Loch leads German sweep of top 5 at luge World Cup

IGLS, Austria (AP) -- Olympic luge champion Felix Loch led a German sweep of the top five positions at the season-opening race Sunday, the first time in the men's World Cup that all five lugers from one nation finished ahead of the field.

Loch, who is the defending World Cup champion, set a track record in his first run and was fastest in the second to finish in an aggregate time of 1 minute, 40.229 seconds for his 11th career win.

David Moeller was 0.307 back in second, and Johannes Ludwig took third.

On Saturday, Germany also dominated the women's and the men's doubles races by earning 1-2 finishes in both events. The Germans wrapped up their unbeaten weekend by winning the team relay competition later Sunday.

LAKE LOUISE, Alberta (AP) -- Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway won a super-G Sunday, completing a sweep at Lake Louise.

Svindal also won Saturday's downhill, making him the first man to win both events at Lake Louise since Bode Miller in 2004.

Svindal was timed in 1 minute, 34.96 seconds, beating runner-up Adrien Theaux of France by 0.85 seconds. Joachim Puchner of Austria was third in 1:35.86, and Ted Ligety of the U.S. was fourth in 1:35.87.

LILLEHAMMER, Norway (AP) -- Magnus Moan of Norway won his second Nordic Combined World Cup event of the weekend Sunday for his 20th career victory.

Moan, who earned his first win in almost two years at Saturday's season-opening event, was sixth after the ski jumping discipline but convincingly won the 10-kilometer penalty race to finish in 26 minutes, 54.4 seconds.

Fellow Norwegian Haavard Klemetsen had the best jump but lost time to Moan in the cross-country portion and was 5.0 seconds back in second place.

Eric Frenzel of Germany came in third.

Moan leads the standings with 200 points, 70 ahead of Klemetsen and Lamy Chappuis, who are tied for second.

OSTERSUND, Sweden (AP) -- Russia won the season-opening event of the biathlon World Cup on Sunday with a dominating performance in a mixed relay.

The biathlon season normally opens with an individual race, but organizers this year decided to kick off with the mixed event, which features two women and two men on each team.

Russia trailed Norway by 10.5 seconds after the first leg, but the team's second skier, Olga Vlukhina, gave Alexey Volkov a 21-second advantage heading into the third leg.

The team went on to win with a total time of 1 hour, 12 minutes, 41.3 seconds, beating Norway by 21.2 seconds. The Czech Republic took third, 36.4 seconds behind.

LILLEHAMMER, Norway (AP) -- Austria's Gregor Schlierenzauer earned the 41st ski jump World Cup victory of his career by a slim margin Sunday.

Schlierenzauer jumped 141 meters in the first round and followed it up with a 137-meter effort in the second, which was just enough to hold off second-place finisher Anders Fannemel of Norway.

Schlierenzauer finished with 275.5 points to 275.4 for Fannemel, who had the day's second best jump of 140 meters.

It was the first podium finish of Fannemel's career.

Thomas Morgenstern of Austria came in third with 269.4 points, while the winner of Saturday's event, Germany's Severin Freund, finished in 16th because of a bad first jump.

GALLIVARE, Sweden (AP) -- Norway won both the men's and women's relay competitions at the season-opening World Cup cross-country meet Sunday.

The men's team of Eldar Roenning, Martin Johnsrud Sundby, Sjur Roethe and Petter Northug finished the 4x7.5-kilometer race in 1 hour, 1 minute, 59.3 seconds to beat Sweden by 6.4 seconds. Russia was third.

Vibeke Skofterud, Therese Johaug, Martine Ek Hagen and Marit Bjoergen led the 4x5K women's race throughout before finishing in 45 minutes, 32.2 seconds.

Sweden took second, 19.4 seconds behind, and the United States was 28.2 back in third.

The cross-country World Cup continues in Kuusamo, Finland, next weekend.

KOLOMNA, Russia (AP) -- Koen Verweij earned his first career World Cup individual victory Sunday by winning the men's 1,500-meter race, while fellow Dutchman Jorit Bergsma won the men's mass start.

Former Olympic champion Claudia Pechstein of Germany won the women's 3,000 meters.

Verweij finished in 1 minute, 45.56 seconds, edging Bart Swings of Belgium by 0.21 seconds.

Brian Hansen of the United States was another 0.14 seconds behind for third.

Verweij was a member of the Dutch team that won the world championships title and two World Cup races in the men's team pursuit last season.

Maurice Vriend of the Netherlands, who won the season-opening 1,500 in Heerenveen, Netherlands, last weekend, leads the discipline standings with 145 points.

Bergsma posted a time of 10:00.07 to finish ahead of two French skaters, Ewen Fernendez and Alexis Contin.

After two of three mass start races this season, Bergsma leads the discipline standings with 145 points. Contin is five points behind in second.

Pechstein won in 4:02.31 and edged reigning world 3,000-meter champion Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic by 0.15 seconds for her second World Cup victory this year since a two-year ban for suspected blood doping.

Marije Joling of the Netherlands came in third.

Stephanie Beckert of Germany, who won in Heerenveen, leads the discipline standings with 160 points.