SOCHI - Yevgeny Plushenko and Ole Einar Bjoerndalen targeted Winter Olympic medal-winning landmarks on Thursday as bright, warm sunshine bathed the Sochi Games and athletes competed in T-shirts.
Double Olympic gold medallist Plushenko, 31, is amongst the favourites as the men's figure skating short programme gets underway, but he faces competition from three-time world champion Patrick Chan, and Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu. Plushenko is looking to become the most medalled man in Olympic figure skating history while Chan, 23, and Hanyu, 19, could become the first men from their countries to win the men's title. Plushenko has been boosted by his solid skates on the way to team gold in Sochi and matching Gillis Grafstroem's record four medals between 1920 and 1932.
Chan has dominated the sport since finishing fifth at the Vancouver Olympics and has won the last three world titles, but Hanyu beat the Canadian in the Grand Prix final. Other leading challengers will be Japanese Daisuke Takahashi, the Olympic bronze medallist, Tatsuki Machida and Spaniard Javier Fernandez, the world bronze medallist. In all six golds are up for grabs Thursday with French biathlete Martin Fourcade looking for his second of the Games in the men's 20km individual, following his victory on Monday in the 12.5km pursuit.
The race could also see 40-year-old Norwegian biathlon great Bjoerndalen win a record 13th Winter Olympic medal after just missing out in a fourth place finish in the pursuit. He equalled his compatriot Bjorn Daehlie's record of 12 medals when he won gold in men's 10km sprint on Saturday. With temperatures pushing a balmy 16 degrees Celsius at the sub-tropical venue, some athletes taking part in the gruelling women's 10km cross-country race discarded their winter weather gear in favour of T-shirts.
The rising temperatures also saw tweaks made to the schedule with Thursday's training for the men's super-combined ski race brought forward to 0530 GMT as course officials attempted to preserve snow conditions. It was later revealed that the time for Friday's race had also been advanced by an hour to 0600 GMT "in order to minimise the weather influence on the competition", said a Games statement.
Stockpiled vast amounts of snow: The Russian organisers have stockpiled vast amounts of snow from last season but Sochi 2014 spokeswoman Alexandra Kosterina said there had been no need to call on these reserves so far during the Games themselves. "We have a strong contingency plan in place but we have not used the stored snow since the beginning of the Games," she said, adding some of the stores had been used in the preparations. The day's first medal contest resulted in a United States sweep in men's freestyle slopestyle with Joss Christensen seeing off compatriots Gus Kenworthy and Nicholas Goepper
Later Thursday, Sidney Crosby's defending men's ice hockey champions Canada start against Norway while 2010 runners-up the United States begin by facing Slovakia. Russia, led by Crosby's fellow NHL superstar Alexander Ovechkin, are under huge home pressure after their dismal showing in Vancouver four years ago where they beaten 7-3 by Canada in the quarter-finals. The Russians eventually finished sixth in 2010 and are looking for their first Olympic title since the fall of the Soviet Union.
"When we lost to Canada it was a big failure for us," Ovechkin said. "I hope we will play in the finals. That is our main task, to fight for the gold." In speedskating, US duo Heather Richardson, the winner of three World Cup races in four this season, and world record holder Brittany Bowe are favourites in the women's 1000m. Gold medals are also decided in the luge team relay and short track speed skating with the women's 500m final.