American Derrick loses race, grandpa

Kimberly Derrick took the ice with her head bowed and brushed away a tear as she stepped to the starting line. The U.S. short track skater competed without her biggest fan in the audience Saturday night.

Derrick was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the 1,000 meters, the day after her grandfather died while attending the Winter Games. Darrel Edwards, 74, suffered an apparent heart attack after coming to Turin to see his granddaughter skate in her first Olympics.

“This was the most emotional day of my life,” she said in a statement after the race. “I’m proud to be at the Olympics and at the same time, my heart hurts so much. When I got onto the ice I was overcome by emotions, but I knew I had to race.”

Derrick got off to an early lead in the four-woman race, but quickly fell back to second, then third and finally last. She bumped Liesbeth Mau Asam of the Netherlands while trying to pass in a turn, but never came close to catching the top two skaters, Canada’s Amanda Overland and South Korea’s Choi Eun-kyung.

Derrick was disqualified for impeding, but it didn’t really matter. She crossed the line in last place, her hands on her knees. Only the top two skaters advanced. The U.S. women have never won an Olympic medal in the 1,000.

“She’s really, really broken up,” U.S. Speedskating spokeswoman Melissa Scott said.

Edwards had traveled from Memphis, Tenn., to cheer on Derrick, who also was part of the 3,000-meter relay team that finished fourth.

“I knew I had to race because that’s what my grandfather would want me to do,” Derrick said. “He was my biggest fan, the one who held my hand while chasing my dream. He was and forever will be my pillar of strength.”

South Korea’s Jin Sun-Yu won the women’s 1,000-meter race, earning her second gold of the Winter Games.

China’s Wang Meng, the 500 Olympic champion, earned the silver. Yang Yang of China took the bronze.

•Canada’s Clara Hughes passed Claudia Pechstein with two laps to go to win the gold medal in women’s 5,000-meter speedskating, keeping the German from becoming the first Winter Olympian to win the same event four times.

Hughes’ teammate Cindy Klassen took the bronze for her fifth medal of the games.

Hughes, who won two bronze medals in cycling at the 1996 Atlanta Games, trailed Pechstein for 10 of the 12 1/2 laps before coming back with a devastating kick to finish in 6 minutes, 59.07 seconds.

Pechstein was 1.01 seconds back, while Klassen skated poorly over the final two laps and finished with a time of 7:00.57. She still became Canada’s most-decorated Winter Olympic athlete.

Catherine Raney, the only American in the race, finished seventh with a time of 7:04.91. That finished off a shutout for the U.S. women, who failed to win a speedskating medal for the first time since the 1984 Sarajevo Games.

With her eighth career individual medal, Pechstein tied former East German speedskaters Karin Kania and Gunda Niemann for the most by a woman in Winter Olympics history.

When Hughes crossed the finish line and saw her time, her mouth dropped open in shock. Moments later, she was laid out flat on the inside of the oval, panting heavily with her head buried in her hands.

She got up and Klassen greeted her with a hug. Klassen applauded her teammate and handed over a Canadian flag before Hughes took it on a victory lap, a look of disbelief on her face.

Pechstein crossed the line and bent over, gasping for air. She has had breathing problems throughout the Olympics.

Alpine skiing

Fittingly, three Austrians were the last men standing in the final Alpine event of the Turin Olympics.

Benjamin Raich earned his second gold medal of the games and led an Austrian sweep in the men’s slalom to complete that country’s most successful Olympic Alpine competition.

Reinfried Herbst was second and Rainer Schoenfelder third to give Austria a record 14 Alpine medals. The Americans, who had talked of challenging the Austrians, leave with two.

It was the first time one nation swept the medals in an Olympic slalom race and only the fifth sweep in any Alpine event. Austria has three of them.

Top American hopes Ted Ligety and Bode Miller were eliminated, along with local favorite Giorgio Rocca of Italy, in a brutal first of the two runs.

Hockey

The Czech Republic shut out Russia in a matchup worthy of a gold medal. Too bad they were only playing for the bronze.

Tomas Vokoun, filling in for Dominik Hasek, made 12 of his 28 saves in the third period and the Czech Republic skated off with the 3-0 win over Russia in men’s hockey.

The Russians lost Ilya Kovalchuk – its second-leading scorer – after he was ejected for an elbow to the face of Pavel Kubina behind the Czech net in the second period that left the Tampa Bay defenseman bloodied.

Marek Zidlicky made Russia pay when he ripped a shot from the blue line off a pass from NHL-leading scorer Jaromir Jagr at 6:36. Martin Straka sealed it with 8 seconds left with an empty-net goal on the Czech’s 15th and final shot.

Jagr was injured in the second period and went to the locker room. He returned to the bench in the third period but didn’t play.

Bobsled

Andre Lange slipped into history. Behind him, Todd Hays simply slipped away.

Germany’s Lange won his second gold medal, stacking a four-man bobsled title atop the one he won in two-man to complete a seldom-seen Olympic medal sweep.

Taming the wicked 19-turn Alpine course like he was on a weekend joy ride with three friends, Lange and teammates Rene Hoppe, Kevin Kuske and Martin Putze finished in 3 minutes, 40.42 seconds.

Lange defeated Russian’s Alexander Zoubkov (3:40.55) and Switzerland’s Martin Annen (3:40.83), who won his second bronze after finishing third in two-man. The 32-year-old Lange is only the fifth driver to win both events in the same Olympics, and the first since Germany’s Wolfgang Hoppe in 1984 at Sarajevo. Lange, who captured gold in four-man at Salt Lake City in 2002, is the second sledder to win consecutive four-man titles, duplicating German Meinhard Nehmer’s back-to-back victories in 1976 and 1980.

Four years ago, Lang’s closest competitor was Hays.

In his final Olympics, Hays wasn’t even close.

The 36-year-old Texan finished seventh – Steve Holcomb in USA-2 was a spot ahead – and ended his brilliant U.S. bobsled career as one of the most decorated American drivers, but another who came up short in pursuit of Olympic gold. The U.S. hasn’t won a gold medal in four-man since Francis Tyler at the St. Moritz Games in 1948.

Hays is retiring from bobsled, giving up a sport he only took up after his dreams of playing professional football were snuffed by a shoulder injury.

Biathlon Germany’s Michael Greis completed the shutout of Ole Einar Bjoerndalen by winning his third gold medal of the Games with a win in the 15km mass start.

Biathlon’s biggest star, Bjoerndalen led for most of the race but settled for the bronze, 12.3 seconds behind Greis, who crossed the finish 6.3 seconds ahead of silver medalist Tomasz Sikora of Poland.

•Anna Carin Olofsson of Sweden took advantage of a weeklong rest and a midrace cushion to win gold in the women’s 12.5km mass start.

Olofsson, in her first Olympics as a biathlete after competing in cross-country skiing at Salt Lake City, finished 18.8 seconds ahead of Kati Wilhelm and 41.9 in front of Uschi Disl, both of Germany.