Austria athletes cleared by IOC... for now

Olympic chiefs handed Austria some good news at last yesterday, announcing that initial doping tests on 10 athletes were negative - before vowing that investigations would run well beyond the Turin Winter Games.

The IOC said Italian police were investigating some athletes and had yet to inform officials what equipment they found in accommodation used by the biathlon and cross-country teams during a night raid last week.

The message was clear - the scandal, which has run for almost a week, will just run and run.

Austria had already taken a knock on the slopes. Their women were forced out of the medals by Julia Mancuso, who managed to lift American spirits and salvage the team's reputation that has taken a bashing after the pre-Games hype proved well overblown.

"We want to avoid any kind of image of a witch hunt, but we have reason to follow up a certain number of cases by blood analysis," Arne Ljungqvist, of the IOC medical commission, said.

Austrian officials have become increasingly frustrated with the scandal, which has involved a coach being taken to psychiatric hospital, two athletes fleeing their quarters and the discovery of blood transfusion equipment in the raids.

The scandal has tainted Austria's best ever performance at a Winter Games.

Austria are third in the medals' table, with a total of 19 including eight golds. Germany are first with 24 medals, while the United States has risen up the table with a bonanza day on the slopes and in the ice rink.

When Mancuso, an outsider for the women's giant slalom, opened her curtains in the morning and found the kind of snowy and foggy conditions to make her rivals wish they were still in bed, US Alpine ski fortunes were ready to change at last.

Until yesterday, no US woman Alpine skier had won in Turin. The 21-year-old held on to her first leg lead to pip Finland's first Olympic medallist in the sport, Tanja Poutiainen, with Swede Anna Ottosson in bronze.

The first title of the day went to Katerina Neumannova of the Czech Republic. She clinched the gold medal that had eluded her at five previous Olympic Games when she won the women's cross-country skiing 30-km freestyle.

As she crossed the line, Neumannova raised her arms aloft and screamed with joy before hugging her two-year-old daughter.

Russia finished second in the shape of Julija Tchepalova.

Her silver followed gold in last Saturday's relay and confirms her as one of the most successful women in the history of the sport, with six Olympic medals.

Two nations ended a day of sporting action by winning their most-beloved sporting events. Bob de Jong won the 10,000 metres speedskating for the Netherlands and Canada, home of the largest number of curlers, won the men's curling competition.

Men's ice-hockey SFs: Sweden vs Czech Republic 7-3; Russia vs Finland 0-4.