TURIN, Italy – Joey Cheek skated the two best races of his career and came away an Olympic winner.
His victory in the men’s 500 meters – a furious sprint – gave the United States its second speedskating gold medal of the Turin Games, adding to the one Chad Hedrick won in the 5,000 meters Saturday.
It was also the second straight 500 victory by an American in as many Olympics. Casey FitzRandolph won at Salt Lake City, but this time nearly fell in his first race and finished 12th.
Cheek skated 1 laps in 34.94 seconds, giving him a combined time of 1 minute, 9.76 seconds. He was the only one to break 35 seconds on the slow Turin ice – and he did it in both races.
Dmitry Dorofeyev of Russia won the silver in 1:10.41 and Lee Kang Seok of South Korea earned a bronze in 1:10.43.
Figure skating
Tot and Max’s Russian rout made the judges’ jobs easy.
Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin eliminated any chance for controversy and kept their nation’s domination of Olympic pairs going with a balletic free skate reminiscent of the greatest Russian couples.
A Russian or Soviet pair has won the gold medal every year since 1964, and this one was as good as any.
The huge margin – 14.75 points over China’s Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao – also erased thoughts of any judging improprieties in the first Olympic pairs event since the 2002 Salt Lake City scandal that led to the new code of points system.
Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China won their second straight bronze medal.
Cross country skiing
Four suspended cross-country skiers will get their chance at an Olympic medal, passing new tests administered after serving five-day suspensions for elevated levels of hemoglobin.
Two of the athletes cleared were Americans, another a German gold medalist. Now, eight more have to hope they get the same results.
German cross-country skier Evi Sachenbacher and the two Americans – Kikkan Randall and Leif Zimmerman – were among the four who were retested Monday. The identity of the fourth skier was not immediately released.
Biathlon
Russia nearly swept the medals in the women’s 15km individual biathlon after the favored Germans missed crucial shots at the end.
Svetlana Ishmouratova of Russia capitalized on mistakes by all the favorites, winning in a time of 49 minutes, 24.1 seconds. Teammate Olga Pyleva was second.
A strong finish by Germany’s Martina Glagow on the sun-baked San Sicario course bumped Albina Akhatova of Russia to fourth place.
Comments are no longer available on this story