Winter Olympics news

Brazilian replaced

Bobsleigh hopefuls Brazil have dropped one of their squad members after he failed a dope test.

Armando dos Santos tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone in January.

Dos Santos, 24, who was to compete in the four-man bobsleigh, will return immediately to Brazil and will be replaced by Claudinei Quirino, who won a silver medal with the Brazilian 4x100m relay team at the Summer Olympics in Sydney in 2000.

Hard lessons

Bone-crunching crashes and falls killed off Olympic dreams yesterday as athletes at the Winter Games learned the unforgiving nature of the Italian slopes and tracks.

The treacherous downhill slope skittled two high-profile skiers in training, 2002 Olympic downhill champion Carole Montillet-Carles of France and US medal hopeful Lindsey Kildow.

And it left a third, Canadian Allison Forsyth, facing a six-month layoff.

In luge, American Samantha Retrosi smashed on her second run and local favourite Anastasia Oberstolz-Antonova needed three stitches on her left elbow after losing control.

Blood-count ban lifted

Germany's Evi Sachenbacher Stehle will be allowed to race in the cross-country team sprint after a five-day suspension ended.

The 2002 relay gold medallist was given a five-day "start prohibition" after the International Ski Federation ruled she could not safely compete due to an abnormally high red blood cell count.

Stehle said she had drunk more water than at any time in her life to bring the levels down.

The federation is retesting eight competitors who were prevented from starting last Thursday and said all those checked so far were now allowed to compete.

Biathlon upset

Russia briefly topped the medal standings when biathlete Svetlana Ishmouratova grabbed a surprise gold in the women's 15km individual, missing just one target at the shooting range.

The Russian army captain, 33, won her first Olympic title with a time of 49m 24.1s while compatriot Olga Pyleva, the 2002 Olympic pursuit champion, came second.

The US then displaced Russia at the top of the medals when Hannah Teter won the women's halfpipe snowboarding gold.

Faultless skating

Joey Cheek of the US outclassed his opponents with two stellar races winning the gold medal in the 500m speedskating event.

World sprint champion Cheek, who was already 0.4s faster after the first race, skated a faultless second race to bring home a second gold in speedskating for the US.

Dmitry Dorofeyev, of Russia, won silver and South Korean Lee Kang-seok took bronze.

Numbers Games

Organisers were happy with the Games so far as ticket sales continued to speed up to total 775,000 - above budget.

After the halfpipe ...

Italy's fashion capital Milan showed it could boast more than Prada and Gucci yesterday by turning out a homebred bagpipe band to accompany Scotland's Olympic curling champion Rhona Martin.

"I just thought it was so unique," said piper Arturo Gasparini, a Milan financial analyst, explaining how a northern Italian was lured to the peculiarly Scottish instrument.

Gasparini helped pipe the British team on to the ice as they began the defence of their 2002 Olympic title against Denmark.

- REUTERS