Shaun White and Lindsey Vonn claim Olympic gold

Yet more mishaps in Vancouver failed to overshadow the performances of two of the Winter Olympics' biggest stars who both secured gold medals on the sixth day of competition.

Snowboarding superstar Shaun White, aka the 'Flying Tomato', successfully defended his gold medal in the men's half pipe event, and on the downhill ski course fellow American Lindsey Vonn overcame her shin injury to win the women's downhill at Whister.

White, as expected, dominated his event securing the title on his first run, without even pulling out his signature tricks. But on his second run he treated the crowd to some spectacular, if bizarrely monikered, moves including a double cork, a 1080 and then his famous - to those in snowboarding circles - Double McTwist 1280, a dynamic forward rotation three and a half twists with a front flip.

Asked why he had waited until his second run before unleashing his Double McTwist, White replied: "The Olympics is pretty heavy. I was sweating it a little."

On the downhill ski slope poster girl Lindsey Vonn battled through the pain to take gold on a brutal course that proved too much for nine of the competitors. Vonn admitted she was still in a "lot of pain" from the muscular injury to her shin, which she has been treating by rubbing cheese into her skin.

But she did not let the injury affect her performance and she took gold in a time of 1min 44.19sec, more than half-a-second faster than Julia Mancuso in second. Britain's lone entrant Chemmy Alcott finished a creditable 13th.

However it was not all plain sailing on the downhill course, Sweden's Anja Paerson walked away from a horrible crash and Romanian Edith Miklos had to be airlifted from the course but did not suffer serious injuries.

There was more trouble on the cursed bobsleigh track that claimed the life of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. There were seven crashes in bobsleigh qualificiation and Australian competitor Duncan Harvey was hospitalised after his team wiped out on the way down.

The latest problems come after trouble with melting ice at the speed skating track and the collapse of a barrier at a free Olympic related concert in Vancouver, which injured 19 people. ·