updated 6:41 p.m. ET Feb. 24, 2006

Capsules of Friday’s events at the Turin Olympics:

Alpine skiing
Julia Mancuso, the American from aptly named Olympic Valley, Calif., captured gold with a stunning victory in the giant slalom Friday that salvaged a disappointing Olympics for the U.S. women.

The 21-year-old Mancuso, known for wearing a tiara in slalom races, gave the American women their first Olympic medal since Picabo Street earned gold in the super-G at the 1998 Nagano Games.

With two strong runs in snowy, foggy weather, Mancuso had a combined time of 2 minutes, 9.19 seconds, .67 seconds faster than silver medalist Tanja Poutiainen of Finland. With a big second run, Anna Ottosson of Sweden took the bronze, 1.14 seconds behind Mancuso.

Mancuso’s medal was the second for the Americans in Alpine skiing, both gold. Ted Ligety won the men’s combined last week.

Speedskating
Bob de Jong of the Netherlands bounced back from a miserable performance at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games to win a surprising gold in the 10,000 meters, the final men’s speedskating event of these games.

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American Chad Hedrick, the world record holder, finished second to complete his set: one gold, one silver and one bronze. Another Dutch skater, Carl Verheijen, took the bronze.

De Jong’s winning time of 13 minutes, 1.57 seconds was nearly four seconds better than his personal best. Hedrick, who faltered in the middle of the grueling race, finished in 13:05.40 — a full 10 seconds off the world mark he set in December at Salt Lake City.

Verheijen’s time was 13:08.80.

While Hedrick didn’t come close to matching Eric Heiden’s record of five gold medals from the 1980 Lake Placid Games, he still became the first American to win three medals in Turin and will be remembered for one of the great performances in U.S. speedskating history.

As for De Jong, he no longer will be haunted by his failures in 2002, when he finished 30th in the 5,000 and next-to-last in the 10,000.

He also salvaged the first gold medal of the games for the Dutch men, who have now won speedskating’s longest race at three straight Olympics.

Curling
The Canadians, silver medalists in 1998 and 2002, left little doubt this time around, routing Finland to win their first gold medal.

Canada has won 29 world championships in curling, the country’s second-most popular sport behind hockey. But the Canadians lost to Switzerland in the gold medal match in Nagano, then fell to Norway in Salt Lake City.

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This time, Canada broke it open with six points in the sixth end, or inning, and Finland conceded after eight and settled for the silver medal.

The United States earned its share of curling glory — its first medal ever in the sport — thanks to an American who knows how to slice it.

The American men won the bronze by beating Britain in the consolation game, jumping to an early lead and then clinching the victory with a simple draw to the middle of the target in the final end. That put the United States on the medal stand along with more traditional curling powers Finland and Canada, who play later Friday for the championship.

Britain was shut out of a medal one Olympics after Scottish housewife Rhona Martin threw the “Stone of Destiny” to win the gold medal in Salt Lake City. David Murdoch’s team is also from Scotland, which is considered the birthplace of curling.

With the Americans holding the big last-rock advantage known as the hammer for the final end they played defensively and kept the British from building any protection. Murdoch had one rock in the target area, and he put his last rock out front as a guard.

But Pete Fenson, a Minnesota pizzeria owner, had an open draw around the right to get inside of Murdoch’s rock and give the U.S. the bronze.

In the gold-medal match, Finland led 2-0 after the first end but Canada answered with two in the second. The Canadians then stole points in the third and fourth when Finland had the hammer — or last-shot advantage — and never looked back.

Canada’s Russ Howard, who turned 50 on Sunday, became the oldest Winter Olympic gold medalist. American bobsledder Jay O’Brien was 48 years, 357 days old when he won at the 1932 Games in Lake Placid.

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