OLYMPIC CAPSULES

OLYMPIC CAPSULES
Friday's events
SKELETON
Duff Gibson of Canada blazed to a gold medal in skeleton and teammate Jeff Pain slid to silver. Gregor Staehli of Switzerland won the bronze. The 39-year-old Gibson is the oldest individual gold medalist in Winter Olympics history. The troubled U.S. team, which came into the games red-faced thanks to a pile of pre-Turin embarrassment, is leaving with zero medals after winning three at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002. The U.S. lost its coach to a sexual harassment scandal, qualified only one woman and had its top slider go down for using a hair-restoration product on the banned substances list. Then, American sliders Eric Bernotas (6th), Kevin Ellis (17th) and Chris Soule (25th) were non-factors in the 27-man field.
FIGURE SKATING
This was exactly why Italy's favorite ice dancers came out of retirement. Barbara Fusar Poli and Maurizio Margaglio, back after three years off, wowed the crowd and the judges in the Olympic compulsory dance. With Italian flags waving throughout the packed arena, the 2002 bronze medalists waltzed their way back to the top -- at least for now. Their performance outdistanced American medal hopefuls Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, who were a surprisingly low sixth heading into Sunday's original dance. The free dance is Monday night. Belbin and Agosto were just 1.42 points out of first place, hardly insurmountable at this point.
ALPINE SKIING
Defending champion Janica Kostelic, who missed the downhill because of illness, positioned herself for a gold medal showdown with rival Anja Paerson in the Olympic Alpine combined event -- only to say she might be too sick to start Saturday's downhill portion. American Lindsey Kildow endured another painful fall, though this time she was able to walk away. Skiing on a flood-lit slope, Kostelic had the second-fastest time over two runs. Paerson, the two-time defending World Cup champion from Sweden, was fourth. The combined includes two parts: Two evening slalom legs and one downhill run. In the downhill, Kostelic and Paerson are far better than the current leader, slalom specialist Marlies Schild of Austria, who finished at 1:21.22. Kostelic was .46 seconds behind Schild, Paerson .84 back.
CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING
Andrus Veerpalu defended his Olympic 15km classical title to give Estonia its third gold medal of the Turin Games -- all in cross-country. Veerpalu finished in 38 minutes, 1.3 seconds to beat silver medalist Lukas Bauer of the Czech Republic by 14.5 seconds. Germany's Tobias Angerer won his first individual Olympic medal by taking the bronze, 19.2 seconds back in a race skied in fresh snow. Veerpalu's countrywoman Kristina Smigun has won two golds at these games.
CURLING
Men
United States 7, Switzerland 3
Switzerland 8, Germany 5
Norway 11, Italy 3
Italy 6, New Zealand 5
Finland 8, Canada 7
Finland 11, Sweden 4
Britain 8, Sweden 2
The U.S. men are rolling in the first round of the Olympics. The Americans (4-2) beat Switzerland (3-3) and moved into a second-place tie in the curling round-robin tournament. Canada and Finland are also 4-2. Britain (5-1) took sole possession of first place with a win over Sweden (3-4).
Italy and Norway are 3-3, and Germany is 1-4. New Zealand (0-6) remained winless.
Women
Russia 8, United States 7
Norway 9, Italy 7
Canada 9, Britain 3
Sweden 9, Switzerland 7
The U.S. women's curling team lost in extra ends to Russia, ending any real chance of reaching the medal round. In other games, Sweden (5-1) beat Switzerland (4-2) and Canada (4-2) beat Britain (3-2) in nine ends. Norway (4-2) beat Italy (1-4) in 11 ends, or innings. Denmark (2-3) and Japan (1-3) were idle. The Americans (1-5) fell behind 6-2, but rallied. Down 7-4 in the ninth, Cassie Johnson cleared out the house to retain the hammer for the 10th and final end of regulation. And when the Russians (2-3) couldn't knock an American rock out of the scoring zone with their last throw, Johnson just needed to knock one yellow stone away and leave hers on target to get the three points needed to force an extra end. With the 73-minute game clock down to just 8 seconds, she converted the shot and went to overtime.
Associated Press