VANCOUVER — The Austrian ski jumping team says Swiss gold medalist Simon Ammann has improper bindings, and it wants him to use different ones for the large-hill competition today.
Ammann won the normal-hill event, beating Austrian favorite Gregor Schlierenzauer.
The Austrian delegation asked the International Ski Federation on Thursday to review Ammann’s bindings. The Austrians are not challenging the normal-hill result, but will lodge a protest if Ammann uses the same gear for the large hill.
Swiss team head Gary Furrer says Ammann will not change his bindings.
Crosby lifts Canada in shootout.
Across Canada, there was a single response: Whew.
Sidney Crosby scored the only goal of a shootout in which an entire nation of nervous Canadians hung on every shot, giving Canada a 3-2 victory over Switzerland.
“It’s probably not a bad thing for us to go through that kind of desperation and tight hockey like that, because it’s not going to get any easier as we move on here,” Crosby said.
Help wanted.
Attention, everyone watching curling and thinking, “I can do that!” The U.S. team might need you. Americans remained 0-for-Vancouver following a 7-6 loss by the men to Denmark. At 0-4, the team is on the brink of elimination. The women are 0-3 after also falling to Denmark by the same score.
More practice time
WHISTLER — Olympic competitors in four-man and women’s bobsledding are being given the option of taking supplementary training runs from a lower start on the difficult Whistler Sliding Centre track.
At least 11 two-man bobsleds have spilled in the first two days of training, including a legitimate gold medal favorite possibly knocked out of the competition. Swiss athlete Beat Hefti, missed training with a headache after crashing Wednesday
• Werner Hoeger, an Olympic luge athlete injured in a crash at the track in November, warned Canadian officials about safety hazards months before a competitor was killed last week.
Footnotes.
America’s best biathlete, Tim Burke of Paul Smiths, N.Y., missed five targets and finished five minutes back in 41st place in what he figured was his last shot at an Olympic medal in Vancouver.
• Norway’s Emil Hegle Svend-sen denied countryman Ole Einar Bjoerndalen his sixth Olympic gold, beating his mentor in the men’s 20-kilometer individual biathlon race.
• Christine Nesbitt turned it on during the final lap of the women’s 1,000 meters, erasing a deficit of more than a half-second to claim Canada’s first gold at the speedskating oval. American Jennifer Rodriguez dropped to seventh (1:17.08).
• Japan’s Nozomi Komuro has been disqualified from the skeleton because her sled lacked “the requested . . . control sticker” mandated by the sports international federation.
