Anna Fedulova led the Russian monopoly of the podium as she powered round the course in a time of 32min 19.3secs, which gave her a narrow victory over compatriot Lyubov Misharina, while Raisa Golovina was third, over a minute off the pace.

The hosts also proved too strong in the men's 20km skiathlon, as Vladmir Mayorov took gold by a 16.8 second margin ahead of nearest challenger Andriy Andriyishyn of Ukraine, and his team mate Pavlo Mandziuk came through to take bronze.

Elsewhere on a packed opening day of action, the United States dominated the snowboard slopestyle competitions as Blair Esson rode to gold in the men's event, while compatriot Lauren Weibert repeated the feat in the women's category.

Esson clinched the Deaflympics title with an astonishing 94.7 points on his third attempt, which left the rest of the field languishing far behind.

Jonas Jenzer of Switzerland won silver with 84 points, and Blair's brother Sean maintained the strong American influence on the podium as he finished third.

In the women's event, it proved to be a much closer affair as Weibert claimed victory by a tight 3.7 points, taking gold ahead of Petrine Olgeirsdottir, who fell at her first attempt before she recovered to post a total of 72.3 points.

Russia's men's curling team suffered two defeats on the opening day ©Ugra 2015



Svetlana Anisimova added to a fruitful day for the Russians as she finished one point shy of silver and had to therefore settle for bronze.

The curling competition for men and women also began today, and the men's tournament saw Canada secure two victories as they thrashed Switzerland 12-2 in their opener before they earned a 7-2 triumph over the United States in the evening.

Japan also ended the first day with a 100 per cent record following wins against hosts Russia and Korea.

South Korea, Ukraine, China and Hungary all also enjoyed some degree of success with one victory apiece.

In the women's event, there were several one-sided contests which began with Korea's 14-6 thumping of the Ukraine, and after China had beaten Canada, the raucous home crowd had something to cheer about as Russian beat Slovakia 14-2.

Hungary rounded out the first round of fixtures with an 8-4 victory against Croatia.

The men's ice hockey completed a bumper day of competition as Canada beat rivals United States 4-2, and Russia continued their excellent display as they hammered Kazakhstan 9-0.

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