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SALT LAKE CITY, Feb 20: Derek Parra highlighted a day of American celebrations at the Winter Games on Tuesday with a startling burst of sustained speed to win the men’s 1,500 speedskating gold medal in world record time.
The compact Californian reduced the world record to one minute 43.95 seconds after Dutchman Jochem Uytdehaage had become the first man to break 1:45 with a short-lived mark of 1:44.57.
There was further excitement at Park City where Jill Bakken drove the United States to their first Olympic bobsleigh title for 54 years in the debut event for women.
The day ended with the women’s figure skating free programme and first place to American world champion Michelle Kwan ahead of Russian Irina Slutskaya.
The only disappointment for the United States came in the men’s freestyle aerials where Eric Bergoust came to earth with a crash.
Bergoust had no option but to go for broke at Deer Valley after Czech Ales Valenta successfully executed the first triple back flip with five twists in the history of the Games.
As the crowd celebrated prematurely, Bergoiust essayed a quadruple twisting triple back flip which went horribly wrong as he crashed on landing.
Parra, a surprise silver medallist last Saturday in the 5,000 after briefly holding the world record, produced something special on Tuesday.
Leaning low over the ice and hugging the corners he was an astounding 1.40 seconds under Uytdehaage’s mark with 400 metres to go and although he inevitably slowed over the final lap, the gold medal was already secure.
Similar sentiments were expressed by Vonetta Flowers after she had combined with Bakken to win the bob.
The pair set the fastest time over both runs in US II to take the gold ahead of Germany.
Flowers, the first black woman to win a gold medal in the history of the Games, said she hoped her performance would prove inspirational.
The cross-country track at Soldiers Hollow featured sprint races over 1.5 km for the first time.
Norway’s Tor Arne Hetland — the reigning world champion — pipped Germany’s Peter Schlickenrieder by just 0.1 seconds to win the men’s gold, while Russian Yulia Chepalova won the first women’s title by leading the final from start to finish.
Medals table at the end of the twelfth day of competition at the Winter Olympics Tuesday:
G S B T
Germany 8 10 6 24
Norway 8 6 0 14
U.S. 4 8 7 19
Russia 4 5 3 12
France 3 3 1 7
Italy 3 2 3 8
Finland 3 2 1 6
Switzerland 3 1 2 6
Netherlands 2 2 0 4
Canada 2 1 4 7
Australia 2 0 0 2
Spain 2 0 0 2
Austria 1 3 9 13
Croatia 1 1 0 2
South Korea 1 1 0 2
China 1 0 2 3
Czech Republic 1 0 1 2
Estonia 1 0 1 2
Bulgaria 0 1 2 3
Sweden 0 1 2 3
Japan 0 1 1 2
Poland 0 1 1 2
Belarus 0 0 1 1
Slovenia 0 0 1 1
—Reuters
