SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Fast five, Wednesday edition: Five things you’ll want to know about the 2014 Winter Olympics.

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LIGETY SPLIT: Ted Ligety won the giant slalom at the Sochi Games with a dominating performance Wednesday, becoming the first American man to win two Olympic gold medals in Alpine skiing. Ligety finished his two runs in 2 minutes, 45.29 seconds. His first gold came in combined at the 2006 Turin Games as a 21-year-old. The only other American to win two Olympic golds in Alpine skiing was Andrea Mead Lawrence, in the 1952 Oslo Games.

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BUBKA SPEAKS: Sergei Bubka, the pole vault great who heads the Ukrainian Olympic Committee, is urging both sides in Ukraine’s political crisis to lay down their weapons and halt the violence that is bringing the country to “the brink of catastrophe.” Bubka issued his call after clashes between riot police and anti-government protesters left at least 25 people dead and 240 injured in Kiev, the worst violence in the country’s post-Soviet history.

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WILD WIN: Vic Wild of Russia won Olympic gold in men’s snowboard parallel giant slalom. It’s Russia’s sixth gold medal of the Sochi Games.

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WOMEN’S HOCKEY CLASH: The women’s hockey game everyone has been waiting for has nearly arrived. Canada and the United States, the two teams that have dominated international play, will face off in the gold medal game on Thursday. It’s the fourth time in five Olympics the two teams will meet for the championship. Canada defenseman Jocelyne Larocque says it’s going to be “just another game.”

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MEDAL MOVERS: Norway won two gold medals and a silver on Tuesday to be the biggest medal mover of the day, jumping to second behind Germany in the overall medal standings through 67 of 98 events. All of Norway’s 18 medals in Sochi are in snow sports.

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Fast Five, Tuesday edition: Five things you’ll want to know about the 2014 Winter Olympics.

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PUSSY RIOT MEMBERS DETAINED: A member of the punk group Pussy Riot said she and one her bandmates were detained Tuesday while walking in downtown Sochi. A tweet from Nadezhda Tolokonnikova said she and Maria Alekhina were stopped and accused of a crime. A third member of the loosely organized group also was detained, she tweeted.

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SOUTH KOREA WINS IN SHORT TRACK: South Korea won the women’s Olympic short track 3,000-meter relay, passing China on the last lap. The team of Cho Ha-ri, Kim Alang, Park Seung-hi and Shim Suk-hee crossed the finish line first in the 27-lap race.

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WOMEN’S HOCKEY TO STAY: There is no danger of women’s hockey being dropped from the Olympics, the head of ice hockey’s international governing body said. IIHF President Rene Fasel said he can guarantee that will never happen. Women’s hockey has faced criticism because it is dominated by the United States and Canada, which play in the gold medal game Thursday.

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MANCUSO IN 2018?: Julia Mancuso is leaving the door more than open for a 2018 Winter Olympics run in PyeongChang. The 29-year-old four-time medal winner said after failing to finish a giant slalom qualifying run on Tuesday that being in Sochi makes her want to compete again in four years.

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MEDAL MOVERS: Belarus picked up two gold medals on Monday to be Sochi’s biggest medal mover of the day, moving to seventh in the overall medal standings after 60 events. A total of 12 countries won medals in five events Monday, with seven events scheduled Tuesday.

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Fast Five, Monday edition: Five things you’ll want to know about the 2014 Winter Olympics.

WEATHER DELAYS: Heavy fog is giving the Sochi Olympics more problems than the warm temperatures ever did. The men’s snowboardcross and men’s 15-kilometer mass-start biathlon race have been pushed back to Tuesday because of poor visibility. It’s the second straight day that the biathlon has been postponed because of the fog.

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PROTESTER DETAINED: An activist has been detained in Sochi for protesting a recent prison sentence for a local environmentalist. David Khakim was holding a one-man picket outside the city administration in central Sochi on Monday when two police officers took him away. Khakim later posted pictures of his arrest on Twitter. Russia passed an ad-hoc law last year, banning public gatherings and rallies in Sochi during the Olympics.

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BODE’S EMOTIONAL MOMENT: American Alpine skier Bode Miller said an NBC interview that generated significant buzz in the United States was a “crazy emotional moment” after his bronze medal win in a super-G race. The interview was widely criticized after Miller was pressed on the death of his brother last year. The six-time medalist ended the interview in tears.

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GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST: An Italian gay-rights activist says she was detained by police in the Olympic host city after being stopped while carrying a rainbow flag saying “Gay is OK” in Russian. Vladimir Luxuria, a former Communist lawmaker in the Italian parliament, said on her website and Twitter feed that she was held for several hours Sunday before being released. Olympic officials say there is no record of the arrest.

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MEDAL MOVERS: The Netherlands is dominating speedskating in the Winter Olympics in a big way. Second in the overall medal standings — zero medals in any other sport. The Dutch swept their third podium of the Sochi Games Sunday, the women’s 1,500 meters speedskating, to be the biggest medal mover of the day. The Netherlands has won 17 medals overall, including five silvers and seven bronzes.

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Fast Five, Sunday edition: Five things you’ll want to know about the 2014 Winter Olympics.

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CZECH GOLD IN SNOWBOARDCROSS: Eva Samkova of the Czech Republic dominated in three races to win her country’s first gold in snowboardcross. Her runs went wire-to-wire, free of the chaos that claimed several racers including Lindsey Jacobellis o Park City, Utah, the sport’s greatest racer who has consistently fallen short in the Olympics.

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CROSS-COUNTRY SWEEP: Sweden successfully defended its Olympic gold in the men’s 4-by-10-kilometer cross-country relay. The country became the first in 42 years to win both the men’s and women’s team cross-country events in the same Winter Games.

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WELCOME, INDIA: India’s Olympic athletes can finally see their flag in the mountain village. The flag-raising symbolically marked the end of a 14-month IOC ban because of corruption issues with India’s governing sports body.

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CHU HURT, BUT WILL PLAY: Julie Chu hurt her left hand in practice, but not seriously enough to keep her out of the U.S. women’s hockey team’s Olympic semifinal against Switzerland, coach Katey Stone said Sunday. Chu has played in every Olympics since Salt Lake City in 2002.

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MEDAL MOVERS: Sure, Russia didn’t get a big hockey win against the United States, but it hauled in more medals than any other country on Saturday and moved ahead of the U.S. as the Sochi Games reached its midpoint. Five more gold medals were being awarded Sunday.

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Fast Five, Saturday edition: Five things you’ll want to know about the 2014 Winter Olympics.

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USA BEATS RUSSIA IN SHOOTOUT: With Russian President Vladimir Putin watching, the United States beat Russia in a preliminary round men’s hockey game in a shootout. T.J. Oshie of the St. Louis Blues hit the game-winner in a match that electrified Olympic Park and lit up Twitter and other social networks.

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SKIER HURT: Russian skicross racer Maria Komissarova sustained a broken and dislocated spine in Olympic training Saturday and was taken to a nearby hospital for surgery. The Russian freestyle federation said in a statement that the 23-year-old skier would not compete next week after having emergency surgery.

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SWEDEN WINS FIRST GOLD: Charlotte Kalla erased a massive deficit of 25 seconds on the last leg of a women’s cross-country relay to win the race. It’s the first gold medal of the Sochi Olympics for Sweden.

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DOWN TO THE THOUSANDTH: Poland won its first gold medal in Sochi thanks to three thousandths of a second. Zbigniew Brodka won the men’s 1,500 meters, the tightest finish in that race in Olympic history.

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MIDWAY POINT: The Olympics was reaching its midpoint Saturday with seven gold medals to be awarded. Switzerland picked up two golds and a silver in six competitions Friday to be the biggest medal mover of the day. Right behind it was Belarus, which won two golds and a bronze.