Marit Bjoergen became the most decorated woman Winter Olympian in history yesterday by leading a Norwegian sweep in the women’s 30km cross-country ski race at the Sochi Games.
Bjoergen won her sixth Olympic gold, to go with three silvers and a bronze. Her career total of 10 puts her ahead of Russian cross-country skier Lyubov Egorova, who had six golds and three silvers.
Two other women — Stafania Belmondo of Italy and Soviet skier Raisa Smetanina — also have 10 medals in cross-country, but fewer golds.
Photo: AFP
The Norwegian women finally displayed their dominance of the sport yesterday, as Bjoergen pulled away from teammate Therese Johaug heading into the stadium and sprinted alone to win her third gold of the Sochi Olympics.
She also won three gold medals in Vancouver.
Johaug took silver and Kristin Stoermer Steira was third.
Photo: EPA
Russia’s US-born snowboarder Vic Wild completed a historic double yesterday by claiming parallel slalom gold.
Wild had already won the parallel giant slalom title on Wednesday, but was not prepared to settle for just that.
“It has taken a lot of hard work, man. When everyone else in the summer is taking vacation, I am working hard. I train, I train, and it paid off,” Wild said.
His real moment of brilliance came in the semi-finals against four-time world champion Benjamin Karl from Austria.
Wild made a mistake on the first run, meaning that he was hit with the maximum deficit of 1.12 seconds ahead of the second run.
His double hopes seemed over, but he produced a startling run to claw back all that time and more to steam into the final.
There he was pushed all the way by Slovenia’s Zan Kosir, but he still won by just 0.11 seconds.
Karl added Olympic bronze to the silver he won in Vancouver in 2010 in the parallel giant slalom by beating Italy’s Aaron March.
In the women’s parallel slalom competition, Austria’s Julia Dujmovits was a shock winner.
The 26-year-old overturned a huge 0.72 second deficit following the first run to beat Germany’s Anke Karstens by just 0.12 seconds following the second.
It was the first time she has ever won an elite-level parallel slalom race.
Amelie Kober of Germany narrowly held off charging Italian Corinna Boccacini to claim bronze.
Earlier, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen became the most decorated Winter Games athlete with his 13th Olympic medal this week and the Norwegian capped a successful Sochi Games by being elected to the International Olympic Committee’s athletes commission.
The 40-year-old won 1,087 votes of his peers, followed by Canadian ice hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser with 758, and both were elected as commission members for an eight-year term.
Bjoerndalen won gold in the biathlon 10km sprint and mixed relay to edge ahead of former cross-country skier Bjorn Daehlie and move alongside his compatriot as the all-time leading gold medalist on eight.
Also yesterday, the South Korean Olympic Committee protested the results of the women’s figure skating competition, although the sport’s international governing body has not yet received their letter.
International Skating Union rules always have required such protests be filed immediately after the event.
The South Koreans believe the judging was biased and cost Yuna Kim a second gold medal. The 2010 champion finished with silver, behind Russian teenager Adelina Sotnikova.
Much of the uproar over the women’s free skate centers on what many perceived as a lack of artistry in Sotnikova’s program. Yet her marks were comparable or better than those for the highly artistic Kim. Her technical marks were significantly better.
Meanwhile, four Ukrainian women gave their politically torn country some good news at the Games on Friday and Canada delivered more bad news to the US — yet another Olympic ice hockey defeat.
As government and opposition leaders worked to end the months-long Ukrainian crisis that erupted in deadly violence this week, the Ukraine women’s 4x6km biathlon relay team won the nation’s first gold medal in two decades.
The four women celebrated with a Ukrainian flag as lawmakers back home paused to mark the occasion.
“Great proof of how sport can unite the nation,” Sergei Bubka, the pole vault great and leader of the Ukraine Olympic Committee, wrote on Twitter.
There were no celebrations for the US men’s hockey team, with Canada winning 1-0 and dashing the American hopes for men’s gold for the third time since 2002. And it happened just one night after the Canadian women had ousted their American counterparts for the third straight Olympics.
Canada and Sweden are to play for the men’s gold today. The Swedes beat Finland 2-1.
The first doping cases also hit the Winter Games on Friday. Italian bobsledder William Frullani and German biathlete Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle were kicked out of the games after positive doping tests.
Also on Friday, 18-year-old US skier Mikaela Shiffrin became the youngest-ever gold medal winner in the women’s slalom; Marielle Thompson of Canada edged teammate Kelsey Serwa for the gold in women’s skicross; Canada routed Britain 9-3 to win their third straight gold medal in men’s curling; and short track speedskating gold medals went to Viktor Ahn of Russia in the men’s 500m, to Park Seung-hi of South Korea in the women’s 1,000m, and to Russia in the men’s 5,000m relay.
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