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Sochi 2014

Winter Olympic Village: Day 11

Imagine tearing your ACL and winning Olympic gold two months later…

Pic of the Day

Sochi Olympics Freestyle Skiing Men New Zealand's Beau-James Wells gets air during the men's ski halfpipe final. Sergei Grits Sergei Grits

Talking points

Pussy Riot: The day’s big controversy came away from the action as two members of the punk protest group Pussy Riot said they had been detained by police in Sochi. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were questioned in connection with a theft at their hotel and later released.

A-Maze-ing: Slovenia’s Tina Maze won her second gold of the Sochi Games in the women’s Giant Slalom. Ireland’s Florence Bell did not finish after she struggled with the difficult conditions and missed a gate during her first run.

Sochi Olympics Alpine Skiing Women Gero Breloer Gero Breloer

Dutch dominance: How did the Dutch get to be so good at speed skating? Jorrit Bergsma led another podium sweep in the men’s 10,000m, taking the Netherlands’ total to 19 of the 27 medals — including six of the nine golds.

Ice hockey: Russia booked their place in the men’s quarter-finals with a 4-0 win against Norway in today’s playoff. They face Finland tomorrow. The other quarter-finals see Sweden face Slovenia, Canada take on Latvia and the United States play the Czech Republic.

Curling: Team GB’s men joined the women in the curling semi-finals. They beat Norway with the final stone of their playoff and now meet Sweden tomorrow (3pm GMT). Before that, the British women’s team play Canada at 10am GMT.

Sochi Olympics Ice Hockey Women Yekaterina Smolina of Russia falls during today's game against Finland. Petr David Josek Petr David Josek

You gotta see this

How close was the men’s 15km mass start biathlon? This close.

Only the breadth of a ski separated gold medallist Emil Hegle Svendsen from Martin Fourcade in second place. The race very nearly ended in disaster for Svendsen who raised his arms to celebrate a split second before the line and was almost caught by Fourcade’s despairing lunge.

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Hero of the day

Pierre Vaultier. Two months after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament, he won snowboard cross gold for France.

They said what?

I do think she’s wonderful, but she’s a little girl. Should we call it the little girl Olympics or is it the Olympic ladies’ champion?

– US figure skating coach Frank Carroll has a pop at Russia’s 15-year-old star Julia Lipnitskaya ahead of the women’s short program.

Sochi Olympics Figure Skating Lipnitskaya: became Russia's darling after her performance in the team competition. Bernat Armangue Bernat Armangue

Absolutely no doubt that @KatieEberling would have done better for USA3. Hope the marketing dollars were worth it.

Chuck Berkeley didn’t have much sympathy for US teammate Lolo Jones who finished the first two women’s bobsled heats 11th out of 19 with team-mate Jazmine Fenlator.

Medal table

screenshot.1392755351.35924 www.sochi2014.com www.sochi2014.com

Irish Eye

There was disappointment for Florence Bell (see above) but better news for Conor Lyne. The 20-year-old has been battling a shoulder injury for the last 10 days but was passed fit to ski in the men’s Giant Slalom which gets underway in the morning.

Tomorrow’s highlights

If you’re watching BBC, expect to see a lot of curling, both men’s and women’s.

The women’s short programme figure skating pitting defending champion Yuna Kim against Russian darling Julia Lipnitskaya will be well worth a watch.

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