Sweden's Charlotte Kalla stepped up to deny Kristina Smigun-Vaehi's quest to defend her 10km cross country title. Swiss Didier Defago hurtles to gold in the men's Olympic downhill final with a blisteringly fast run in Whistler.
Estonian Smigun-Vaehi returned from retirement aiming to be first to defend the title and put in an outstanding race, collapsing over the line.
Kalla was the only one who could come close, overhauling Smigun-Vaehi by 6.6 seconds with a time of 24 min 58.4 sec.
World champion Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland struggled, finally coming in fifth, 21.7 seconds in arrears.
Marit Bjoergen of Norway took the bronze medal, 15.9 seconds back.
She already had two silver medals, from Turin and the 2002 Salt Lake City games.
Olympic debutante Kalla, 22, held a 12-second lead with less than 3km left but nearly fell as she rounded the final bend. She managed to stay upright and sprint her way to victory in her first Olympic start.
In an incredibly tight field Defago finished only 0.07 seconds ahead of Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal.
American Bode Miller was 0.09 seconds behind Defago, taking bronze after setting the early pace with a stunning eighth run of the day.
Favourite Didier Cuche was sixth while Canadian hopeful Manuel Osborne-Paradis was well off the pace in 17th.
The flagship event was delayed by two days because of adverse conditions in Whistler, but the gathering crowd were thrilled by the tightly fought competition.
Defago, who won the classic Kitzbuehel/Wengen double last year, claimed his first Olympic medal with a time of 1 minute 54.31 seconds, beating countrymen Cuche and Carlo Janka, who had been expected to compete for a podium spot.
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