Records tumbled on the first day of medal action at the Sochi Winter Olympics on Saturday as organisers breathed a sigh of relief after a dazzling opening ceremony hailed as a success around the world.
Bode Miller takes part in a Men's Alpine Skiing Downhill training session at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center on February 8, 2014
Under picture-perfect blue skies US snowboarder Sage Kotsenburg took the first gold in the inaugural men's slopestyle event but two veterans stole the headlines.
Forty-year-old Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjoerndalen became the joint highest medal winner in Winter Olympics history with his victory in the sprint while compatriot Marit Bjoergen, 33, became her country's most successful female Olympian with victory in the skiathlon.
Sven Kramer of the Netherlands led a Dutch clean sweep in the men's 5,000 metres speed skating on a day when five gold medals were due to be handed out.
A glittering opening ceremony on Friday took the focus off the litany of concerns that have dogged the run-up to the Olympics -- a project championed by President Vladimir Putin -- including Russia's gay rights record and security.
Thousands of fireworks exploded above the Fisht stadium on the Black Sea coast during a event that won gushing praise at home and abroad, despite an early mishap when one of the Olympic rings failed to morph from a snowflake.
"We missed this for so many years... a pride for our country, a feeling for her power, unity and greatness. Yesterday, we felt it," the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily said.
"It was a great and overwhelming ceremony. I am proud of what we have done," said the head of the Sochi organising committee, Dmitry Chernyshenko, adding that Putin had also declared himself "satisfied" with the result.
He also defended the choice of triple Olympic gold medal winning ice skater Irina Rodnina to light the Olympic cauldron, after last year she tweeted a picture of US President Barack Obama with a banana, condemned by activists as a racist gesture.
"Irina Rodnina is one of the most respected Olympic athletes. The Olympics are not about politics," he said.
Organisers brushed off the rings mishap, admitting that they covered up the glitch on Russian state television by quickly inserting footage of the segment they had recorded days earlier.
In an episode that highly amused anti-Kremlin Russian bloggers, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev appeared to nod off just before the Games were declared open.
One picture doing the rounds on Twitter showed just a black square with the slogan: "The Olympics through the eyes of Medvedev."
Even the foreign press, which have been hugely critical of Russia in the run-up to the Games, heaped praised on the ceremony, with Britain's Daily Mail saying it marked Russia's "revival as a post-Soviet powerhouse".
Putin, who spearheaded the successful bid in 2007, welcomed more than 40 other heads of state and leaders for the ceremony, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and embattled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
On Saturday he held informal talks in Sochi with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Kremlin announced.
Obama, as well as the leaders of key EU states Britain, France, and Germany, were conspicuous by their absence, a move seen by many as a snub over Russia’s now notorious anti-gay law.
The security concerns that have shadowed the Games were underlined when a Ukrainian man attempted to hijack an airliner en route from Ukraine to Turkey and divert it to Sochi.
But Turkish military jets forced the plane to land in Istanbul, where security teams overpowered the man, said to be drunk.
Turkish anti-terror police were Saturday interrogating him while Ukraine's security service opened a probe for "an attempt to commit an act of terror and an attempt to hijack a plane".