Tuesday's Olympic Highlights

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Highlights from Tuesday's action at the Olympics:

-- The first men's hockey games of the Olympics were played and were, predictably, won by the United States and Canada. The Americans, however, were not overwhelmingly impressive in downing Switzerland 3-0 and Canada failed to score in the first period before running away from Norway 8-0.

-- A tremendous duel is shaping up between defending champion Evgeni Plushenko of Russia and American Evan Lysacek in the figure skating final Thursday. Plushenko narrowly won the short program Tuesday with a score of 90.85 -- only .55 of a point in front of Lysacek. It has been 58 years since a male has won two straight Olympic figure skating gold medals.

-- One of the surprises about biathlon is what good television it makes, especially the pursuit races. With medal contenders shooting side-by-side on the range, the outcome rests on every shot. Sweden's Bjorn Ferry won the men's pursuit Tuesday and Magdelena Neuner of Germany was the women's champion.

-- Germany had the best day of all around the Olympic venues, winning four medals. Two of them were gold and the Germans moved to the top of the medal table with three golds and nine overall.

-- For the first time in Olympic history, skaters from the same country won the gold medals in both the men's and women's 500-meter sprint. Sang-Hwa became the women's champion Tuesday. Tae-Bum Mo won the men's race 24 hours earlier.

-- Germany ran its winning streak in women's luge to four straight Olympics. Tatjana Huefner was the champion this time. The event has been contested in the Games 13 times and Germans have won on nine occasions.

-- Canada won its second gold medal with a victory by Maelee Ricker in the snowboarding cross. When the Olympics were held in Montreal (summer) and Calgary (winter), Canada did not win a single gold medal.