European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 14, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                America 1st Weinbrecht wins event s initial Gold by Mike Rabun Albertville France up a Donna Weinbrecht took her place in olympic history thursday at the same time bringing America its second Gold medal. With freestyle skiing a medal event for sports initial Gold medallist. A it is something pretty special to be the first olympic Champion a said went Brecht a 26-year-old native of new Jersey. A i am starting something in history and in a proud to bring this medal Home to the United  Weinbrecht accumulated 23.69 Points to 23.50 for Elizaveta Kaj Nikova of the unified team of the Commonwealth of Independent states and 23.04 for Stine Hattestad of Norway. Vegard Ulvang a big powerful norwegian Mountain climber became the first double Gold medal Winner of the Winter games and Austria a Petra Kronberger took the first of a possible four Gold medals by winning the women a combined. With a raging storm playing havoc with the games dumping heavy Snow in the mountains and pouring rain in the valleys Ulvang made an Early bid to become the hero of the olympics by dominating his second straight Cross country race. The norwegian won Over 30 Kilometres last monday and on thursday added the 10-Kilometer Gold medal to his collection a turning in a time of 27 minutes 36.0 seconds despite breaking a pole Midway through the race and flopping into the Snow. And he could Well win a third saturday because the race he captured thursday serves As the opening half of a first time Competition in the games a the Cross country Pursuit. Kronberger after winning the downhill portion of the combined wednesday followed with two Strong slalom legs thursday to secure the Gold medal. Anita Wachter the defending Champion also the stars and stripes february 14,1992 c Page 28 l inside sports Minnesota upsets Indiana a Page 22 rangers slip past canucks a Page 22 Mavericks Knock off celtics a Page 25 no. 1 courier posts easy win a Page 27 americans Donna Weinbrecht emits after striking Gold in freestyle moguls thursday. . Ices gun Down finns gave Austria the Silver and Florence Masnada of France won the Bronze medal. Krista Schmidinger of Lee mass., after starting the Day in second place wound up Llyn Overall after placing 14th among the 22 finishers in the slalom. Six Gold medals were awarded thursday the most in any one Day of these olympics. Other than Weinbrecht Ulvang and Kronberger the golds went to Edgar Grospiron of France in the menus moguls Finland a Maikut Lukkarinen in the women a 5-Kilometer Cross county event and Norway a Geir Karlstad in menus 5,000-meter Speed skating. By Mike Nadel Meribel France a the undefeated . Hockey team is headed for the olympic medal round for the first time in 12 years after thursdays 4-1 Victory Over Finland. Tim Sweeney a breakaway goal at 13 55 of the second period snapped a 1-1 tie Scott Young scored twice and Ray Leblanc made 24 saves As the United states 3-0 continued erasing memories of seventh place finishes in the 1984 and 1988 games. A a it a a completely different feeling a a said Young who was also on the 88 team that got off to a 1-2 Start. A we had a Good team in �?T88. We should Nave been so much better. It was a major disappointment. This is tremendous. A _ tie Victory gave America the inside track for one of the top two seeds in its group. Sweden which played Germany tonight is 2-0 and meets the United states on monday in the preliminary round finale. Finland 2-1 also is expected to qualify. The top four teams in each group make the medal round. The last time the United states made the medal round was 1980, when the a Miracle of ice team won the Gold medal in Lake Placid . A not taking anything away from Italy and Germany the . Teams first two victim but we feel Finland is one of the better teams in the tournament a Young said. A a they be always been in the running. We be been Reading the papers. We know everybody was going to gauge us on this  this was the second major tournament Victory Over Finland in less than 10 months for the United states which beat the finns 2-1 in the 1991 world championships. Earlier thursday Italy 1-2 closed in on the groups fourth medal round spot beating win less Poland 7-1 behind the Strong goal ending of american born David Delfino. In the other group Czechoslovakia got a goal wednesday from Petr Rosol with 3 18 to Fin. For a 4-3 Victory Over the unified team which won the last two Gold medals under the Flag of the soviet Union. Czechoslovakia 3-0 has clinched a berth in the medal round As has Canada 3-0its Friday opponent. Canada crushed Norway 10-0 and France 1-2 kept alive a Chance to win a medal by beating Switzerland 4-3. The United states followed spa in the third period a play goal by Sean Hill and Scott Youngs. Its game plan almost perfectly a nifty of giving to few dead on shots at Leblanc. _. It per thursday letting the nifty finns handle the puck but j them the goalie had a much easier time than he did in a 2-0 Victory Over Germany on tuesday when he made 46 saves. A they played really Well in front or a great goalie a finnish assistant coach Sakari Pietila said. A we had our moments but we were too weak in front of .a.�?Ts  Sweeney who keyed a four goal third period rally in americans opening Victory Over Italy again came through in the clutch. He got behind teem Velanne to take . Young s breakaway pass and Slid the suck Between goalie Markus Etterer a pads to make it 2-1. Power. _. Ids Youngs shorthanded goal iced it. Scott Young had put the United states ahead with 1 16 left in the first period beating Ketterer through the pads with a slap shot from the top of the right Circle. Leblanc a shutout string ended at 110 minutes 57 seconds when he yielded Mikko Makela a shorthanded goal Midway through the second period. Leblanc could hardly be faulted however As Makela a stick Han doing turned defens Eman Scott Lachance inside out and gave the finn a Clear path to the net. Czechoslovakia a a Victory was an upset though not a titanic one. This unified team is very different from the soviet team that had compiled a 53-5-2 olympic record since 1956 and had won seven of the last nine Gold medals. ,.1$ Winfel i Austria 4 4 4 12 Germany i a a it 4 4 2 10 unified team 3 3 3 9 noway a y. 3 1 2 6 ? France 2 3 1 6 Finland 1 1 2 4 1 United states 2 0 1 3 1 2 0 3 Netherlands 0 1 1 2 China 0 1 0 1 Canada 0 0 1 1 Japan 0 0 1 1 $ Sweden 0 0 1 1 Switzerland 0 0 1 1 does not induce demonstration sports ap/s&5