Ski jumping gold for Germany
February 17, 2014
Germany, represented by Andreas Wank, Marinus Kraus, Andreas Wellinger and Severin Freund, won gold in the men's large hill team ski jumping event on Monday. It marks the third time Germany has won the event.
Freund clinched the top podium spot with a final jump that put his team ahead by 2.7 points.
The Austria team - made up of Michael Hayböck, Thomas Morgenstern, Thomas Diethart and Gregor Schlierenzauer - took silver.
Bronze went to Reruhi Shimizu, Taku Takeuchi, Daiki Ito and Noriaki Kasai of Japan.
Dancing on ice
Two-time world champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White became the first Americans to win the Olympic ice dance title on Monday setting a new world record of 195.52 at the Iceberg Skating Palace in Sochi.
Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who train with the US dancers, had to settle with silver after winning gold in Vancouver four years ago.
Russian pair Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov clinched bronze to maintain their country's record of medalling at every Olympic ice dance podium dating back to the event's introduction in 1976.
Ice dancing is a different discipline and less athletic than pairs skating and resembles ballroom dancing. The dancers must stay close together and there is less lifting and more intricate footwork.
Russia wins fifth gold
Russian bobsleigh pilot Alexander Zubkov and brakeman Alexey Voevoda earned their country's fifth gold medal of the Sochi Olympics by winning the two-man bobsleigh in front of an exuberant home crowd at the Sanki Sliding Center on Monday.
Zubkov, Russia’s opening ceremony flagbearer, came out of retirement with the aim of securing gold in Sochi after taking bronze four years ago in Vancouver.
The pair produced consistent races to clock a combined time of 3min 45.39sec to finish 0.66sec ahead of the Swiss crew of Beat Hefti and Alex Baumann who took silver.
Steve Holcomb, who won the four-man event at Vancouver, and Steve Langton finished in third place (3:46.27) - the first two-man medal by an American sled since 1952.
The much-anticipated duo from Jamaica, Winston Watts and Marvin Dixon, failed to make it into the top 20 of the event and went out after the third run.
Gold hattrick for Belarus
Belarusian Darya Domracheva nabbed her third Sochi Olympic gold on Monday in the women's biathlon 12.5km mass start.
Domracheva, 27, perservered after missing one target on her final standing shoot but managed to knock down the final target to secure herself of the gold in 35 min 25.6sec.
Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic followed 20.2sec later to take the silver medal with bronze going to Tiril Eckhoff of Norway in 35min 52.9sec.
Domracheva had already won gold in the women's pursuit and individual competitions at Sochi.
With Monday's victory, Domracheva became the first woman to win three biathlon gold medals at one Olympics. The win has also secured her place as the greatest Belarusian Olympian of all time.
Domrachev's compatriate Anton Kushnir also won gold on Monday in men's freestyle skiing aerials earning a staggering score of 134.50 in the 'super final'. A shock silver went to Australian David Morris and bronze went to China's Jia Zongyang.
US-Canada ice hockey final
Meanwhile, the US women's ice hockey team beat Sweden in a stunning 6-1 semi-final to advance to the gold medal round. They will face off against their rival Canada who bested Switzerland 3-1 on Monday.
The pairing is nothing new - Canada and the US have decided every gold medal game except one since women's ice hockey was added to the Olympic program in 1998. The only exception was in 2006 when Canada beat Sweden.
The gold medal rematch between the two ice hockey arch-rivals will take place on Thursday.
hc/kms (Reuters, AFP, AP)