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Williams breaks record as Vonn misses out on gold No. 2

Amy Williams is the surpise leader after day one of the women's skeleton competition © Getty Images

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Britain's Amy Williams set a new track record as she lead the women's skeleton after the first day of competition.

Williams, who was overshadowed by her team-mate and Turin silver medallist Shelley Rudman in the lead-up to the Games, set the early pace with a record-breaking run of 53.83, and followed it up with a second run of 54.13 to lead by 0.30 seconds going into the final day of competition.

"I didn't really expect to be in front place right now," Williams said. "It was a good first day, but there are two more runs left, so I'm going to concentrate on them and not get ahead of myself. I'm just trying to relax and enjoy it. We are still learning things on this track and there is still room for improvement."

Germany's Kerstin Szymkowiak lies in second, with favourite Melissa Hollingsworth in the bronze medal position. Rudman improved on her first slide to move up from 11th to joint seventh, while in the men's competition Kristan Bromley climbed into fifth on his second run, while Adam Pengilly is 20th.

Maria Riesch claimed gold in the women's Super Combined, as Lindsey Vonn crashed out in her bid to follow up her downhill success.

Lindsey Vonn crashed out as she chased a second gold medal © Getty Images

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Vonn led after the downhill run, but her 0.33 advantage never looked enough against slalom specialist Riesch.

Julia Mancuso edged herself into the lead with just Riesch and Vonn to go following a great slalom run, but Germany's Riesch bounced back from her poor showing in the downhill on Tuesday to move ahead.

"It's incredible, you always try to have positive thoughts and believe you can come back strong," Riesch said. "It was a course to attack because it was not so difficult and the coach told us to just attack it full gas."

Vonn was the final competitor to go and had lost time to Riesch when she caught and gate and tumbled mid-way down the mountain.

"I'm disappointed but I went down fighting," she said. "Maria and Julia put in good runs so I knew I had to put in my all. I tried as hard as I could, it just didn't go my way".

With Vonn taking a tumble, Anja Paerson claimed the bronze medal just 24 hours after her horror fall in the downhill.

Britain's Chemmy Alcott produced a good run in the slalom, her least favoured discipline, but her combined time of 2:12.51 was only good enough for 11th.

Great Britain's curlers came up short against Switzerland © Getty Images

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Great Britain's curlers had a mixed day. After suffering an agonising 4-3 defeat to Switzerland, David Murdoch's GB side bounced back to beat Denmark.

In their morning match, the Brits led 3-2 at halfway, but the Swiss battled back to level things up heading into the final end. Britain were favourites as Murdoch had the hammer for the final stone. He had victory in sight as all he needed to do was nudge one of his stones forward a couple of inches, but failed to do so and the Swiss sealed the win to inflict a second defeat on Murdoch.

Then, against Denmark it was almost a case of deja vu as the Brits were 3-2 up at the break, but they dropped two stones to allow the Danes to take a 4-3 lead. It was all square at six a piece going into the final end, and with Murdoch on hammer, he camly took three to take the win.

"You have got to enjoy a roller coaster sometimes don't you," Murdoch said. "It is always going to be tough out there, everyone is playing well. There are a few things we need to tighten up on, take out the slack shots and come out fresh on Saturday."

The British ladies showed their male counterparts what was required as they claimed a crushing 10-3 win over Russia.

Canada's Christine Nesbitt wowed the home crowd with a thrilling success from Annette Gerritsen, winning the 1000m event by 0.02 of a second.

Norway's Tora Berger hit 19 of her 20 shots on her way to gold in the women's 15km Biathlon. Elena Khroustaleva of Kazakhstan took silver, with Darya Damrachova of Belarus in third.

Emil Hegle Svendsen led home a Norwegian one-two in the men's 20km Biathlon, edging out compatriot Ole Einar Bjørndalen and Sergei Novikov. Britain's Lee-Steve Jackson came home 66th, over seven minutes behind the winner.

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