Olympic report
Super-G American Bode Miller picked up a silver in the super-G Friday to go with the bronze he won in the downhill. Andrew Weibrecht surprisingly finished right behind Miller, plopping another medal onto the United States’ growing pile. The U.S. Alpine team already has won six medals, its most, and they’re not even halfway done in the mountains. The Americans have six golds. Norway has the second-most golds with five, including Aksel Lund Svindal’s win in the super-G.
Curling The difference-maker for the U.S. men’s team may have been a change in skips (team captain). After a 0-4 start, out went 2006 bronze medalist John Shuster and in came alternate Chris Plys, with vice skip Jason Smith throwing the last rock. The result was a 4-3 victory over France, which came in with only one win. The women were 0-3 until skip Debbie McCormick bumped out a Russian stone with her last rock, giving the U.S. a 6-4 victory – its first after a start that had put her stewardship in jeopardy.
Skeleton Amy Williams won the women’s skeleton to give Britain an individual gold medalist at the Winter Games for the first time since figure skater Robin Cousins at Lake Placid in 1980. A pair of Germans took the other two medals, with the best U.S. hope, Noelle Pikus-Pace, finishing fourth.
•Canada’s Jon Montgomery won the Olympic gold medal in men’s skeleton, edging Latvia’s Martins Dukurs. Montgomery completed his four runs down the Whistler Sliding Center track in 3 minutes, 29.73 seconds. Dukurs, who had been nearly flawless in the first three heats, bumped the wall after the final curve. Dukurs finished in 3:29.80. Russia’s Alexander Tretyakov was third in 3:30.75.
Men’s hockey The defending gold medalists from Sweden avenged a monumental upset against outmanned Belarus – and avoided another one. The Swedes led 3-0, then were up by only one goal with 5:10 remaining. A goal with 10.4 seconds left padded the final margin.
Bobsled Two Swiss competitors have withdrawn from events. Swiss driver Daniel Schmid, who was not a medal favorite, pulled out of the two-man and four-man bob for “safety reasons” after two practice crashes. Beat Hefti, a World Cup champion, withdrew from two-man because of a concussion in a crash Wednesday.
Cross-country Norway’s Marit Bjoergen pulled away midway through the freestyle portion of the race and was never threatened the rest of the way. Anna Haag of Sweden won a three-way sprint for the silver, with favorite Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland getting bronze in a photo finish.
Ice dancing World champions Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin of Russia won the compulsory portion of ice dance. Their 9.0 interpretation mark helped give them 43.76 points for an expressive program to the tango romantica. That is 1.02 points ahead of Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir heading into Sunday’s original dance, the second of three parts. Two-time American champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White are third with 41.47 points.