Olympic notes: American Maame Biney safely through 500-meter quarterfinals

American Maame Biney moved safely through to the 500-meter quarterfinals in her short-track Olympic debut.

The 18-year-old speedskater finished second in Pyeongchang in her heat behind China's Fan Kexin on Saturday night. Biney was born in Ghana and moved to the U.S. as a 5-year-old.

The other American, Lana Gehring, was eliminated after finishing third in her heat. Only the top two skaters in each heat advance.

Among the big names moving on to Tuesday's quarterfinals are Canadian teammates Kim Boutin and Marianne St-Gelais, Italy's Arianna Fontana, Britain's Elise Christie and South Korea's Choi Min-jeong.

South Korea's Shim Suk-hee was a three-time medalist at the Sochi Games but was eliminated Saturday after finishing third in her heat.

Andreas Wellinger withstood windy conditions to claim the gold medal in normal hill ski jumping.

High winds at the Alpensia Ski Jumping center during Saturday's first round resulted in a 30-minute delay of the final.

The wind continued in the final round and there were numerous delays before the 22-year German nailed a jump of 113.5 meters to secure the gold with 259.3 points.

Johann Andre Forfang took the silver ahead of fellow Norwegian Robert Johansson.

Germany's Laura Dahlmeier, a 24-year-old budding biathlon star, hit all 10 targets to win her first gold medal in the women's 7.5-kilometer sprint on Saturday night in Pyeongchang. Norway's Marte Olsbu captured the silver medal and Veronika Vitkova from the Czech Republic took home the bronze.

The men's downhill was postponed until Thursday because of strong winds.

To make room for the Alpine program's marquee race, the men's super-G will shift from Thursday to Friday.

The downhill was supposed to be the first race of the 11-event Alpine program, and it had been scheduled for Sunday. But three hours before it was supposed to start, race organizers said they needed to reschedule it.

They said they couldn't operate the gondola lift that would carry teams and officials up the mountain.

The first race of the Alpine program will be the women's giant slalom on Monday.

Germany's Felix Loch — the two-time defending Olympic champion — is the leader at the midway point of the men's luge competition, finishing his first two runs Saturday night in 1 minute, 35.299 seconds.

From there, it's a logjam: David Gleirscher of Austria is second in 1:35.487, Roman Repilov of the "Olympic Athletes from Russia" is third in 1:35.516, and Chris Mazdzer of the U.S. is fourth in 1:35.517 — one-thousandth of a second from bronze.

Two-time Olympic medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir blew away the field in the team figure skating event by a margin of 5.05 points in the short dance. They were the 2010 ice dance gold medalists and won silver in 2014.

Their performance gives Canada 27 points overall in the team standings, four points in front of the second-place United States, which got a strong performance to the required Latin theme from siblings Maia and Alex Shibutani.

The Russians are in third with 21 points heading into the women's short program. Following that will be the pairs free skate.

• Speedskater Shani Davis declined to talk to reporters for a second day in a row about the controversy over how the U.S. chose its flag-bearer for the Opening Ceremony.

• The U.S. mixed doubles curling team of Becca and Matt Hamilton of McFarland, Wis., broke its four-game losing streak Saturday but was officially eliminated from Olympic playoff contention.

The U.S. team stole eight points against Norway's last shot over the final three of six ends and defeated Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten 10-3 in Gangneung, South Korea.

• The Opening Ceremony reached 27.8 million viewers on NBC, a number that inches up to 28.3 million when digital viewers are added. That's down from the 31.7 million who watched the 2014 opening.

• A central Minnesota couple is working at the Olympics. Dr. Joel Shobe, an orthopedic surgeon, is a medical adviser for short-track speedskating, while Susan Shobe is a speedskating referee.

Joel Shobe has spent more than 20 years at St. Cloud Orthopedics. He will mainly supervise anti-doping testing and also provide medical care. Susan Shobe was St. Cloud State Nordic skiing coach from 1998 to 2006.