Winter Olympics, Day 4: Jamie Anderson completes USA slopestyle sweep

Russia wasn’t happy with the results of Sunday’s men’s skiathlon, and they’re taking their case as high as it can go.

According to the Associated Press, Russia has appealed to the International Ski Federation over the results of the skiathlon, a 30 kilometer cross-country skiing event, in which Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby edged out Russia’s Maxim Vylegzhanin for the bronze medal by just one-tenth of a second.

Team USA picked up two more medals on Sunday in Sochi, but they still trail Norway in the overall medal count.

With all of Sunday’s events wrapped up, Norway has seven medals. Four of those are bronze, two are gold and one is silver. The United States (two gold, two bronze) and the Netherlands (two gold, one silver, one bronze) are tied for second with four medals apiece. Canada and Russia also both have four medals, though they’ve only won gold in one competition thus far.

There were 12 medals up for grabs in the Men’s Downhill, the Men’s 15 km Skiathlon, the Women’s 7.5 km Biathlon Sprint and the Men’s Normal Hill Ski Jump on Sunday morning.

Bode Miller came into Sunday’s event as one of the favorites to medal after an impressive week of practice. He struggled and would end up finishing eighth in 2:06.75, close to a half-second behind gold medal winner Matthias Mayer of Austria. Mayer finished in 2:06.23. Behind him was Italy’s Christof Innerhofer for the silver medal, while Kjetil Jansrud of Norway took home bronze.

A total of eight events were decided on Sunday in Sochi, with Team USA capturing a gold and bronze medal to increase its tally in the 2014 Winter Olympics.

You can find a complete medal tally with our Medal Tracker. Here is a full recap of day four of these games.

Anders Jacobsen of Norway in the men’s normal hill. Yes, that’s the “normal” hill. (Lars Baron/Getty Images)

Felix Loch of Germany won back-to-back gold in men’s luge, if that wasn’t obvious. (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)

Athletes work for years perfecting their craft to compete at the Winter Olympics. The hard work and effort is rewarded with a chance at gold, but if that’s out of reach at least you will always have your name and time/score showing you were there. Unless you’re Korean Jun-Ho Hwang.

When you finish in the top three your name is in lights. A medal and podium, lightbulbs flashing -- you even get a special spot on the Sochi website with your headshot for all to see.

Sunday witnessed the first Olympic medals being awarded for team figure skating at the Olympic level, and team Russia proved its solid start was too much to overcome with a series of dominant performances. Team USA started the day in fifth place and improved to the bronze medal.

The remainder of the team contest was settled by three events, the Free Program Men, Free Program Ladies and Free Dance Ice Dance.

Whenever the host nation Russia participates in any event at the Olympics, there’s an added pressure to win.

While it took the Russian women’s hockey team 40 minutes to find its footing, it didn’t disappoint the home crowd in its opening game of the tournament.

You thought Sage Kostenburg’s gold medal run in men’s slopestyle on Saturday was impressive? Well, if he went head to head with Sunday’s ladies’ champ, USA’s Jamie Anderson, the latter would have won.

Anderson put up a whopping score of 95.25 on her second and final run Sunday morning, more than enough to come out on top of Finland’s Enni Rukajarvi, who took silver with a 92.50. Great Britain’s first medal was won in slopestyle as well, with Jenny Jones taking the bronze.

Martina Sablikova won the Women’s 3000m in speed skating in Vancouver 2010 and was expected to repeat in 2014, but on Sunday it was Ireen Wust, winner at Torino 2006, who took home the gold.

Wust, out of the Netherlands, is hard to call too much of an underdog. She won the 3000m in the World Single Distance Championships in Sochi last year as well as in 2011 in Inzell, Germany. However, Wust specializes in shorter distances, particularly the 1500m, whereas Sablikova (of the Czech Republic) has won a handful of medals in both the 3000m and the 5000m. On Sunday, Wust used her short-distance specialty to put up a hot pace early on before settling in at the end to set the gold-medal mark at 4:00.34.

Jamie Anderson, the American out of Lake Tahoe, won the Ladies’ Slopestyle snowboard with a 95.5 in her second run. Enni Rukajarvi (Finland) received the silver at 92.50, and Jenny Jones of Bristol, Great Britain received the bronze with an 87.25 score.

In the Men’s Skiathalon, a combination of skiing 15 kilometers freestyle and 15 kilometers classic, the Swiss Dario Cologna received the gold medal with his 1:08.15.4 time. Marcus Hellner of Sweden got the bronze at 1:08.14.8 (an agonizing four tenths of a second behind Cologna). Norwegian Martin Johnsrud Sundby added to his country’s medals with a 1:08:16.8 time, just barely edging out homeland hero Maxim Vylegzhanin of Udmurtia, Russia’s medal hopes by a tenth of a second.

Bode Miller of Team USA had control of a difficult Alpine course in Sochi, until it counted. He struggled in the final, leading to Austria’s first gold medal of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Miller positioned himself for the gold following a stellar week of practice that made his competitors take notice. World Cup leader Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway won silver in Vancouver in 2010 and hoped to build on that in Sochi, but acknowledged Saturday that Miller was the skier to beat.

Slopestyle is a new event for the 2014 Winter Olympics and Jamie Anderson helped Team USA stamp its mark on the sport at Sochi with a second gold medal in as many days.

Anderson may have been the favorite entering the event, but the 23-year-old had a penchant for the dramatic. She put down a solid first run that left her in second place, then came through when it counted with a second run of 95.25 to hold off Enni Rukajarvi of Finland and capture the gold medal.

Day 4 of the 2014 Winter Olympics is ready to kick off, and skiing events promise to dominate the headlines this day. With four medal events on the schedule, there is a lot at stake for the athletes on Sunday.

The first event is the most anticipated one: the men’s downhill skiing final. By far the fastest and longest course, this is looking to be the most entertaining event of the day. Bode Miller is the biggest American name competing, and he is hoping to continue his dominant run after a strong qualifying round earlier in the week. Miller won bronze in this event in Vancouver, in addition to the Super Combined gold.

The women’s hockey tournament has been overhauled for the 2014 Winter Olympics in an effort to make the games more competitive, especially in the early rounds. The four best teams in the world are grouped together in Group A, with the bottom four in the Olympic tournament tossed together in Group B.

The United States and Canada dispatched Finland and Switzerland, respectively, in Group A action on Saturday. Now it’s Group B’s turn, and while the teams are certainly not of the quality of those in Group A, the goal of the new format is to make these early preliminary round games more competitive. We’ll see if it works.

The 2014 Winter Olympics are in full swing, and there are some decent options to watch them even if you’re American.

For most Americans, they have to deal with NBC again. NBC is tape-delaying the games and airing them between 8 and 11 p.m. ET every night, keeping with a longstanding tradition. This practice has come under increasing criticism in recent years, but the network has shown no signs of changing it up. If you’re American and want to watch the games live, you’re probably out of luck unless you live close enough to the Canadian border to pick up CBC on an antenna.

Sunday is a big day in the 2014 Winter Olympics. Eight medal events are on the schedule in skiing, biathlon, luge, ski jumping and speed skating. The day also sees the continuation of women’s ice hockey, which features two qualification games. Figure skating picks up with the team finale, while the new slopestyle event reaches its climax with the women’s final round.

Here’s the complete schedule of all the Sunday events. As always, times are listed in ET. Medal events are marked with an asterisk and italics.