Canada is hoping for another golden goal, the mighty Swedes are brimming with medal potential, and host Russia seeks to make amends for their stunning collapse four years ago in Vancouver.
After crashing out of the Vancouver Olympics with an embarrassing 7-3 loss to Canada in the quarter-finals, Russia are determined to take care of some unfinished business on their home ice in Sochi.
Their much-vaunted team is looking to make amends for a sixth place finish in 2010 and become the first Russian team to win gold since the fall of the Soviet Union.
“It comes down to the same thing all the time,” retired NHL superstar Wayne Gretzky told reporters. “The team with the best goaltender. And if your best player is the best player on the ice and is on your best line, then your team is ultimately going to be the gold medal winner.”
Canada beat the US in the Vancouver Olympic final when Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby scored the overtime winner to claim the gold medal on home ice.
“I would have to say the Russians are favored,” Switzerland defenseman Luca Sbisa said. “Russia is going to feel so much pressure to win because the Olympics are in Sochi. Canada, US and Sweden could also win gold, but if I had to put money on it I would bet Russia.”
The tournament begins on Feb. 12 with Sweden facing the Czechs and Switzerland battling Latvia.
These are the largest Winter Games in history with 98 medal events, including 12 new ones, as Russia welcomes the world to the balmy Black sea resort town.
The schedule concludes with its most raucous event, the men’s hockey final on Feb. 23 at the 12,000-seat Bolshoy Ice Dome.
Four-time world champion Russia have not claimed a hockey gold medal since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
That team won the Olympic title in 1992 in Albertville when they played as the Community of Independent States (CIS).
This time their players are mix of NHLers and players competing in the Kontinental Hockey League.
Russia will be paced by Pavel Datsyuk, Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin up front.
Defending champion Canada will be seeking to win their first Olympic gold outside of North America since 1952 in Oslo, Norway.
Canada’s blueprint for success in Sochi is to go with big forwards who have plenty of scoring touch, backed by a mobile defense.
Led by the dynamic forwards Crosby, Ryan Getzlaf and Jonathan Toews, Canada also boasts an excellent core of swift-skating defensemen like Duncan Keith, Drew Doughty and Shea Webber.
“We are going to be the type of team Canada has always been known for,” Doughty said. “We will play with a lot of heart.”
The Swedes, who won the Olympic title in 2006 in Italy, will also challenge Russia and Canada for gold in Sochi. Their attack is led by the Sedin twins, Henrik and Daniel, and Henrik Zetterberg, Alexander Steen and Daniel Alfredsson who will be making his fifth Olympic appearance.
“We have some younger guys and we have some players with international experience who have won before,” Henrik Sedin said.
The Americans may not have a lot of stars up front, but have the best goaltending, which is necessary for any team who wants to make a run at a medal.
The 2010 silver medalists will likely go with Jonathan Quick as their No. 1 followed by Ryan Miller and Jimmy Howard.
Patrick Kane was their best forward in Vancouver as he anchors an explosive powerplay that also includes Dustin Brown and Zach Parise.
The next group of challengers includes Finland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Switzerland.
Finland’s Teemu Selanne is back for his sixth Olympics as he becomes just the second player ever to take part in that many, joining fellow Finn, Raimo Helminen.
The Czechs are banking on experience in Sochi as they send a team with an average age of 29.8 years.
The team will be led by 41-year-old Jaromir Jagr who will be taking part in his fifth Olympics. Jagr is the New Jersey Devils leading scorer this season with 15 goals and 39 points.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier