Granada Day 1: Liebers claims skating gold, Kazakhs master moguls

Pavel Kolmakov and Yulia Galysheva both secured gold medals in the men's and women's freestyle skiing mogul events on the first day of full action at Granada.

Although the ice hockey group games started on Tuesday, the second phase of the 2015 Winter Universiade got under way in the Sierra Nevada mountains of southern Spain on Thursday following the opening ceremony on Wednesday.

Kolmakov, an 18-year-old sport and tourism student from Almaty, beat fellow Kazakh Dmitriy Reiherd to secure the gold medal, while Russia's Sergie Shimbuev took bronze after a tight contest on the Visera ski slope.

In heavy snow and extremely strong winds that pummelled the piste - with record gusts hitting the 130 km/h mark - Kolomakov finished the final with 72.45 points, Reiherd with 68.73 points and Shimbuev with 62.11 points.

"It is my first time competing at an international event, which makes me really happy. The snow was soft, even though the slope was not symmetrical," said Kolomakov.

Earlier, in the women's moguls final, 22-year-old Galysheva, also from Almaty, finished with 66 points to take the gold medal ahead of Russia's Marika Pertakhiya (59.90 points). Jee-Won Seo of the Republic of Korea took the bronze medal with 51.85 points.

"Despite the delays and the irregularities of the snow on the slopes, the snow was in good conditions and I am feeling really happy," Galysheva said.

The first figure skating gold medal of the games went to Germany's Peter Liebers who captivated the audience at the Universiade Igloo on Thursday evening. The 26-year-old applied sciences student from Berlin notched 223.74 points in the free skating to take the win ahead of Japan's Takahiko Kozuka (217.70 points) and Russia's Artur Gachinski (216.59 points).

Elsewhere, the preliminary rounds of the ice hockey tournament continued with the stand-out result being Russia's 13-0 thrashing of the Republic of Korea at the Granada Sports Palace, which included a hat-trick from Sergey Barbashev. In other men's games, Canada canned Sweden 7-0 and Japan edged USA 3-2 with the winning goal coming deep into the third period.

In the women's ice hockey tournament, the USA were narrowly beaten once again - this time by China 2-1 at the Mulhacen Pavilion - while hosts Spain were subjected to an 11-0 drubbing at the hands of Japan.

Owing to heavy mid-week snowfall in Spain, ferocious winds and temperatures as low as -17ºC, Thursday's women's super-G final - the first scheduled event of the Alpine skiing programme - was postponed until Friday, when the men's finals for the same discipline takes place.

Some 40cm of snow fell on the slopes in Sierre Nevada, forcing all training to be cancelled on Wednesday while the piste bashers of the Sulayr Snowpark, volunteers, members of the Andalusian Federation of Winter Sports and soldiers of the Special Operations Command of the Spanish Army combined to prepare the settings for the events and restore the necessary security measures.

Both the men's and women's super-G qualification rounds went ahead as expected on Thursday with the finals to be held on Friday along with the figure skating free skating pairs and the men's and women's snowboard cross.