updated 8:41 a.m. ET Feb. 14, 2006

PRAGELATO, Italy - Bjoern Lind and Thobias Fredriksson of Sweden watched the women from their country celebrate a gold medal minutes earlier, then went out and made it a sweep Tuesday in the inaugural Olympic cross-country sprint events.

Lind anchored the team and waited until the final 100 meters to make his move, pushing from third to first to edge the tandem of Jens Arne Svartedal and Tor Arne Hetland of Norway in 17 minutes, 2.9 seconds. Russia’s duo of Ivan Alypov and Vassili Rotchev earned the bronze.

The Swedish women’s team of Anna Dahlberg and Lina Andersson won gold, too.

The U.S. tandem of first-time Olympians Chris Cook and Andy Newell failed to make the final after a seventh-place finish in the second semifinal. The top five from each heat advanced for a race that features three laps of 1.2 kilometers by each competitor.

The Americans were expected to make the cut with Newell and Torin Koos as their skiers, but Koos is recovering from a respiratory problem that kept him from competing.

Koos, in his second Olympics, is planning to be ready for the individual sprint Feb. 22.

“Today is definitely a disappointment,” Newell said. “I think this is one of our good days and we had a chance for a medal today. Things didn’t really go our way and it was too much to make up on the last lap.”

Sergei Dolidovich of Belarus received a second five-day suspension before the race began after testing positive for high levels of hemoglobin and wasn’t able to start.

His teammate, Aleksandr Lasutkin, was one of four skiers — including a German gold medalist and two Americans — cleared Monday to compete, but Dolidovich’s second failed test kept the tandem out of competition, according to International Ski Federation communications manager Riikka Rakic.

Last week, a dozen skiers were given five-day suspensions for elevated levels of hemoglobin, the part of the red blood cell that can increase endurance. All of those scheduled to compete Tuesday had to be retested, but some put off their tests because they weren’t scheduled to compete in the men’s and women’s team sprint events Tuesday.

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Germany’s Evi Sachenbacher and the two Americans — Kikkan Randall and Leif Zimmerman — were the other three cleared Monday.

If Dolidovich is able to bring down his hemoglobin levels in the coming days, he could still be eligible for the individual sprint race Feb. 22. Belarus could have chosen a substitute skier but didn’t have anyone available to ski.

There is no proof that the athletes did anything wrong: Elevated hemoglobin can be caused by simple dehydration or by the body getting acclimated to higher elevations. The cross-country venue sits at more than 5,000 feet.

But the test results raised the possibility of blood doping with synthetic hemoglobin or transfusions. As a precaution, FIS routinely suspends skiers who test high for hemoglobin.

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