Kaitlyn Farrington of the United States has just won the gold medal in the women's snowboarding halfpipe. Defending champion Torah Bright of Australia won the silver, while Kelly Clark of the United States took bronze.
Earlier, history was made in the women's downhill skiing. Switzerland's Dominique Gisin and Slovenia's Tina Maze became the first athletes ever to share Winter Olympics gold by recording exactly the same time of one minute, 41.57 seconds. Another Swiss, Lara Gut, finished a tenth of a second behind to clinch bronze.
In the first of three Nordic combined events Eric Frenzel triumphed for Germany, beating Japan's Akito Watabe in a tense finish to take the individual normal hill gold. Norway's Magnus Krog worked his way through the field to take bronze.
China's Pang Qing (R) and Tong Jian compete during the figure skating pairs free skating at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, February 12, 2014. [Xinhua via agencies] |
Meanwhile on the ice, Stefan Groothuis continued Dutch domination in speed skating by winning the men's 1-thousand meters gold. Groothuis finished just ahead of Canada's Denny Morrison. And Michel Mulder took bronze to win the Netherlands a 10th speed skating medal of the Games.
And finally, Germany's Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt won the luge doubles. The pair went into the competition as the reigning world champions and finished well ahead of their closest rivals, Austrian brothers Andreas and Wolfgang Linger.
Latvia's Andris and Juris Sics, who were second in Vancouver four years ago, had to settle for bronze medals this time around. Wendl and Arlt's success means Germany have won all three of the luge events so far at the Sochi Winter Olympics.