Ligety gives U.S. a golden surprise

Young Ted Ligety gave the United States the Olympic gold medal that Bode Miller couldn't deliver Tuesday night, uncorking the two fastest slalom runs of the day to win the men's combined and break the Americans' bad luck in Alpine skiing.

The 21-year-old skier from Park City, Utah, in his first Olympics, had a combined time of 3 minutes, 9.35 seconds for the downhill and two slalom runs. Ivica Kostelic of Croatia won the silver medal, 53-hundredths of a second behind the American at 3:09.88. Rainer Schoenfelder of Austria captured the bronze at 3:10.67.

Austrian favorite Benjamin Raich, the leader going into the final slalom run, skied off course, setting off a red-white-and-blue celebration at the finish area.

"It's incredible," Ligety said. "I can't believe it [happened] in combined because I'm not very good in downhill."

He said it would have been even better if Raich had finished.

"I would prefer to win standing up to him," Ligety said.

U.S. skiers Steven Nyman and Scott Macartney tackled Ligety, and the three teammates rolled in the snow together. They rose, and Ligety waved an American flag while he was propped on the others' shoulders.

"I'm not surprised he's on the podium," U.S. men's coach Phil McNichol said. "I'm a bit surprised he won gold."

Ligety burst onto the world scene with two thirds and a second in this, his second World Cup season, and it seemed only a question of when, not if he would be a winner.

It couldn't have come at a better time for the frustrated Americans.

"It's a great day, especially with Bode skiing out," Macartney said. "Ted stepped up."

"You've just got to get in the starting gate and throw down whatever you've got," Ligety said.

What he had was two near-flawless slalom runs, the fastest of the competition -- 44.09 seconds in the first and 43.84 in the second.

On the final run, he attacked the steep part of the course at the start but gained most of his time with a sweep through the middle section, dashing between gates with a perfect aggressive rhythm.

Miller was disqualified for straddling a gate in the first run, just when he seemed to have built a commanding lead for his elusive first Olympic gold medal.

The disqualification gave the lead temporarily to Raich, who had trailed Miller by nearly a second.

That left U.S. hopes to Ligety, who was 32nd after the downhill, 3.06 seconds behind Miller, and third after the first slalom run, 86-hundredths of a second behind Raich.

Weir sits in second

Evgeni Plushenko's biggest fan Tuesday night was his closest competitor -- U.S. champion Johnny Weir.

Weir marveled at the 90.66 points the Russian star put up in the Olympic men's short program. Plushenko's personal best gave him more than a 10-point lead over the three-time U.S. champ, a massive gap.

"It's wild. I didn't think anyone would get above 80.00," Weir said.

Plushenko, winner of three world titles, was the American's pick for gold before the Olympics began and Weir still doesn't think there's much of a chance he'll lose in Thursday night's free skate.

"If he falls three times, maybe, just maybe someone can squeeze by," Weir said.

Weir had a personal-best 80.00 score.

World champion Stephane Lambiel was third with 79.04 points.

U.S. women rally

The U.S. women's hockey team closed preliminary play Tuesday with a plodding and graceless 7-3 win over Finland, a team that represented the Americans' first real test of the tournament.

The U.S. actually trailed by two goals at one point late in the second period before rallying for five third-period goals -- two by Angela Ruggiero.

Sarah Parsons also scored two goals for the Americans (3-0), who were anything but perfect: They trailed and flailed for most of the first 41 minutes, raising the possibility of the team's first loss in international play to a non-Canadian team.

Katie King's tying goal and Ruggiero's first goal, on an end-to-end rush with 9:44 remaining, spurred the Americans to a finish at the top of Group B and a meeting with Sweden in Friday's semifinals.

Finland must regroup to play gold-medal favorite Canada, which beat the Swedes 8-1 earlier to cap a 36-1 run through the preliminary round.

German women sweep luge

Sylke Otto became the second women's luger to win consecutive golds, leading Germany to its sixth medal sweep in 12 Olympics.

Courtney Zablocki of Highlands Ranch, Colo., was fourth to match her best international finish, but it wasn't enough to crack the top three against the powerful Germans.

There have been 36 medals awarded in women's Olympic luge history; 27 have been won by Germans.