Olympic round up: nordic skiers miss out again

Switzerland's cross-country skiers have made little impact on the Winter Olympics so far and Tuesday's sprint events were no exception.

In the men’s 1.5km race, Christoph Eigenmann failed to progress beyond the first qualifying stage, missing out on a place in the quarter-final heats by 0.89 seconds.

In the women’s race, run over the same distance, Andrea Huber also crashed out during the qualifiers, finishing more than three seconds off the pace.

The men’s version of the new Olympic discipline was won by Norwegian favourite Tor Arne Hetland with Julie Tchepalova taking the women’s gold.

Success for Swiss freestyle coach

There was success of sorts for Switzerland in Tuesday’s freestyle skiing action, although it was a Swiss coach rather than a Swiss athlete who was celebrating.

The cause of the celebration was Czech freestyler Ales Valenta who won a surprise gold medal in the men’s aerials final, to the delight of his Swiss coach Michel Roth.

Roth, who is also the trainer of the Swiss national team, had much less to smile about on Monday when Switzerland’s own gold medal favourite Evelyn Leu crashed out of the women’s event.

swissinfo with agencies