SPEED SKATING

KLASSEN WINS FOURTH MEDAL OF TURIN GAMES Canada’s Cindy Klassen added a gold medal to the bronze and two silvers she’s already earned at the Olympics, winning the women’s 1,500-meter speedskating with a dominant performance ahead of teammate Kristina Groves.

Ireen Wust of the Netherlands, gold medalist in the 3,000 meters, took bronze, knocking favorite Anni Friesinger out of the medals.

Skating in the same pairing with Friesinger, Klassen took control after the first of 3 3/4 laps and finished in 1 minute, 55.27 seconds. Groves was 1.47 seconds behind. Wust, skating in the final pair, never got close to her second gold, finishing with a time of 1:56.90.

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING

CRAWFORD SECURES CANADA’S FIRST CROSS-COUNTRY medal Chandra Crawford upstaged two of her better-known countrywomen and pulled off an upset in the women’s 1.1km sprint, skating across the finish for Canada’s first crosscountry gold medal of the Turin Games. Crawford, with tiny pigtails peeking out of her hat and a huge smile on her face, is hardly her country’s biggest star – previously staying out of the spotlight behind Beckie Scott and Sara Renner, silver medalists in the team sprint last Tuesday.

The 22-year-old Crawford edged silver medalist Claudia Kuenzel of Germany, while Russia’s Alena Sidko took the bronze. Scott was fourth in the four-skier final. Kuenzel took the lead on the first climb and overtook Crawford, who quickly regained control. Scott was fastest of the 66 skiers from the qualifying round.

LIND FLIES TO GOLD IN SPRINT Bjoern Lind of Sweden easily skied to an Olympic gold medal in the men’s 1.3km cross-country sprint race, taking advantage of rival Tor Arne Hetland’s fall in the semifinals.

Lind finished in 2 minutes, 26.5 seconds to beat silver medalist Roddy Darragon of France, who was six-tenths of a second behind. Lind’s countryman,Thobias Fredriksson, took the bronze.

American Andy Newell placed second in the 80-man field in morning qualifying and U.S. teammate Chris Cook also advanced to the quarterfinals. Newell placed fourth in his quarterfinal heat and didn’t move on – the top two from each quarterfinal advanced to the semifinals.

CURLING

AMERICANS FALL TO CANADA, WILL PLAY FOR BRONZE Pete Fenson couldn’t lead the United States to the Olympic gold medal game, losing 11-5 to Canada in the curling semifinals. Now the U.S. skip could leave Italy with a bronze – or nothing more than some new pizza recipes.

Canada clinched at least a silver medal and forced the Americans to play in the consolation game for third place. That would be the first Olympic curling medal – men’s or women’s – for the United States.

Canada (7-3) wrapped it up with a whopping five points in the ninth end – one short of the Olympic record – when the Americans (6-4), forced to play from behind, had to take chances.The U.S. players quickly conceded the match.

Canada will play for the gold on Friday night against Finland (8-2), which used the big last-rock advantage called the hammer to score on the game’s final throw to beat the British 4-3.

SWEDISH WOMEN DOWN NORWAY IN SEMIFINALS Anette Norberg’s takeout on the final shot of the game lifted Sweden over Norway 5-4 in the semifinals of the Olympic curling tournament. The Swedes advanced to the gold medal match against Switzerland, a 7-5 winner over Canada.

FREESTYLE SKIING

LEU SNAGS GOLD IN OLYPMIC FAREWELL Evelyne Leu of Switzerland beat her Chinese rival to win the gold medal in Olympic aerials, adding the last missing piece to an already stellar career. Leu, whose last appearance at the Olympics was marked by a world-record performance in qualifying but a bust in finals, saved her best stuff for the right night at the Turin Games. She landed a triple backflip with three twists on her second of two jumps and earned a score of 107.93 that put her in the lead with four jumpers left.The rest of the field couldn’t catch her. Not defending Olympic champion Alisa Camplin of Australia, who finished third. Not Leu’s rival, Li Nina of China, who finished second. And not Guo Xinxin of China, who led after the first jump, but finished with a face-plant and fell to sixth.

There were no Americans in the finals. Neither Emily Cook nor Jana Lindsey made the top 12 in qualifying the night before.

SNOWBOARD

SWISS BROTHERS DOMINATE PARALLEL SLALOM The first family of snowboarding’s parallel giant slalom wrapped up a second consecutive Olympic gold medal before the final head-to-head duel had even begun. It was only a matter of which Schoch would take the title this time, and defending Olympic champion Philipp Schoch pulled it out for Switzerland, defeating older brother Simon.

Simon Schoch, 27, has been the stronger racer this season, but slid wide on a gate in the first run against his 26-year-old brother, leaving him with a .88-second deficit he could not make up on the second and final run.

This was the first Olympic medal for Simon, who did not make the podium in 2002. Meanwhile, Philipp became the first ever two-time gold medal winner in Olympic snowboarding, now in its third Winter Games.

Austrian Siegfried Grabner took bronze easily after Frenchman Mathieu Bozzetto fell in the first run of their head-to-head battle for the final spot on the podium. Tyler Jewell, the only American in the event, made the finals by finishing ninth in morning qualifying, but lost to Slovenian Dejan Kosir in the first round of heat races. Kosir went on to finish eighth.

SHORT TRACK SPEEDSKATING

KOREANS TAKE RELAY GOLD South Korea took another gold at the short track, capturing the women’s 3,000-meter relay last night. The team of Byun Chun-sa, Choi Eun-kyung, Jeon Da-hye and Jin Sun-yu won their country’s fourth short track gold medal of the Turin Games. Canada took the silver.

– Associated Press