Canada freeze out Russians

The pair were expected to meet in the final but the hosts' defeat to the USA meant they found themselves in the same part of the draw as the Russians.

However, any concerns over a early exit were dispelled as the Canucks raced into a 4-1 lead inside the first 20 minutes and then cemented their lead with two quick goals early in the second period.

Ryan Getzlaf opened the scoring on two minutes 21 seconds before Dan Boyle got the second with a longe-range effort on a powerplay.

Rick Nash made it three before Dmitri Kalinin finally got Russia on the board, but Brenden Morrow rounded off the first period scoring and they continued their dominance with Corey Perry and Shea Weber scoring within two minutes.

Shock

Maxim Afinogenov pulled one back for the Russians but Perry finished off another great sweeping move to make it 7-2, before Sergai Gonchar rounded off the scoring as the game petered out with a blank third period.

There was a shock on the ice later in the night when Slovakia stunned defending champions Sweden 4-3 to advance to the semi-finals.

Tomas Kopecky put in the winning goal past a sprawling Swedish goalie Henrik Lundqvist in the third period to set Slovakia on the way to a showdown with Canada in the next round that few people expected.

"You come into the game against the defending champion, the pressure was on them. We were waiting for our chances and got the most out of them," said Slovakian forward Marian Gaborik.

There were further Canadian celebrations when Kaillie Humphries led a one-two as she rocketed to victory in the women's Olympic bobsleigh at Whistler's Sliding Centre.

Error-free

Leading after Tuesday's first two runs, Humphries and brakewoman Heather Moyse were cheered on by a sea of red and white clad fans in the grandstands as she produced two more error-free drives to win an incident-packed competition.

Helen Upperton, at the controls of Canada's second sled, had begun the day out of the medals but stormed up the leaderboard to seize the silver medal while American Erin Pac capped North American domination by taking the bronze.

As Canada's speed queens lapped up the wild celebrations in the finish area, German sledders were left scratching their heads after failing to make the podium for the first time since women's bobsleigh made its Olympic debut in 2002.

Reigning Olympic champion and top-ranked driver Sandra Kiriasis was fourth, a massive one and a half seconds off the searing pace set by Humphries while Germany's second driver Cathleen Martini crashed on her fourth run.

World record

There was also a Canadian medal at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver as their quartet won silver behind China in the women's 3000 metres short track speed skating relay final.

The Chinese team, featuring 500m gold medallist Meng Wang and 1500m Olympic champion Yang Zhou, set a world record time of four minutes 6.610 seconds in skating to victory. Canada finished three seconds further back with the USA in third.

The men's 500m got under way with an Olympic record 41.397 seconds from Canada's Francois-Louis Tremblay leading the heat times.

Tremblay's compatriot Charles Hamelin, defending champion Apolo Anton Ohno of the USA, China's Jialiang Han, Thibault Fauconnet and Korean trio Si-Bak Sung, Yoon-Gy Kwak and Ho-Suk Lee were the other heat winners.

Katherine Reutter of the USA notched an Olympic record time of 1:30.508 to lead the heat winners in the women's 1000m, with both that event and the men's 500m being concluded on Friday.

Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic won the gold in the ladies 5000m speed skating at the Richmond Olympic Oval to become the most successful female skater of the Games with two golds and a bronze.

Sablikova, 22, who won gold in the 3000m and a bronze in the 1500m, said: "Everything is hurting right now. I'm exhausted. I had to give it my all. I pushed my limits."

Germany's Stephanie Beckert took the silver, 0.48 seconds adrift, while the bronze went to Canada's 37-year-old defending champion Clara Hughes, who was 4.82 seconds back.