Roeiseland romps to third gold, Odermatt bags giant slalom win

Another near-perfect shooting performance gave Marte Olsbu Roieseland of Norway her third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics when she cruised to victory in the women’s 10 km pursuit race on Sunday.

Swedish prodigy Elvira Oeberg took her second Olympic silver medal in 48 hours with Roieseland’s team mate Tiril Eckhoff taking the bronze.

A thick layer of fresh snow covered much of the man-made course as the race got underway, making the going heavy and punishing those who missed shots and had to endure a penalty loop of 150 metres.

A miss by Oeberg allowed Dorothea Wierer to slide into second place early on but the Italian was unable to exploit a miss by the Norwegian leader at the third shoot, missing two of her own five shots to fall more than a minute-and-a-half behind during the fourth lap.

With her biggest rivals struggling, Roieseland flashed off her last five shots in perfect fashion before skiing away from the range, safe in the knowledge that only a broken pole or ski might keep her from gold.

Behind her the battle for silver gathered pace as the rest of the pack followed Wierer on to the range, with the 22-year-old Oeberg making a stunning comeback to retake second place ahead of the final lap.

Norway’s Ingrid Tandrevold was hot on her heels as the two exited the final shoot, but Oeberg quickly dropped her to secure the silver medal, her second at the Games after second place in Friday’s (February 11) sprint.

Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt won the gold medal in the men’s giant slalom, holding his nerve to fend off a superb effort from Zan Kranjec of Slovenia.

Odermatt finished with a combined time of 2:09:35, putting him 0.19 seconds ahead of runner-up Kranjec with France’s Mathieu Faivre taking bronze.

The first run had taken place in driving snow with poor visibility but the decision to delay the second run by 75 minutes paid off, with better conditions producing a thrilling battle.

Kranjec produced a magnificent second run – the fastest of the field – to put himself top of the podium and then stood and watched as several challengers slipped out of contention.

Odermatt had to keep his cool on the second run and he did just that with his smooth, classic technique delivering a time of 1:06:42, which was 0.59 slower than Kranjec’s second effort but just enough to secure him his first Olympic medal.

The team representing the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) made the most of a big lead built up in the first half of the race to storm to victory in a punishing men’s 4×10 km relay.

The ROC team finished one minute 7.2 seconds ahead of the Norwegian team, with France picked up a superb bronze medal after a dogged display, 9.2 seconds after Norway.

Just as their victorious women’s team did on Saturday (February 12), the Russians made an early break as lead man Alexey Chervotkin accelerated in the middle of his second lap, building up a lead of more than 12 seconds to the chasing pack by the halfway point of his leg.

By the time he handed over to Alexander Bolshunov, who won gold in last week’s skiathlon and silver in the 15-km classic, the race was all but over and Bolshunov continued to set a searing pace as the ROC team eased to victory.

Kaillie Humphries of the United States led at the halfway mark of the Olympic’s first ever monobob event, with the two-time gold medallist opening up a yawning 1.04 second gap between her and Canada’s Christine de Bruin in second.

Monobob is one of seven new events at the Beijing Games and the only one exclusively for women, with drivers pushing a 130-kg (286 lb) sled as fast as they can before jumping in and barrelling down an icetrack at speeds up to 120 kph (75 mph).

As the reigning World Cup champion in both the monobob and two-woman bobsleigh events, she was favourite going into the race.

Germany’s Laura Nolte was 1.22 seconds behind the leader in third, still in with a chance of making it seven sliding golds out of seven for her country.

The Swiss women’s curling team improved to a 5-0 record in the round robin phase of the tournament following an 8-4 victory over Canada.

Switzerland sit top ahead of Japan, while Great Britain sit tied for third with three wins from five matches following their 7-2 win against Denmark.

In the men’s tournament, Sweden maintained their 100% record after five matches after claiming a tight 6-4 win over Norway, while Canada saw off North American rivals the United States 10-5.