Swiss gold shines bright in snowboard hat-trick

FAVOURITE Daniela Meuli completed a Swiss hat-trick of snowboard gold medals with victory in the women’s parallel giant-slalom.

The reigning world champion stormed to victory to add to Tanja Frieden’s success in the snowboard cross and Philipp Schoch’s win - over his brother - in the men’s parallel giant-slalom on Wednesday.

Germany’s Amelie Kober took a surprise silver medal ahead of American Rosey Fletcher.

Anette Norberg added the Olympic title to her World and European crowns as Sweden defeated Switzerland 7-6 in the women’s curling gold medal match.

It was a bitter disappointment for Swiss skip Mirjam Ott who lost to Britain’s Rhona Martin in the Salt Lake City final four years ago and to Norberg in December’s European Championship final.

Japan’s Shizuka Arakawa skated an almost flawless free programme to Puccini’s Turandot to thrill a sold-out Palavela and deny favourites Sasha Cohen and Irina Slutskaya their shots at Olympic gold.

Arakawa earned a standing ovation for her mesmerising performance as she overhauled a deficit of less than a point after the short programme to move from third to first place and be crowned champion.

Cohen, the American favourite who held a slender 0.03 points lead over Russian Slutskaya going into the free programme, touched down on each of her first two jumps to drop to silver.

And Slutskaya also made a costly mistake midway through her programme to fall and miss her chance of sealing a fairytale comeback gold three years after being diagnosed with a serious heart condition.

In the Biathlon, the Russian quartet of Anna Bogaliy, Svetlana Ishmouratova, Olga Zaitseva and Albina Akhatova missed just two of their 40 shots as they romped to a 50 second victory in the women’s 4x6km relay.

In Freestyle Skiing, Xiaopeng Han won China’s first Winter Olympic gold medal outside short track speed skating with a narrow victory in the men’s aerials.