SOCHI: Switzerland rallied to beat Sweden 4-3 to claim their country’s first ever Olympic women’s hockey bronze with the game winner coming from 15-year-old Alina Muller.

Muller, who is the third youngest hockey player to play in the Winter Olympics, capped the scoring for the Swiss with an empty net goal in the third period on Thursday at the Bolshoi Ice Dome.

Sweden built a 2-0 lead at the end of the second but were outscored 4-1 in third by the Swiss.

Switzerland won a bronze medal in the 2012 world championship, but the Olympic bronze is their first ever in women’s hockey.

After failing to win a medal at the Vancouver Olympics, the country that spawned Nordic combined more than 125 years ago made quite a comeback on Thursday.

Norway won its second gold medal in three days after taking a large hill team event.

That gave the Scandinavian country its fourth medal of the games in three events.

Norwegians Joergen Graabak and Magnus Moan finished one-two in the large hill Tuesday while teammate Magnus Krog took the bronze in the normal hill.

Cross-country ski specialist Moan made up a 25-second deficit on the first leg and Norway outdueled Germany and defending champion Austria in the relay in which each team member skied 5 kilometers. Final-leg skier Graabak outsprinted German rival Fabian Riessle in the last 100 meters to give Norway the victory by three-tenths of a second. Two-time defending champion Austria took the bronze, 3.4 seconds behind

Jean Frederic Chapuis led the first French medals sweep in Winter Olympics history, taking gold in the wild sport of skicross while Arnaud Bovolenta won silver and Jonathan Midol walked away with bronze.

Britain won the bronze medal in women’s curling by beating Switzerland 6-5.—Agencies

Winter Olympics medals table on Thursday (after three of six gold medal events):

Gold    Silver  Bronze  Total

Norway 9 4 7 20 Germany 8 3 4 15 United States 7 5 11 23 Russia 6 9 7 22 Netherlands 6 7 9 22 Switzerland 6 3 1 10 Canada 5 9 4 18 Belarus 5 0 1 6 France 4 3 7 14 Poland 4 0 0 4 China 3 2 1 6 Austria 2 6 1 9 Sweden 2 5 4 11 Czech Republic 2 4 2 8 Slovenia 2 1 4 7 South Korea 2 1 1 4 Japan 1 4 2 7 Finland 1 3 0 4 Great Britain 1 0 2 3 Slovakia 1 0 0 1 Italy 0 2 5 7 Australia 0 2 1 3 Latvia 0 1 2 3 Croatia 0 1 0 1 Kazakhstan 0 0 1 1 Ukraine 0 0 1 1