* Russians won the gold at the Ice Speedway World Team Championship, held in Berlin, Germany. Sweden took the silver, and Finland finished third
* Russia won the gold at the Moscow saber-fencing women's team tournament, part of the FIE World Cup series, by defeating Poland in the dramatic final match, 45:44. France finished third by beating China in the bronze-medal match, 45:31
* Russian Lidiya Grogoryeva finished first at the women's Los Angeles Marathon, and fought hard to cross the finish line 26 seconds ahead of men's race winner, Benson Cherono from Kenya, to earn the Banco Popular Challenge prize of $100,000, awarded in a battle-of-the-genders competition that allows women to start ahead of the men. Organizers gave women a 16:46-minute handicap, or the exact time difference between women's and men's records at the LA Marathon. Grigoryeva also earned $35,000 and a new car for winning the women's race, as did Cherono
* Russian grandmasters Alisa Galliamova and Svetlana Matveyeva tied their opponents, Viktoria Cmilyte from Lithuania and China's Xu Yuhua, respectively, in the first leg of the semifinals series at the Women's World Chess Championship, being held in Yekaterinburg, Western Siberia, through March 27. Second legs and tie-breaks (if necessary) are set for March 21
* Russian cyclist Andrei Sartasov won a 10-day road race in Chile with an overall time of 32 h, 34m, 9s, just 21 seconds ahead of Chilean cyclist Marco Arriagada
* Four grandmasters currently hold top spot at the VII Anatoly Karpov international chess tournament, being held in Khanty-Mansiisk region, Siberia, and featuring the world's leading players. The $13,000 tournament will run through March 28.
Standings after Day 3:
1-4 Aleksei Shirov (Spain), Ruslan Ponomaryov (Ukraine), Sergei Rublevsky, Vadim Zvyagintsev (both Russia) - 2 points
5-8 Ivan Sokolov (Netherlands), Yevgeny Bareyev, Alexei Dreyev, Yevgeny Nayer (all Russia) - 1.5 point
9- Alexander Onishchuk (United States) - 1 point
10 - Viorel Bologan (Moldova) - no points
Day 3 results:
Sokolov - Onishchuk - 0.5:0.5
Dreyev - Ponomaryov - 0.5:0.5
Bareyev - Nayer - 0.5:0.5
Bologan - Zvyagintsev - 0:1
Rublevsky - Shirov - 0.5:0.5
* Russian figure skaters Mariya Patrova and Alexei Tikhonov are currently in third place after the short program in pairs skating at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Calgary, Canada. The Russian team does not include top performers, who won three golds and one bronze in the four events at the Olympic Winter Games in Turin
