Veteran sportswriter Richard Deitsch has an international perspective on the Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee is not a begging organization in general, but they are begging Vladyslav Heraskevych. They are asking a Ukrainian skeleton runner not to compete in a custom helmet that features the faces of more than 20 Ukrainian athletes and coaches killed since the Russians invaded Ukraine in 2022.

The IOC said such an act would violate the Olympic rule on political statements and the helmet would not be allowed in competition. Heraskevych wore a helmet in practice on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“We will reiterate the many, many opportunities he has had to express his grief,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Wednesday. “As we talked before, he can do that on social media and press conferences in the mixed zone. So we’ll try to talk to him about it and try to convince him … There are 130 conflicts going on in the world. We can’t have 130 different conflicts, no matter how terrible they are, on the field of play, during the actual competition.”

Heraskevych’s story is a mirror — it reflects the eternal delusion that sports and politics do not intersect. Of course they intersect, and they intersected when the IOC awarded the 2014 Winter Games to Vladimir Putin.

WATCH | Will it or won’t it?:

Will the Ukrainian skeleton racer still wear his banned helmet in competition?

CBC Sports’ Rob Pizzo spoke with coach Vladyslav Heraskevych, who reported on the current situation.

The situation is fluid and could change by the time you read this. Round 1 of the men’s skeleton is scheduled for 3:30 a.m. ET on Thursday. The second race begins at 5:08 a.m. ET. The gold medal competition is coming up on Friday.

Heraskevych did not enter these Games, his third Olympics, as a gold medal favorite, but a podium finish is a real possibility. This season he was 11th in the world ranking, but on Tuesday he was second fastest, and on Monday fifth. His story is gaining traction around the world and he has effectively used the media, including his ownto illuminate what his helmet represents.

There are many more famous athletes in the Olympic Games, but there is none more important at the moment. There is a conflict between Heraskevych and the IOC. How this will play out is anyone’s guess.

Your star of the first week of the Olympic Games

On the eve of the Milan-Cortina Games, it was expected that the Swiss Marco Odermatt would announce himself to the wider world as a unique star of men’s alpine skiing. It seemed like an easy bet. Odermatt, who some call the Roger Federer of skis, had the same fame in the alpine world as Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn given his 53 World Cup victories and a gold medal in the giant slalom at the Beijing Winter Games in 2022. He entered the Games as the best skier of his generation.

But when these Olympics are over and historians study the Games, there will be another Swiss skier who will be compared to the Olympic Alpine greats of all time.

Franjo von Allmen, just 24, took gold in the men’s super-G on Wednesday, his third gold medal in less than a week of competition. He became the first alpine skier to win three gold medals at a single Winter Games in 58 years and now ranks with all-timers (Austrian Toni Sailer, 1956 and French Jean-Claude Killy, 1968) as the only skiers to win three Olympic gold medals at a single Winter Games.

“I would like to win more, but to win a third medal, let alone a third gold medal, all the planets would have to align,” Von Allmen said before Wednesday’s race.

The planets have lined up — and you are looking at a star.

Who will act on Thursday?

One of America’s biggest winter stars and its most famous female snowboarder will take the stage Thursday afternoon at 1:30 PM ET for the women’s snowboard halfpipe final in Livigno. Chloe Kim is the two-time defending gold medalist (Pyeongchang and Beijing), but it was an awkward lead for her as she injured her shoulder during training in Switzerland in the second week of January. Kim is wearing a shoulder strap on her left shoulder, but dropped a leading score of 90.25 in qualifying to prepare for the big final day.

Kim is already the only woman to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in halfpipe, and now she’s trying to become the first halfpipe snowboarder in Olympic history – male or female – to win three consecutive gold medals. Others to watch in the women’s halfpipe include Japan’s Shimizu Sara and Judo Rise, USA’s Maddie Mastro and Korean 17-year-old rising star Choi Gaon.

Olympic pictures

The Athletic has cool facts about the men’s hockey tournament fmaking projections from a statistical model which uses player ratings to estimate a team’s relative strength, calculates each team’s odds of winning each game, and simulates the entire tournament 30,000 times.

Figures to know

1:06.28 – Victory in the 1000 meters for American skater Jordan Stolz, a new Olympic record in the discipline.

9 – Olympic career goals for Slovak Juraj Slafkovski. The Montreal Canadiens forward scored seven goals as a 17-year-old four years ago in Beijing.

What we read on the web

► The rise of Anna Gibson — the inevitable, accidental American ski mountaineering Olympian. By Brendon Quinn of The Athletic

► Internal conflicts and resignations plague French preparations for the 2030 Winter Olympics. Samuel Petrequin of The Associated Press.

► A French biathlete guilty of fraud won Olympic gold, while a defrauded teammate was 80. Andy Bull of The Guardian

► Lindsey Vonn’s accident increases fear for relatives of Olympic skiers. By Julia Frankel of the Associated Press.

► Mikaela Shiffrin’s intense slalom ride led to a ‘miracle’ for her USA teammates. Team Layden for NBC Olympics.

► ‘We have a sports column for a few more days, and the readers need me to tell the story.’ Ivan L. Frequency Cjr.

► Ice Hockey – Goalies show pride and personality with artistic helmets. By Amy Tennery and Giulio Piovaccari of Reuters