13.02 Twirling Russians, Speedy Dutch Ice Allcomers on Day 5 at Sochi

SOCHI, February 12 (R-Sport) — Russian rule over the figure skating and Dutch dominance of the speedskating were the themes of day five at the Sochi Olympics on Wednesday, as Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov won the host nation's second gold of the Games and the much-anticipated men's hockey tournament got under way.

The day started out with an unprecedented joint gold in Alpine skiing and ended with Kaitlyn Farrington helping to atone for Shaun White's failure in the halfpipe.

At the Iceberg Skating Palace, Volosozhar and Trankov became the first pair to win Olympic gold on home ice in 78 years, leading a glorious Russian one-two as the less heralded Ksenia Stolbova and Fyodor Klimov claiming the silver behind them.

Skating on the back of a five-point overnight lead from the short program, the reigning world champions put in a solid — if not perfect — free routine set to "Jesus Christ Superstar" to score 236.86 points for the title.

"Today the pressure helped us, it pushed us to skate well," said Volosozhar. "It was our ice today, we felt at home. It was a crazy night, but we only have good feelings at the end of it."

It is a second Sochi Olympic gold for the Russian pair, who helped their country to the inaugural team title last week by winning that short program.