WINTER OLYMPICS : Other Sports : Finns Top Soviets to Take Silver

Sweden put the pressure on, and Finland responded by doing what no other Olympic hockey team has been able to do since 1980: beat the Soviet Union.

Three hours after Sweden defeated West Germany, 3-2, Sunday, Erkki Lehtonen’s power-play goal with 1:40 to play gave Finland a 2-1 victory over the gold medalist Soviets at Calgary, Canada.

The victory gave the Finns the silver medal, their first since they began playing Olympic hockey in 1952.

But they needed at least to tie the Soviets to take the silver away from Sweden, which had to rally from a two-goal deficit to defeat West Germany and capture its third straight bronze. That result relegated Canada to a fourth-place finish on its home ice.

Finnish players carried Coach Pentti Matikainen onto the ice in celebration after the win.

However, the Soviet players, who on Friday had wrapped up their seventh gold in the last nine Olympics, didn’t seem too upset.

“This was the hardest game of the entire Olympics for us. We had to fight with our own mood,” Soviet assistant coach Igor Dmitriev said. “If the issue was to be decided today, you would have seen a different Soviet team on the ice.”

The Soviets’ record dropped to 7-1. Finland, which was 5-2-1, got a 31-save performance from goalie Jukka Tammi.

A penalty with 3:20 left, when the Soviets were caught with too many players on the ice, helped produced Lehtonen’s winner. Then, Soviet goalie Sergei Mylnikov took himself out of position by clearing the puck to the right boards, and Timo Susi intercepted and fed Lehtonen alone in front of the net.

Hippolyt Kempf of Switzerland surged ahead in the last loop of the 15-kilometer cross-country race to win the Nordic combined event at Canmore, Canada.

Both parts of the event--the 70-meter ski jumping and the 15-kilometer cross-country race--were held on the same day because strong winds had forced postponement of Saturday’s jumping.

Kempf began the cross-country race with a deficit of 1 minute 10.7 seconds after finishing third in the jumping. Under the Gunderson scoring method, deficits in jump points are converted into time deficits for the 15K race.

Kempf completed the 15K in 38:16.8. World Cup leader Klaus Sulzenbacher of Austria, who won the jumping portion and entered the race with a 62-second lead, finished second by 19 seconds.

Sulzenbacher kept the lead through 10 kilometers before Kempf passed him with a blazing finish.

Allar Levandi of the Soviet Union took the bronze after overcoming a 1:19.4 deficit, the penalty he paid for being fourth in the jumps.

The best American was Joe Holland of Norwich, Vt., who started the race with a deficit of 2:00.7 and finished 19th overall.