DAYS didn't know that NBC was going to preempt eleven airdates for the Olympics, so Ron didn't write that in.
On November 12, 2021, NBC announced the Olympics preemptions for Feb 2022. Jason47 said this will be the first time Days is fully preempted for a Winter Olympics.
When that was announced, Days had already filmed episodes to air in April 2022.
The preemptions would push the already-filmed episodes by eleven airdates. There was still time to make some adjustments; so I suppose they could have rearranged a few scenes/episodes, but I don't think they could have realistically changed everything to make a cliffhanger.
However Feb 3 was supposed to start Feb sweeps. Instead, it's the last airdate before the Olympics. So I suppose they could have already filmed something dramatic for Feb 3rd, which would coincidentally work out as the cliffhanger.