Dazzling Dasha storms to third gold as fog plays havoc

ROSA KHUTOR, Russia: Darya Domracheva’s dazzling Sochi Games continued on Monday when she took gold in the 12.5km mass start to become the first woman to win three biathlon titles at the same Winter Olympics.
The Belarusian, who also won the 12.5km pursuit and 15km individual titles, took the lead early and never looked back, making only one mistake on the shooting range and skiing way too fast for the opposition to catch up.
Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic took silver 20.2 seconds behind after she also made a mistake on the range.
“I am thankful to the people who support me. Without their support it’d be harder,” Domracheva told a news conference.
“I was hearing ‘Dasha, Dasha’ from the tribune.
“Russian family, Belarusian family. All these nations, Russians, Belarusians, we are like brothers and sisters. For me, I feel this country is really native for me,” she added.
“Maybe it sounds strange but it does not feel like I did something special. I did it with love.” Domracheva’s dominance meant her rivals were racing for silver.
“I thought she was going to win today, she was so strong in the last races I did not believe somebody could be faster than her,” said Soukalova, whose mother Gabriela Svobodova won silver at the Sarajevo Games in 1984 as a cross-country skier.
“I didn’t race against her today, I thought it would be better to race with just myself.” Norwegian Tiril Eckhoff won the bronze, 27.3 seconds off the pace, after outsprinting German Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle in the final straight.
“She skies like a dancer,” Eckhoff said of Domracheva.
The champion liked the comparison.
“To be honest I really like to dance, it’s my second favorite occupation,” Domracheva said with a smile.
Several athletes, including Norway’s Tora Berger, crashed on extremely soft snow following a day of fog and light drizzle.
Thick fog shrouding the played havoc with Olympic schedules as Meryl Davis and Charlie White targeted the first ever ice dance gold for the United States.
Warm temperatures at the Games have failed to disrupt the sporting action but thick cloud cover in the mountains at Rosa Khutor meant the men’s biathlon 15km mass start and men’s snowboard cross could not go ahead as planned.
The biathlon event, originally slated for Sunday, was pushed back again to 2:30 p.m. (1030 GMT) on Tuesday, meaning Norwegian star Ole Einar Bjoerndalen will have to wait even longer for his bid for a record 13th Winter Olympics medal.
The men’s snowboard cross competition was also rescheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday with a shortened format.
German competitor Konstantin Schad said the snowboard cross course was unrideable.
“We were inspecting the course today in the morning, but I couldn’t see more than 10 meters ahead. We were not allowed to test the course, so we were just sliding along it. As it didn’t freeze last night, it would just wear out the course more,” he said.
“I guess the maximum speed we reach is 80km/h (50 miles per hour). There is no way to compete in fog — it’s much too dangerous.” One competition that is not threatened by the weather is the ice dance event at the Iceberg Skating Palace on the Black Sea coast.
US pair Davis and White, who set a new world record score of 78.89 points in the short dance on Sunday with a performance to “My Fair Lady,” are firm favorites to add gold to their two world titles.
But they must see off the challenge of reigning Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada, who trail them by 2.56 points going into Monday’s free dance.
It is the latest round in an ongoing rivalry on the ice going back to junior days between the two couples, who train together in Detroit.
“Excellent is a word to describe it. I felt like I was in a dream. Everything is coming together,” said Davis, referring to the couple’s performance on Sunday.
The ski jumping tournament will come to an end later Monday with the team competition.
Poland’s Kamil Stoch, who won the normal and large hill individual events, will attempt to become just the second jumper in history to complete the golden sweep of all three competitions.
Russia’s Alexander Zubkov and Alexey Voevoda earned their country’s fifth gold medal of the Sochi Olympics by winning the two-man bobsleigh.
Zubkov, the 2011 world champion and Vancouver bronze medallist in 2010, produced two more consistent races to clock a combined time of 3min 45.39sec to finish 0.66sec ahead of Swiss crew, Beat Hefti and Alex Baumann.
America’s Steve Holcomb and Steve Langton took bronze but Jamaica’s Winston Watts and Marvin Dixon failed to make it into the top 20 and went out after the third run.
Later Monday, the men’s freestyle aerials will have a new champion after Vancouver winner, Alexei Grishin was knocked out in qualifying.
In women’s ice hockey, the United States routed Sweden 6-1 to reach the final where they will face either Canada or Switzerland.