Olympic report
Halfpipe Defending Olympic champion Shaun White of the United States won the men’s halfpipe again, defeating Finland’s Peetu Piiroinen. White secured the win on his first run Wednesday night without trying his signature trick, the Double McTwist 1260, then did it on his victory lap for a winning score of 48.4. American Scotty Lago took bronze to give the United States multiple podiums in three straight Olympics. The American men and women have taken 12 of the 21 halfpipe medals awarded since the sport came to the Olympics in 1998.
Women’s downhill American Lindsey Vonn showed no signs of discomfort when she won the by more than half a second, with teammate Julia Mancuso taking a surprise silver medal. Vonn hurt her right shin Feb. 2 during pre-Olympic training in Austria and had hardly skied over the past two weeks. But Vonns sped down Franz’s Downhill in 1 minute, 44.19 seconds to win. Mancuso finished 0.56 seconds behind, and Elisabeth Goergl of Austria took the bronze medal, 1.46 seconds back.
Speedskating American Shani Davis has won his second straight gold medal in the men’s 1,000-meter Olympic speedskating with a time of 1:09.94. Mo Tae-bum of South Korea took the silver and American Chad Hedrick the bronze.
Short track American Apolo Ohno easily advanced through the preliminaries of the 1,000. Ohno also joined J.R. Celski, Simon Cho and Travis Jayner in qualifying for the 5,000 relay final on Saturday.
Wang Meng of China easily won her second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the women’s 500 meters. Canada’s Marianne St-Gelais won silver and Arianna Fontana of Italy bronze.
Men’s hockey With an assist on Finland’s opening goal in a 5-1 victory over Belarus, Teemu Selanne matched the record for most career points in the Olympics.
Women’s hockey Canada routed the toughest opponent in its preliminary-round group, beating Sweden 13-1.
Cross-country A mile-long sprint came down to a few inches, with Russia’s Nikita Kriukov getting the front of his ski across the finish line just ahead of countryman Alexander Panzhinskiy in the men’s individual classic cross-country sprint race. A photo finish was needed to determine the winner.
In the women’s individual sprint, Norway’s Marit Bjoergen pulled away at the end for her first gold medal after winning two silvers at previous Olympics and a bronze in the 10K race Monday.
Curling The U.S. women fell to 0-2, losing to Germany when skip Debbie McCormick’s squad couldn’t make up a two-point deficit in the final end. The men fell to 0-3 with a 7-6 loss to Switzerland.
Luge Austrian brothers Andreas and Wolfgang Linger won their second consecutive Olympic gold medal in doubles luge. Andris and Juris Sics of Latvia won silvver and Germany’s Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch the bronze.