Day nine of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is packed with excitement and big names with seven gold medals to be given out. The medal events start with the men’s giant slalom in the afternoon, while women’s 500m speedskating will close off the day. A hotly anticipated race is the men’s 500m race in short-track speedskating, where reigning world and Olympic record holder Wu Dajing will try to defend his title. The men’s giant slalom will also be a tight race with the vacuum left from 2018 Pyeongchang champion Marcel Hirschner’s retirement. Besides tough medal rounds, some fan favourites will also be competing. China’s Eileen Gu will kick-start her bid for a second gold medal, while the US’ three-time Olympic medallist and bobsleigh world champion Elana Meyers Taylor will fight for the first-ever gold in women’s monobob. Here are the five must-watch events for day nine, February 13. See Gu again Millions of fans are looking forward to the return of golden girl Eileen Gu after a few rest days. Gu and teammate, 18-year-old Yang Shuorui, will compete in the qualification round for women’s freeski slopestyle. Originally scheduled for 10am, the race has been pushed back to noon because of poor weather and low visibility in Zhangjiakou. Hopes are high for Gu, but she will face tough competition from Switzerland’s Sarah Hoefflin, the defending champion, and Mathilde Gremaud, who won a silver medal in the event in 2018. Each skier will have two runs to achieve their best score, and the top 12 athletes will advance to the final on Monday. Alpine skiing: a race between 89 skiers Eighty-nine skiers will take part in the giant slalom event at 10.15am. Among them is France’s Alexis Pinturault, giant slalom champion at the 2021 World Cup and bronze medal winner in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games. He is likely to be watching out for Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt, who has had a great season so far. He has won four giant slalom events in the World Cup series and also achieved a second-placed finish, making him the leading skier in the discipline at the 2021–22 International Ski Federation Alpine Ski World Cup. Hong Kong’s Adrian Yung Hau-tsuen will also debut at the event. The Malaysia-born and UK-bred Yung is the city’s first male Alpine skier to compete at the Olympics. Each skier will have two runs, and the times will be added together for ranking and medal placement. Monobob’s Olympic debut: special moment for female bobsleigh specialists The women’s monobob race on Sunday will be the first race of its kind in Olympic history. The Winter Games have never had a monobob event for athletes of any gender, but the women-only event balances out the long-standing four-person bobsleigh that is exclusive to men, marking a victory for gender equality. Americans Elana Meyers Taylor, champion at the 2021-22 World Series, and Kallie Humphries, who was second, are the favourites to step on the podium at the event. Canada’s Cynthia Appiah and Christine de Bruin, ranked third and fourth in the world, are also contenders. Unlike other bobsleigh events where athletes use customised sledges, monobob competitors will use a standardised slider, thus eliminating any technological advantage. The event starts at 9.30am. Ice hockey: China v Canada It’s going to be tough for China to face world No 1 Canada, even when no National Hockey League stars will be playing for the top team. Assigned to the same group as the United States and Germany, China have lost both their games so far and are ranked last with a goal difference of minus nine. The US, on the other hand, have won both of their games and have a goal difference of 10. Canada’s captain Eric Staal, 37, has been playing the sport since he was four, and is one of the country’s most accomplished players. Another Canadian, Brandon Yip, is the captain of China, where ice hockey is much less popular. The puck will drop at 9.10pm. Speedskating: men’s team pursuit China have made it to the quarter-finals of the men’s team pursuit race, which will start at 9pm. They will have to be among the top four teams with the fastest time to advance to the semi-finals scheduled for Tuesday. Gao Tingyu , who became the first Chinese man to win a speedskating gold at the Olympics, will not be in the team race. Among China’s competitors are Norway, the defending champions, and South Korea, the silver-medal team from the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.