Canada wrapped it up with a whopping five points in the ninth end — one short of the Olympic record — when the Americans, forced to play from behind, had to take chances. The U.S. players quickly conceded the match.

Canada will play for the gold on Friday night against Finland, which used the big last-rock advantage called the hammer to score on the game’s final throw to beat the British 4-3. That spoiled Britain’s hopes of bringing a gold medal back to curling’s birthplace to match the one a team of Scottish women won in Salt Lake City.

Men's cross-country sprint
Bjoern Lind of Sweden easily skied to an Olympic gold medal in the men’s 1.3km cross-country sprint race, taking advantage of rival Tor Arne Hetland’s fall in the semifinals.

American Andy Newell placed second in the 80-man field in morning qualifying and U.S. teammate Chris Cook also advanced to the quarterfinals. Newell placed fourth in his quarterfinal heat and didn’t move on — the top two from each quarterfinal advanced to the semifinals.

Lind finished in 2 minutes, 26.5 seconds to beat silver medalist Roddy Darragon of France, who was six-tenths of a second behind. Lind’s countryman, Thobias Fredriksson, took the bronze.

Three Italians reached the semifinals in the men’s race, with Cristian Zorzi advancing to the four-skier final and placing fourth. He was the anchor of Italy’s winning 4x10km relay team Sunday.

Hetland missed a chance at Norway’s first gold of these games in cross-country when he tried to pass Lind on the right side during the semifinals and fell onto his left, then his bottom. He placed last in the heat.

Men's snowboard parallel giant slalom
The first family of snowboarding’s parallel giant slalom wrapped up a second consecutive Olympic gold medal before the final head-to-head duel had even begun.

Tyler Jewell, the only American in the event, made the finals by finishing ninth in morning qualifying, but lost to Slovenian Dejan Kosir in the first round of heat races. Kosir went on to finish eighth.

It was only a matter of which Schoch would take the title this time, and defending Olympic champion Philipp Schoch pulled it out, defeating older brother Simon.

Simon Schoch, 27, has been the stronger racer this season, but slid wide on a gate in the first run against his 26-year-old brother, leaving him with a .88-second deficit he could not make up on the second and final run.

A strong, flag-waving Swiss contingent in the grandstand cheered the whole run, knowing their country couldn’t lose either way.

The brothers gave each other a long hug afterward, and stood with their arms around each other’s shoulders and posed for a special family photo. This was the first Olympic medal for Simon, who did not make the podium in 2002. Meanwhile, Philipp became the first ever two-time gold medal winner in Olympic snowboarding, now in its third Winter Games.

Austrian Siegfried Grabner took bronze easily after Frenchman Mathieu Bozzetto fell in the first run of their head-to-head battle for the final spot on the podium.

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