SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- An unlikely American put at least a partial dent in Dutch speed skating supremacy Saturday, halping make the opening day of competition at the Winter Olympics a successful one for the host country.
With the residents of Salt Lake City bursting with pride over a spectacular opening ceremony that drew record television ratings, the competition quickly warmed up just as the temperatures did.
The first gold medal wound up in the hands of a veteran Italian cross-country skiier who had to rally after breaking a ski pole, a German turned Spaniard blitzed the field in another cross-country race and the Norwegian favorite won the women's moguls in freestyle skiing.
The biggest drama on opening day, however, came at the Utah Olympic Oval, a lightning-fast speed skating track that produced two world records in the span of a half hour.
American Derek Parra, skating in his first Olympic race and hoping to just tune up for the 1,500-meter event that comes later in the Games, shockingly broke the world record over 5,000 meters by turning in a time of 6:17.98. It was 15 seconds better than his previous personal best.
Five more pairs were left to skate when Parra set the record and it withstood a series of challenges. But Jochem Uytdehaage of the Netherlands, skating in the next-to-last pairing, broke it with a time of 6:14.66 to capture the gold medal.
Parra, however, claimed a very unexpected silver medal, one of two captured by the United States Saturday.
American Shannon Bahrke finished second to Norwegian favorite Kari Traa in the women's moguls competition.
The United States, therefore, became one of just two countries to capture more than one medal Saturday. Austria won both a silver and bronze in the men's 30-kilometer cross-country race. The 12 medals awarded Saturday were distributed among 10 nations.
The perfect Winter Olympics weather, chilled in the mountains, mild in the metropolitan area and clear everywhere, allowed traffic to flow relatively smoothly to and from the venues. And there were no major security issues reported as the competition was carried out under a massive blanket of protection.
As the first day of competition came to a close, two-time world champions Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze captured the figure skating pairs short program, making them solid favorites to continue a Russian winning streak in the event that dates back almost four decades.
And in the first major hockey upset of the Olympics, Germany stunned Slovakia, 3-0. Slovakia had been favored to win its group and advance to the final round.
The fourth and final medal event of the day came at the speed skating oval and Parra competed about 14 hours after he played a key role in the opening ceremonies. Parra was one of eight athletes chosen to carry the World Trade Center flag into Rice-Eccles Stadium.
That ceremony earned a 25.5 rating and a 42 share among American television viewers, meaning that a quarter of the nation's television sets and almost half that were in use were tuned to the opening of the Olympics. Those were the best ratings ever for an Olympics opening ceremony -- Summer or Winter.
"This is just amazing," said Parra's whose medal was the first in the event for an American in 22 years. "I came into this sport four or five years ago and thought I cuold do something. It has been a long, hard road.
"I was excited coming to the rink today. The crowd was behind me. I thought that if the guys who skated early were going as fast as they did, I could go fast, too. No one is more surprised about this than me."
Pre-Olympic speculation had been that the Netherlands might sweep all three medals in the 5,000. In addition to Uytdehaage, countrymen Carl Verheijen and Bob de Jong were given an excellent chance to win a medal.
But Verheijen finished sixth and de Jong, skating in the last pair, slowed dramatically midway through his time on the ice and came in 30th among the 32 skaters.
The cross-country races that kicked off the Olympics Saturday were won by 33-year-old Stefania Belmondo of Italy and Johann Muehlegg, a native of Germany who now skis for Spain. Muehlegg's gold medal was only the second ever won by Spain in the Winter Olympics and just the third of any type.
Belmondo won the 15-kilometer event despite the fact she came to a complete halt about 10 meters into the race because of a broken ski pole. By the time she was able to get started again with a new pole, she was in 10th place.
But she caught up to the lead pack and outsprinted Russian Larissa Lazutina to the line. It was the eighth Olympic medal and second gold one for Belmondo.
"After 10 years, to win another gold medal in the Olympics, for me, it's incredible," said Belmondo. "When my pole was broken, I thought the race was over for me. I cried. I cried like I never cried in my life. I really cried."
In the men's 30-kilometer race, Muehlegg decided to sprint early in an attempt to break away from the field and he did so with ease. After the first of four circuits at the Soldier Hollow cross-country venue, Muehlegg was more than a minute ahead.
He wound up beating Christian Hoffman of Austria by more than two minutes. Mikhail Botvinov, an Austrian who grew up in Russia, finished third.
The first of the figure skating events saw the reigning world champions receiving a bad draw that sent them out third among 20 pairs. An early start usually means lower marks from judges who are reluctant to hand out high marks in case one of the later competitors turn in a sensational performance.
Nevertheless, Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze were placed first by seven of the nine judges. The other two first-place marks went to Canadian challengers Jaime Sale and David Pelletier. If the Canadians can turn in the best long program performance Monday night, they will win the gold medal and end the Russian streak that began with the 1964 Games.
Third after the short program were Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China while Americans Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman were fifth.
Joining Germany as winners in the hockey tournament Saturday night were Belarus, which downed the Ukraine, 1-0; and Latvia, which defeated Austria, 4-2. The winners of the two four-team groups in the preliminary phase of the hockey competition will move on to play against eight nations that have received a bye past the first round.
On Sunday, one of the highlight events of any Olympics was set to take place. The men's downhill was scheduled to start at 10 a.m. and was one of five medal events on the schedule.
Medals will also be given away in the nordic combined, women's halfpipe snowboarding, women's 3,000-meter speed skating and the 90-meter ski jumping.
The ski jumping portion of the nordic combined was held Saturday with Finland's Jaakko Tallus taking a big lead over Austria's Mario Stecher. Two slalom runs will take place Sunday and the combination of the slalom and ski jumping will determine the winner.
