China wins curling bronze

Reigning world champions China won the bronze medal in the women's curling competition, beating Switzerland 12-6 at the Vancouver Olympic Centre.

China, skipped by Wang Bingyu, wrapped up victory in the eighth end when the Swiss conceded the match.

China, beaten by defending Olympic champions Sweden, led 3-0 after the opening end and 5-1 after the third. The Swiss scored three points in the fourth to pull back to 5-4 and two from the sixth end to square the match at 6-6.

But the Chinese regained the initiative in the seventh end to lead 8-6 and then settled the match in the eighth when four scoring stones gave them an unassailable lead.

Maria Riesch was not placing much stock in the 0.4-second advantage over Zahrboska that she will take into the second run.

"The piste is okay but it will be tough to keep my lead," Riesch said. "In Are, Sweden, I have been in front with six 10ths of a second and I lost it."

Vonn, meanwhile, did not appear too perturbed by her early exit from the slalom.

"I have the gold medal I came here for and I could not be happier," the American said. "I was contemplating stopping after my crash in the Giant Slalom but that is just not who I am.

"I have that gold medal and despite everyone else's expectations my goal was to win one gold medal and that is what I did.

"It was a long shot today to do well with me breaking my finger. I just feel tired. In the slalom, it has just been a struggle for me all year."

USA's men brushed Finland aside with ease to book their spot in Sunday's men's ice hockey final, beating them 6-1 at Canada Hockey Place.

Ryan Malone fired the USA ahead two minutes and four seconds into the first period and never looked back.

Zach Parise, Erik Johnson, Patrick Kane (2) and Paul Stastny made it 6-0 by the end of the first period.

Antti Miettinen claimed a consolation goal for the Finns in the third period but the USA march on to a meeting with the winners of the second semi-final between Slovakia and gold medal favourites Canada, who suffered a shock preliminary round defeat against the Americans.

Norway's eighth gold of the Games came in biathlon's men's 4x7.5km relay at Whistler Olympic Park.

The Norwegian quartet of Halvard Hanevold, Emil Hegle Svendsen, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen and Tarjei Boe posted a winning time of one hour 21 minutes and 38.1 seconds.

Silver went to Austria with Russian claiming the bronze.

In the Ladies parellel giant slalom on Cypress Mountain gold went to Holland's Nicolien Sauerbreij, who beat Russian Ekaterina Ilyukhina by 0.02 seconds in the big final.

Ilyukhina took the silver while the bronze went to Austrian Marion Kreiner, who won the small final against Germany's Salina Joerg.

The USA struck gold and silver through Bill Demong and Johnny Spillane respectively in the Nordic combined individual event.

The bronze medal went to Austrian Bernhard Gruber, who led after the ski jumping phase but was overhauled by the American pair on the 10km cross country run.