Feb. 11, 2014: Norway's gold medal winner Maiken Caspersen Falla is flanked by silver medal winner Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg from Norway, left, and Slovenia's bronze medal winner Vesna Fabjan after the women's cross-country sprint the 2014 Winter Olympics in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. (AP)
SOCHI, Russia – Norway won a double gold in the cross-country freestyle sprints at the Sochi Olympics on Tuesday, with Maiken Caspersen Falla taking the women's title and Ola Vigen Hattestad capturing the men's in a race marred by a three-skier collision.
Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg of Norway also won silver in the women's sprint. The three medals give the Scandinavian country a total of 102 in cross-country skiing since the Winter Olympics began in 1924.
Emil Joensson of Sweden, who had all but given up earlier in the men's race, grabbed the bronze after Sergey Ustiugov of Russia, Marcus Hellner of Sweden and Anders Gloeersen of Norway were involved in a crash that left them sprawled across the course. Soft snow caused a number of spills throughout the day.
Canadian Dara Howell won the gold in women's slopestyle skiing, but her victory was tempered by teammate Yuki Tsubota's crash on the slushy snow. She was carried off the mountain on a stretcher with a possible fractured jaw. Russian Anna Mirtova wiped out during both of her final runs in the event and said she's heading for knee surgery.
On Day 5 at the Sochi Games, South Korea's Lee Sang-hwa won the gold in women's 500-meter speedskating, setting two Olympic records in the process, and Darya Domracheva of Belarus won gold in the women's 10-kilometer pursuit.
Medals also were being awarded in women's luge singles, men's snowboard halfpipe and women's normal hill ski jumping — like slopestyle skiing, a first-time Olympic event.
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SLOPESTYLE SKIING: Howell finished with a score of 94.20, trouncing the rest of the field. Devin Logan of the United States took silver. Kim Lamarre earned bronze to give the Canadians seven medals in four days of snowboarding and freestyle skiing, including three events in which they took two of the top three spots. "We're over the moon right now," said Peter Judge, CEO of the Canadian Freestyle Skiing Association.
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CROSS-COUNTRY: Hattestad took the early lead, avoided the crash behind him and then held off Teodor Peterson of Sweden for the gold. Peterson finished 1.2 seconds behind for silver. Vesna Fabjan of Slovenia won the bronze in the women's sprint. Pre-race favorites Kikkan Randall of the United States and Marit Bjoergen of Norway were knocked out in qualifying heats.
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BIATHLON: Domracheva led most of the 10K pursuit race, missing only the last target before finishing in 29 minutes, 30.7 seconds. Tora Berger of Norway took silver, and Teja Gregorin of Slovenia claimed the bronze.
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SPEEDSKATING: Lee set an Olympic record of 37.28 seconds in her second 500-meter race, beating the mark of 37.30 set by Catriona Le May Doan at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Her combined time of 1 minute, 14.70 seconds also was an Olympic record, beating Le May Doan's mark of 1:14.75. Olga Fatkulina of Russia won the silver, and Margot Boer of the Netherlands got the bronze.
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