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VANCOUVER2010

Swedes strike gold in cross country relay

Sweden claimed the 4x10 kilometres cross country relay gold on Wednesday, for a record fifth time. Norway settled for silver with the Czechs taking the bronze.

Swedes strike gold in cross country relay

Marcus Hellner led the Swedish quartet to a grandstand finish in 1hour 45 minutes

05.4 seconds, a 15.9 seconds margin over Petter Northug’s Norwegians that gave him enough time to unfurl a Sweden flag and wave it as he crossed the line.

Northug had led the Norwegians to a stunning final leg sprint win on Monday despite the absence of reigning world champion Ola Vigen Hattestad.

But he was unable to spark a repeat on Wednesday as Daniel Richardsson, Johan Olsson, Anders Södergren and Hellner triumphed.

Olsson said beating the Norwegians – who have been piling up medals in nordic as well as alpine events at these Games – made the win doubly sweet.

“We hoped that we could get away from Norway, that was our biggest goal today,” Olsson said.

“It’s a dream for all of us and I don’t think we will really realise how amazing this is until we are back in Sweden to see it.”

The Norwegian quartet of Martin Johnsrud, Odd-Björn Hjelmeset, Lars Berger and Northug settled for second with the Czechs of Martin Jaks, Lukas Bauer, Jiri Magal and Martin Koukal completing the podium at 16.5 seconds.

“We have had a fantastic Olympics and of course we’ve been really well prepared for this, and that’s the main reason we’ve been so successful,” added Olsson.

Northug said he essentially ran out of juice.

“I was pretty tired there at the end at the top of the hill. I tried to stay back and keep the team slowed down and then use my power at the end,” he revealed after coming just short.

The Norwegians won the title in 1998 and 2002 before Italy won on home snow four years ago.

A French quartet led by Vincent Vittoz in his final Games just missed bronze by an agonising four seconds alongside Jean-Marc Gaillard, Maurice Manificat and Emmanuel Jonnier.

In a storming opening leg Gaillard had looked as if he might push the French at least into the medals as the Italians and the Russians struggled to keep pace.

Manificat kept up the good work in the third leg before Hellner produced a blistering final Swedish leg with Northug also pushing hard.

As France came in fourth for the second straight Olympics, Finland took fifth ahead of a disappointing Germany.

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CURLING

Swedes claim Paralympic curling bronze

The Swedish curling team has claimed the bronze at the Paralympics overcoming the USA 7-5 in Vancouver on Saturday. The host nation, Canada won the gold after beating the Koreans 8-7.

Swedes claim Paralympic curling bronze

Sweden played without an alternate, after officials suspended Glenn Ikonen on Friday after a random drug test detected a beta blocker in his body.

The drug is used to control high blood pressure and Ikonen, who said it was prescribed by his doctor in Sweden, told reporters he had not intentionally taken a drug on the banned list.

Canadian wheelchair curling skip Jim Armstrong led his team to a gold medal win Saturday in the final match of the Paralympic Winter Games, narrowly beating Korea 8-7.

The Canadians reached their final score midway through the game in the fourth end. Tension rose in the Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre as the Korean team, skipped by Kim Haksung, edged a little bit closer with each end of the nail-biting match.

But in the eighth and final end, a rock thrown by Armstrong careened down the sheet of ice to smash one of two Korean rocks out of the rings, averting a possible tie and securing the gold for host Canada in front of a crowd of more than 5,000.

“It’s tremendous and overwhelming,” Armstrong said. “This game really showed that the best part of wheelchair curling is that no lead is safe.”

The Vancouver event was the second time wheelchair curling was included in the Paralympics.

The 10 countries participating were Canada, the US, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

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