‘Machine’ Thompson wins gold

CALGARY — Just call Marielle Thompson Marielle the Machine.

The Olympic ski cross champion won gold Sunday at a World Cup stop in Idre Fjall, Sweden, a day after winning silver on the same mountain.

On Sunday, Thompson led wire to wire in all the heats and the final for the 13th World Cup victory of her career.

“I tried to ski my best all day today and be patient with the course,” said the 23-year-old North Vancouver resident. “There were opportunities to make big moves on the bottom portion of the track, which I capitalized on a couple times today.”

Louis-Pierre Helie, of Berthierville, Que., made the first big final of his career and finished fourth.

“I had some good fight in me all day,” he said. “In the end, I think I was thinking about the podium a little too much.

Lugers reach podium

With veterans Sam Edney (Royal Roads University) and Alex Gough (University of Calgary) concentrating on their studies, the Canadian luge relay team enters every contest as massive underdogs. On Sunday, the kids shocked the competition by winning silver in the World Cup team relay in Altenberg, Germany.

Led by Victoria-born Kim McRae, Calgary’s 20-year-old Mitch Malyk and the veteran doubles sled of Justin Snith (Calgary) and Tristan Walker (Cochrane, Alta.), Canada stopped the clock at two minutes, 24.50 seconds.

“All three sleds had good starts, good runs and great transition times today,” said head coach Wolfgang Staudinger. “This result today is very promising, and shows we are in a good place for the future.”

Germany won the gold medal with a time of 2:24.204. Latvia slid to the bronze with a time of 2:24.982.

Elsewhere Sunday, Canada won three medals at Sunday’s short track World Cup in Dordrecht, Netherlands.

Charles Cournoyer (gold), Valerie Maltais (silver) and Marianne St-Gelais (bronze) brought Canada’s total to 44 medals in the 201516 season — the biggest medal haul for this country since amassing 47 podium visits in 2002-03.

At the Australian Open Water Swimming Championships, Richard Weinberger of Surrey took third place in the men’s five-kilometre race.