Russian President Dmitry Medvedev demanded Monday that sports officials step down over the country's dismal performance at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Years from now, when Julia Mancuso reflects on these Olympics, she will always have two shiny silver medals to make her smile — and a whirlwind, sour final 24 hours to make her wince.

Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane have given the Americans a 1-2 finish in the Nordic combined large hill competition that was marred by bad weather. Demong, of Vermontville, N.Y. ended America's golden goose egg in Nordic sports at the Winter Games by winning the 10-kilometer cross-country leg in 25 minutes, 32.9 seconds Thursday.

Current Olympians and others in the ski community are mourning the loss of professional free skier C.R. Johnson, who died in a fall while skiing a steep chute at California's Squaw Valley.

Gasping for air, American Johnny Spillane was gliding toward the finish line, cowbells clanking in his ears, the stars and stripes shimmering in the stands, a gold medal and greatness both within his grasp.

A men's Olympic luger from the country of Georgia died Friday after a high-speed crash during training. IOC president Jacques Rogge said the death hours before the opening ceremony "clearly casts a shadow over these games."

A blizzard howled up the East Coast on Wednesday, making roads from Baltimore to New York City so treacherous that even plow drivers pulled over and bringing more misery to a Mid-Atlantic region having the snowiest winter on record.

Ever hit the slopes only to find 4 inches of fresh snow instead of the 8 inches you were promised?

The bodies of three skiers missing after an avalanche in central Switzerland were found Tuesday, raising to seven the death toll in the country's worst avalanche disaster in more than a decade, rescue officials said.

Snowfall and fog were hampering a search in the Swiss Alps on Monday for three people believed trapped after avalanches killed at least four skiers and a rescue doctor, officials said.

They rang in 2009 a day late in Aspen after a former resident unhappy that his hometown has become a resort playground for the wealthy vowed "mass death" and left four bombs around downtown before killing himself.

Avalanche centers around the Rockies warned that backcountry conditions were hazardous and likely to become even more dangerous with approaching storms.