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Olympics Day 7


At the Olympics, the huge controversy in pairs figure skating resulted in the awarding of a second gold medal, while the host United States has reached its highest medal total at any Winter Games.

Canadian pairs figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier finally have the Olympic gold medal that so many feel they deserved. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge announced the International Skating Union agreed a second gold medal would be awarded in the event after a judging controversy Monday night.

A French judge who had told an interviewer she had been pressured into voting for the Russian winners, Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, has been suspended. Hers had been the swing vote in the 5-4 decision. The Russians will keep their gold medal, so there are joint champions.

The U.S. Olympic team won three medals Friday, taking its total to 14. That is more than at any other Winter Games, and it was achieved before the halfway point here. The goal of 20 medals appears like it will be reached, with Americans favored to crack the top three in a number of remaining events.

The USA won silver and bronze medals in doubles luge, behind the winning German pair, and a bronze in men's Parallel Giant slalom snowboarding, with Chris Klug finishing third.

Luge bronze medalist Chris Thorpe, a silver medalist at the last Olympics, said the pro-American crowd was amazing. "In 17 years of sliding I've never felt that much emotion or stimulus on the sled," he said. "It was incredible. Just bombing through the bottom half of the course I felt like we could barely hold it together. I felt we were going to break apart into pieces. So it was pretty intense, but we came through and it feels real good."

The two gold medals in Parallel Giant slalom snowboarding went to Philipp Schoch of Switzerland for the men and Frenchwoman Isabelle Blanc.

Russian skier Olga Danilova beat compatriot Larissa Lazutina by 6.9 seconds to win the women's 10-kilometer cross country pursuit race. Canada's Beckie Scott was third, which was the first Olympic Winter games medal in cross-country skiing by a North American woman.

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