ATHLETIC NEWS - Marcel Hirscher claimed his second Pyeongchang Winter Olympics ski title on Sunday as a doping case involving a Russian curler threatened to cast a fresh shadow over the Games.
While America's Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn licked their wounds, the Austrian Hirscher hit his groove in the men's giant slalom, winning by an impressive 1.27sec -- five days after his debut Olympic victory in the combined.
Norway's Oystein Braaten won the men's freestyle skiing slopestyle and Norway also triumphed in the 4x10km men's cross-country relay to reach nine gold medals and draw level with Germany at the top of the medals table.
Martin Fourcade became France's first four-time Winter Olympic gold-medallist after a mad dash to the line in the men's 15km mass start biathlon, where he edged Germany's Simon Schempp in a dramatic photo finish.
But away from the action a fresh doping scandal threatened to set back Russian efforts to return to the Olympic fold after they were banned over a major drugs scandal.
Sources said a curler with the Olympic Athletes from Russia team has been implicated in a doping case involving meldonium -- the same banned substance that earned Russia's former number one tennis player Maria Sharapova a 15-month suspension.
Russia was banned from the Games after the emergence of systemic doping, but it was allowed to send 168 athletes deemed clean to compete as neutrals.
