Plushenko skates to gold; Weir falters

TURIN, Italy -- Almost all Evgeni Plushenko had to do was stay on his feet.

That's more than his rivals could manage.

The three-time world champion took few chances, yet still earned another personal best Thursday night to grab the fifth straight Olympic title for a Russian/Soviet man.

He pretty much owned it when he showed up in Turin, and the rest of the field couldn't come close to measuring up.

"It was my dream when I was 4," he said. "I saw a competition and said to my mum, 'I have to be there.' I said that I wanted to be an Olympic champion. Now I have all the titles and I am really very happy," he said.

Plushenko said he plans to stick around for the 2010 Games -- "I'll be only 27. It's a good age for a skater".

That can't make the others happy, especially after they crashed and burned in the free skate.

"There are years between Plushenko and everybody else," said U.S. champion Johnny Weir, who plunged from second after the short program to fifth overall.

World champion Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland won silver and Jeff Buttle of Canada got bronze, although both struggled.

Weir, who skated a cautious program filled with errors, stormed out of the rink when his mediocre marks were shown.

"I missed the bus. They changed the schedule," Weir said. "It was every 10 minutes. Today it was every half-hour. I was late getting here and never caught up. I never felt comfortable in this building. I didn't feel my inner peace. I didn't feel my aura. Inside I was black."

Plushenko had no such dark moments, although he skated slowly and without any sign of emotion. He still was far too good for the rest of the field, finishing with a score of 167.67 points in the free skate and 258.33 overall -- an incredible 27.12 points in front of Lambiel.

All of his main rivals skated after him in the final group and, one by one, they fell short. He opened with a quadruple toe loop-triple toe-double loop combination, followed with a triple axel-double toe.

It was over right there.

Plushenko crossed himself twice at the end, then got a big hug and kiss on the cheek from longtime coach Alexei Mishin. Plushenko also kissed his wedding ring while awaiting his marks -- appropriate for someone who skated to "The Godfather."

Plushenko even stuck around to watch Lambiel and Weir. The Russian had nothing to worry about, easily adding gold to the silver he won four years ago in Salt Lake City.

Plushenko's program wasn't nearly as memorable as those that produced gold for Victor Petrenko, Alexei Urmanov, Ilia Kulik and Alexei Yagudin in the Russian/Soviet streak. But it gave his country both figure skating gold medals so far -- Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin won the pairs -- and Russia is favored in women and dance.

No country has swept the golds at an Olympics.

Lambiel and Buttle were more medals survivors than anything, and Weir was particularly uninspired.

"I was off, it was an off night," said the 21-year-old Weir. "But I will be back in four years, hopefully for a medal."

U.S.'s Wescott wins gold

American Seth Wescott used a sweet little slide move to nudge into first place and become the first Olympic champion in the wild sport of snowboardcross.

Some said snowboardcross resembled NASCAR on icy snow, with four riders at a time vying for space, pushing and shoving through the tight corners on the 3,100 foot-long course. But not even NASCAR would allow some of the things that happened over these 90-minutes of side-by-side racing.

Wescott won by being able to stay out of any messes over his four trips down the slope. In the final heat, he took the lead over silver medalist Radoslav Zidek of Slovakia with a deft passing move in the middle of the course and led the rest of the way, barely beating Zidek past the finish line.

Paul-Henri Delerue of France took bronze.

Italian skaters win gold

Italy sent the home crowd into a frenzy at the speedskating oval by winning the first gold medal in men's team pursuit, defeating Canada in the final after upsetting the United States and the Netherlands.

The Dutch came back to claim a bronze with a win over Norway in the third-place race.

The Italians caught a break against the favored Dutch when 5,000-meter silver medalist Sven Kramer crashed on a turn and took out Carl Verheijen as well with three of the eight laps remaining in the semifinal race.

On Wednesday, Italy defeated the United States in the quarterfinals, denying Chad Hedrick a chance to equal Eric Heiden's record of five gold medals.

German women win

The powerful German team, led by Anni Friesinger and Claudia Pechstein, lived up to its role as favorite and beat Canada to win the women's team pursuit.

Russia took bronze.

Friesinger and Pechstein were joined on the winning team by Daniela Anschuetz Thoms.

Smigun wins second gold

Estonia's Kristina Smigun watched World Cup leader Marit Bjorgen collapse across the finish line, glanced at the time, then raised her arms and screamed for joy in celebration of her second Olympic gold medal of these games.

Smigun took the lead by the 7km mark in the interval-start women's 10km classical cross-country race, earning her second individual gold in as many events. She won the 15km pursuit Sunday.

She finished in 27 minutes, 51.4 seconds, a commanding 21.3 seconds ahead of silver medalist Bjorgen of Norway. Hilde Pedersen of Norway took the bronze. Pedersen, 41, became the oldest woman to win a medal at an Olympic Winter Games.