Jorien ter Mors led a Dutch clean sweep in the women’s 1,500 metres speed skating yesterday as the Netherlands’ medal tally shot up to 17, more than any other nation at the Winter Olympics in Russia.

Norway’s Kjetil Jansrud sped to gold in the men’s super-G alpine skiing and Czech Eva Samkova won the women’s snowboarding cross after yet more tumbles on the testing course where a Russian skier broke her back a day earlier.

On the ninth day of medal competition, Sweden won their second cross-country relay gold when they prevailed in the men’s 4x10km event, ahead of Russia and France.

After pre-Games criticism over human rights and the estimated $50 billion cost of bringing the Olympics to Sochi, Russian Pre-sident Vladimir Putin can so far take satisfaction from an event where Russia has shown a friendly, welcoming face to the rest of the world and the sporting action has yielded plenty of drama.

In the speed skating, Ter Mors clocked an Olympic record of one minute, 53.51 seconds to take gold ahead of team-mates Ireen Wust, the defending champion, and Lotte Van Beek. For good measure, another Dutchwoman, Marrit Leenstra, finished fourth.

It was a third speed skating medal sweep in Sochi for the orange-suited Dutch, after the men completed the feat in the 500m and 5,000m.

The United States’ wait for a first speed skating medal went on.

Heather Richardson and Brittany Bowe finished seventh and 14th in their old skinsuits after the team ditched their Olympic ‘Mach 39’ ones on Saturday in the hope of gaining extra speed.

On the Rosa Khutor piste in the Caucasus mountains, Jansrud secured Norway’s fourth successive Olympic men’s super-G win, while 36-year-old American Bode Miller tied for bronze with Canada’s Jan Hudec to become the oldest ever Alpine skiing medallist.

Miller’s team-mate Andrew Weibrecht captured a surprise silver medal after starting 29th, with all the favourites gone.

“When Andrew came down he scared me. It was a little too exciting,” Jansrud said.

“My legs were like jelly for a second but I knew I had finished very strong.”

Czech snowboarder Samkova, sporting a fake moustache for good luck, avoided the rough and tumble of the pack in the thrilling cross event where racers go head to head down a twisty course full of bumps and jumps, jostling with their rivals to find the best line.

“It’s a lucky moustache. Today it’s in national colours,” she said of her facial adornment in red, white and blue.

Defending champion Maelle Ricker, of Canada, and 2006 silver medallist Lindsey Jacobellis, of the United States, were eliminated in the heats after taking tumbles on the Extreme Park course.

Dominique Maltais, of Canada, claimed silver to add to the bronze she won in Turin eight years ago, while French teenager Chloe Trespeuch was third.

Earlier, two more racers were stretchered off after bad falls – Norway’s Helene Olafsen with knee damage and American Jacqueline Hernandez with concussion, though neither of the injuries was serious.

After 55 of 98 events, the Dutch lead in overall medal totals with 17 – a remarkable achievement for a country of around 16.7 million.

All were for skating and five were golds – equal with Norway and Switzerland, and two behind leaders Germany. Russia, Canada, the United States and Poland were on four golds each.

  Gold Silver Bronze Total
1. Germany 7 3 2 12
2. Netherlands 5 5 7 17
3. Norway 5 3 6 14
4. Switzerland 5 1 1 7
5. Russia 4 7 5 16
6. Canada 4 6 4 14
7. United States 4 4 8 16
8. Poland 4 0 0 4
9. China 3 2 0 5
10. Belarus 3 0 1 4
11. Sweden 2 5 2 9
12. Austria 2 4 1 7
13. France 2 0 4 6
14. Japan 1 3 1 5
15. Czech Rep. 1 2 1 4
16. Slovenia 1 1 3 5
17. Korea 1 1 1 3
18. Britain 1 0 1 2
19. Slovakia 1 0 0 1
20. Italy 0 2 3 5
21. Finland 0 2 0 2
22. Latvia 0 1 2 3
23. Australia 0 1 1 2
24. Croatia 0 1 0 1
25. Kazakhstan 0 0 1 1
25. Ukraine 0 0 1 1

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