Vancouver, British Columbia - The first gold medalist of the 2010 Winter Games is the guy who won two golds in Salt Lake City eight years ago.

If the name Simon Ammann doesn't ring a bell, maybe this will: He's the Swiss ski jumper who looked a lot like Harry Potter.

Now 28 - and no longer a double for the boy wizard - Ammann is again the best in the world. He won the individual normal hill title Saturday for the honor of being the first of 86 champions to be crowned at the Vancouver Games.

The first Olympic record was set by Dutch speedskater Sven Kramer in winning the 5,000 meters.

Kramer's time of 6 minutes, 14.60 seconds shaved six-hundredths of a second off Jochem Uytdehaage's record set at altitude in Salt Lake City in 2002.

Another first was expected to come Saturday night - the first gold won at home by Canada.

The host nation was shut out in Montreal at the 1976 Summer Games and in Calgary at the 1988 Winter Games. Now, moguls skiers Jenn Heil and Krsti Richards, and speedskater Charles Hamelin all have a good chance of setting off a spirited rendition of "O Canada."

Competition at the 21st Winter Olympics opened Saturday with all eyes and heavy hearts on the Whistler Sliding Center. Sliders resumed training on a repaired and slightly reconfigured track the day after a 21-year-old luger from the republic of Georgia died following a crash on the last turn of a training run.

The men's downhill was supposed to be the first medal of these games, but it was postponed because of warm, wet weather in Whistler. That put the ski jumpers at the head of the list.

Ammann's victory was decisive - he posted the longest jumps in both rounds. His score of 276.5 points far beat his 269 from Salt Lake. At Turin in '06, Ammann went out in the first of two rounds, finishing 38th.

Polish veteran Adam Malysz took silver and Austria's Gregor Schlierenzauer bounced back from a disappointing first jump to earn bronze in his Olympic debut.

With Vice President Joe Biden watching, none of the three U.S. ski jumpers made it to the final round. Peter Frenette and Nick Alexander tied for 41st, while Anders Johnson was 49th.

In the speedskating, a trio of Americans failed to crack the top 10 but they dominated the next 10. Chad Hedrick finished 11th, with Shani Davis 12th and Trevor Marsicano 14th.

Men's downhill

Alpine skiers woke up Saturday to news of another day of delays.

The competition-opening men's downhill was called off about 4 a.m., with officials realizing their slopes would be too slushy. It wasn't much of a surprise because the women's super-combined, originally planned for today, was postponed Friday afternoon.

The International Ski Federation is considering throwing out its schedule and starting from scratch, with a new plan featuring seven straight days of racing.

So far, the only decision is that the men's event will (hopefully) be Monday, at 1:30 p.m. EST. The women's event - featuring American sensation Lindsey Vonn - had not been rescheduled as of Saturday morning.

Vonn is about the only one pleased with all the delays because it gives her more time to recover from a bruised shin.

Biathlon

Slovakia's Anastazia Kuzmina won the women's 7.5-kilometer biathlon sprint. She hit nine of 10 shots and finished in 19 minutes, 55.6 seconds on the course that had to be sprinkled with fertilizer to harden the snow that had been pelted for days with rain and sleet.

Germany's Magdalena Neuner took the silver, finishing 1.5 seconds behind Kuzmina, and Marie Dorin of France won the bronze.

The top American, Sara Studebaker, finished 45th, more than two minutes behind.

Women's hockey

The reigning silver medalists from Sweden beat Switzerland 3-0 in the first match of the women's hockey tournament.

Goalie Kim Martin, the star of Sweden's semifinal upset of the U.S. in Turin, preserved the shutout with several sharp saves in the third period against a Swiss team that has risen to prominence since the last Olympics and features Northeastern University's Florence Schelling in goal.

Canada has opened the women's hockey tournament with the biggest blowout in Olympic history, beating Slovakia 18-0 in front of a flag-waving sellout crowd.

Mercilessly attacking tall game, the hosts turned Slovakia's Olympic debut into a celebration of Canada's wildly superior skill Saturday night in a sport still derided for its lack of parity.

The two-time gold medalists got a taste of their formidable home-ice advantage when they skated onto the Canada Hockey Place ice to a stirring ovation. Just 99 seconds later, Haley Irwin scored the Canadians' first goal.

Meghan Agosta and Jayna Hefford scored three goals apiece. Hefford completed her hat trick on the goal surpassing Canada's 16-0 win over Italy in Turin.

Short-track skating

Apolo Anton Ohno won the silver medal in the short-track 1,500-meter speedskating final, tying Bonnie Blair as the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian.

Lee Jung-su of South Korea won the gold medal Saturday night. Ohno finished second after Korean teammates Sung Si-bak and Lee Ho-suk took each other out on the final turn. American J.R. Celski earned the bronze. Ohno has won six medals in three Olympics, the most of any short-track skater.

Opening ceremony ratings

If you weren't among those watching the opening ceremony Friday night, plenty of your friends probably did.

The Nielsen Co. says an estimated 32.6 million people watched Friday's opening ceremony - a 48 percent jump from the 2006 Games from Turin and approaching the 34.2 million who watched the opening in Beijing.

Only the Lillehammer games of 1994 - better known as the Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan Olympics - had a larger U.S. audience for its opening ceremony.