Norway's Ole Einar Bjoerndalen tied a Winter Olympics record with his 12th medal by taking gold in the biathlon 10-km sprint.
Bjoerndalen, 40, set a biathlon record with his seventh gold medal and tied the overall mark for winter medals held by another Norwegian, cross-country skier Bjorn Daehlie, on the first full day of action at the Sochi Games.
Sven Kramer broke his own Olympic record while leading a Dutch sweep of the men's 5000-meter speedskating event.
Bjoerndalen, who also won the 10-km event at the 1998 Nagano Olympics and the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, finished in 24 minutes, 33.5 seconds. Dominik Landertinger of Austria was 1.3 seconds behind to win silver and Jaroslav Soukup of the Czech Republic took bronze.
"I think I'm in the best shape this year for me," Bjoerndalen told reporters. "It was the goal for me to be prepared for the race, this championship. My shooting was almost perfect and the skiing was fantastic."
Dutch King Willem-Alexander was in the crowd at the speedskating, where the 27-year-old Kramer finished in 6 minutes, 10.76 seconds to break the mark of 6:14.6 he set while winning gold at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Jan Blokhuijsen took the silver medal, 4.95 seconds behind Kramer, and Jorrit Bergsma won bronze.
"I have won so many 5000 meters, everyone expected me to win this race," Kramer said in a news conference. "But it felt good when I crossed the finish line, I felt like I skated the best race of my life."
The first women's gold medal of the games went to Norway's Marit Bjoergen, 33, in the skiathlon, a cross-country skiing event that was swept by Scandinavians. Charlotte Kalla of Sweden won silver and Heidi Weng of Norway took the bronze medal in the race, which features 7.5 km of classic cross-country skiing and another 7.5 km of freestyle.
