Russian showed its dominance in cross-country skiing here on Friday by sweeping top places in both men's and women's freestyle events of the 24th Harbin Winter Universiade.

Aleksey Tchernousov crossed the line first in the men's 10 kilometers race in 27 minutes and 10.1 seconds to lead a Russian sweep of top four finishes.

Sergey Turychev came in second with 27:19.3 and Konstantin Glavatskikh clocked 27:46.6 to finish third, followed by Ilya Mashkov on 27:50.9

The only non-Russian top five finisher was Ivan Drobyazko of Kazakhstan, who covered the course in 27:57.3.

Later on Friday, Russian women refreshed the record as Valentina Novikova led compatriots to a clean sweep of top five places in the women's 5 kilometers freestyle competition.

Novikova set a winning time of 15 minutes and seven seconds. Yulia Tchekaleva took home the silver with 15:17.7, followed by Anna Slepova on 15:18.4.

Home skier Wang Libo settled for the 11th finish with 15:55.4.

(Xinhua New Agency February 20, 2009)