Cortina

The Germans are losing their shape here and Bruce Mouat and his boys are all too willing to take advantage. They steal two, move five shots clear, and only have three ends to play.

Logan Gray
BBC Sport commentator and former elite curler

Chris Smith in Norfolk has asked how the measuring device works and why is it not digital?

The device used is officially called the micrometer and it is just like a big compass. There is a little hole at the centre of the button into which a needle is inserted, then the distance from there to the edge of the stone is measured using a gauge.

There is an argument to move to digital and some kind of instant Hawkeye system like they have in tennis - and like they use to measure the last stone draw - but there is research that has shown the micrometer is more accurate, oddly.

There probably is a conversation to be had about how we convey the result of these measuring moments to the fans as well, because it's not always entirely clear immediately.

Jackie Lockhart
Four-time Olympic curler on BBC iPlayer

We're seeing a few a little errors creeping in now for Germany. They're playing right into team GB's hands.

It will definitely put the pressure on.

Jess Anderson
BBC Sport in Cortina

A solid start for Team GB’s Adele Nicoll in the monobob.

She’s been around the middle of the pack when it comes to the training runs this week and she’s there or there abouts again with a time of 1:00:54.

Jamaica’s Mica Moore, who competed for GB at the 2018 Games, clocks 1:00:55. It’s very tight around those spots.

Also can I just say - monobob - what a great word, right? And also I think this is the one out of all the sliding events that I would most like to have a go at.

Introduced at the GOAT, Mikael Kingsbury does not disappoint with a superb run and advances to the next round.

He was 0.69 seconds quicker than Matyas Kroupa of the Czech Republic and gets the nod from the judges on the technical aspects as well to earn a convincing 25-10 win.

Kingsbury's Canadian team-mate Julien Viel got a bye in the first round, as did Japan's Ikuma Horishima and gold medallist in the men's individual moguls event, Cooper Woods of Australia.

There is an almost farcically long wait for the two Americans in the 10th heat - "this is crazy" you can hear them saying - and it seems even more bizarre when it is scored 23-12 in favour of Charlie Mickel.

Pretty comfortable so who knows why it took so long for the scores to be announced.

Former Great Britain bobsleigher and track athlete Mica Moore has just completed her first heat in the women's monobob.

She's competing for Jamaica this time, having received Jamaican citizenship in December 2024.

"This is my greatest honour of my career to represent my heritage of Jamaica at the Olympics, a moment I have only dreamt of," she said last month.

It's a solid run time of one minute 0.55 seconds from Moore - just 0.01 second slower than GB's Adele Nicoll.

Logan Gray
BBC Sport commentator and former elite curler

James Day - in Bridgwater, Somerset - has asked why Germany didn't place their final stone on the button in the second end to score one, but instead took out the GB stone and scored nothing. They've just done the same in the sixth end.

Basically, James, your aim when you've got the hammer is to score at least two. So often, if you're not able to do that with your final stone, you are better 'blanking' the end so you can keep the hammer for the next end, and try and score more than one next time.

Richard Winton
BBC Sport Scotland in Cortina

Another blank for Germany in the sixth end.

So why would they do that? BBC Sport commentator Logan Gray is next to me and can explain...

Each heat is marked by seven judges, with four scoring turns, two scoring ‘air’ and one scoring the time difference.

Every judge has five votes, with combinations of 5-0, 4-1 or 3-2 all possible when comparing the red course against the blue course. In the unlikely event that competitors finish in exactly the same time they each receive half of the speed votes, resulting in 2.5-2.5.

Richard Winton
BBC Sport Scotland in Cortina

Early in morning for this kind of chat, but Grant Hardie's slide has revealed that he's got the Milano-Cortina 2026 branded boxers on today...

Logan Gray
BBC Sport commentator and former curler

Matthew Donnachie in Middlesbrough asked if teams can use a power-play in the men's and women's game. There's a simple answer to that, Matthew...

They cannot. That's just for the mixed doubles, just as an additional strategic option for the teams so they can mix it up a bit.

Keep your questions coming in for Logan by clicking the yellow 'get involved' box at the top of this page!

Image source, EPA

We’ve had 15 athletes go so far in the first run – and the home fans are very happy right now!

That’s because Italy’s Federica Brignone – with her signature tiger helmet – has just taken the lead in a time of 1:03.23.

We had had a three-way tie for the lead with Sweden’s Sara Hector, Thea Louise Stjernesund of Norway and Albania’s Lara Colturi all posting a time of 1:03.97.

Mikaela Shiffrin of the US is fifth, 1.02 seconds behind Brignone, with Austria’s Julia Scheib – the pre-race favourite – down in eighth on 1:04.36.