Olympics Live: Russia takes team figure skating lead

BEIJING (AP) — The Latest on the Beijing Winter Olympics:

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The powerful Russian figure skating team is in first place in the team competition at the Beijing Games after a winning performance from world champion Kamila Valieva and another strong skate from Mark Kondratiuk.

The team representing the Russian Olympic Committee has 45 points, two ahead of the U.S., which had a couple of shaky performances from Karen Chen and Vincent Zhou to slip out of first place.

The biggest surprise on the second of three days of team competition was Japan. Wakaba Higuchi was second in the women’s short program before 18-year-old Yuma Kagiyama delivered a personal-best score of 208.94 points to easily win the men’s free skate, sending the Japanese team into medal contention with 39 points.

The team competition concludes Monday with the women and pairs free skate and the free dance.

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The start of the men’s downhill skiing competition at the Beijing Games has been postponed because of high wind.

The race, the first of the Alpine competition at the Winter Olympics, will start at least three hours later than expected.

Saturday’s third and final training session had to be canceled because of high wind.

The world’s best skiers only saw The Rock course up close for the first time on Thursday.

At the top of the course, the wind was whipping at 30 mph, with gusts up to 40 mph, when the race was originally scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Beijing time.

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Australia’s first-ever Olympic mixed doubles curling team has pulled out of the Beijing Games after Tahli Gill returned a series of positive COVID-19 tests.

The Australian Olympic Committee said it was trying to make arrangements to have Gill and Dean Hewitt fly home rather than having Gill