Sochi 2014 Olympics medal standings: Ted Ligety wins giant slalom gold

Alpine skiing would provide the United States its only gold medal of the early going on Wednesday, as Ted Ligety went down the run in 2:45.29. France grabbed the other two medals, with Steve Missillier taking the silver at 2:45.77 and Alexis Pinturault the bronze at 2:45.93.

Although Ligety was the only one to win a medal for the U.S., he was not the only American medalist. Vic Wild, born in Washington but representing Russia, won the men’s parallel giant slalom finals in snowboarding. Nevin Galmarini of Switzerland received the silver and Zan Kosir of Slovenia earned the bronze.

Switzerland won the gold in the women’s half of the snowboarding event, as Patrizia Kummer represented her country well. Tomoka Takeuchi of Japan won the silver and Alena Zavarzina -- wife of the gold medal-winning Wild -- won the bronze for Russia.

The rest of the day’s medals so far have been for cross-country skiing. Both the men and the women had their team cross-country sprint finals, and both were dominated unsurprisingly by Scandinavian countries (although it took some German heartbreak for that to happen). The women saw Norway take gold, followed by Finland (silver) and Sweden (bronze). In the men’s competition, Germany was leading until a very late crash took out skier Tim Tscharnke, and Finland took advantage for the gold medal. The Finn duo was followed by a Russian silver medal pair and Sweden coming in for bronze.

Norway and Germany are currently tied for the gold medal lead with eight. The United States is right behind with seven, and three countries (Russia, Netherlands and Switzerland) all have six. Russia holds the total medal lead with 22.