Olympic roundup: What Canada did on Day 13
Last Updated: Thursday, February 25, 2010 | 1:59 AM ET
By John Molinaro, CBC Sports
Thirteen proved to be a lucky number for Canada at the Vancouver Olympics.
Day 13 of the Winter Games saw Canadians win four medals (tying a single-day record set four years ago in Turin) while the men's hockey team thrashed Russia to advance to the semifinals.
Canada now has 15 medals at these Games (seven gold, six silver and two bronze) and sits fourth in the overall standings.
Corey Perry scored two goals and Ryan Getzlaf, Dan Boyle, Rick Nash, Brenden Morrow and Shea Weber added singles as Team Canada thumped Russia 7-3 Wednesday night.
The victory marked a remarkable turnabout after all the hand-wringing earlier this week, following a 5-3 loss to the United States in the final game of the preliminary round. Now Canada has a spot in the semifinals where it will play Slovakia on Friday.
"I don't think many people believed me after the U.S. game, when I said that we were getting better," Canadian coach Mike Babcock said after the victory over Russia.
It's hard to imagine the Canadians can play much better than they did against Russia. They jumped all over their opponents immediately after the opening faceoff, grabbed an early lead and never looked back.
The Canadian focus was to control the puck as much as possible in the Russian end. They played a smart, safe game along the boards and did little to allow the skilled Russians to get any flow in their game.
"That was our game plan — to play in their end," said Boyle, who scored a power-play goal and set up Getzlaf for the opening goal, just two minutes and 21 seconds in.
"Those guys are really good when they have the puck on their sticks. So what do you do? You take it away from them and keep it down low in their end. The whole team did a great job," Boyle said.
Another record-breaking day at the Whistler Sliding Centre helped Canada capture its first-ever medals in women's two-man bobsleigh, taking both gold and silver.
Kaillie Humphries of Calgary and Heather Moyse of Summerside, P.E.I., took top spot with a combined four-run time of three minutes 32.28 seconds, including a track record of 52.85 on their third run.
The Canada 2 tandem of Helen Upperton of Calgary and Shelley Ann Brown of Pickering, Ont., was 85-100ths of a second behind Canada 1 for the silver medal.
Also on Wednesday, Canada won its second short-track speedskating medal of the Vancouver Games, with the women's 3,000-metre relay team moving up a spot to take silver after a disqualification at Pacific Coliseum.
The Canadian team is made up of Tania Vicent of Laval, Que., Montreal's Kalyna Roberge, Marianne St-Gelais of Saint-Félicien, Que., and Calgary's Jessica Gregg.
Canada appeared to have settled for bronze in a time of four minutes 9.137 seconds, but South Korea, which came across the line first, was disqualified.
Officials said South Korea was disqualified after Kim Ming-Jung clicked skates with China just after an exchange with five laps to go.
"We knew that the Koreans and the Chinese would be battling really hard in front of us, so obviously we wanted to be right with them and watch what was going on, and try not to get into that trouble, and that's exactly what we did," said Gregg.
"We were right behind them and right on them, but we were able to skate a clean race, so it was really good."
Speedskater Clara Hughes, in her final individual Olympic race, tied teammate Cindy Klassen's all-time record for a Canadian with a sixth career Olympic medal, a bronze in the women's 5,000 metres.
Hughes, now living in Glen Sutton, Que., set a Richmond Oval record with a time of six minutes 55.73 seconds. The Canadian flag-bearer in the opening ceremony now has four Winter Olympic medals (one gold, one silver, two bronze) and two bronze medals from the Atlanta Summer Games in cycling.
The time the Winnipeg-born Hughes set was later surpassed by Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic, the winner, and Stephanie Beckert of Germany.
But that could hardly put a dent in her mood.
"That was awesome," said Hughes, 37. "That was the best I had, that was one of the best races I've ever done and it was the best race I've ever done at the Olympics, including the one I won four years ago.
"I brought great technique into that race, and just was able to finally enjoy skating at this level and feel like I was really moving on the ice, and it was such an amazing feeling."
Ottawa's Kristina Groves, a multiple medallist at these Games, finished sixth in the 5,000 and Klassen, from Winnipeg, came in 12th.
Other Canadian results from Wednesday:
- Alpine skiing, women's giant slalom (The event was stopped after first run due to weather conditions. The race will be completed with second run later this week): Shona Rubens of Canmore, Alta., was 22nd in 1:17.38; Marie-Michele Gagnon, Lac-Etchemin, Que., was 23rd (1:17.41); Marie-Pier Prefontaine of St-Sauveur, Que., was 27th (1:18.01) and Britt Janyk of Whistler, B.C., was 29th (1:18.13).
- Cross-country skiing, men's 4x10K relay: Canada (Devon Kershaw, Alex Harvey, Ivan Babikov, George Grey) finished seventh in 1:47:03.2.
- Short-track speedskating, women's 1,000 metres: Montreal's Kalyna Roberge set a short-lived Olympic record to win her opening heat in one minute 31.033 seconds, with Jessica Gregg of Calgary taking her heat in 1:32.565. Tania Vicent of Laval, Que., also advanced after finishing second in her heat.
- Short-track speedskating, men's 500 metres: Charles Hamelin of Sainte-Julie, Que., won his heat in an Olympic record of 41.463 seconds. Montreal's François-Louis Tremblay then bettered Hamelin's mark in a time of 41.397 to move on, while Olivier Jean of Lachenaie, Que., qualified after a second-place showing.
